292 



NATURE 



[January 28, 1S9: 



delight at the novel suggestion that the big, patient ani- 

 mal's trunk was really his nose, and said that I had always 

 thought it was his proboscis. 



" ' No, it isn't that, it's his nose. Auntie says so. 

 That's Auntie over there, waiting for me. I suppose 

 you's seen Stumpy?' 



" 1 inquired who Stumpy was, and whether I might 

 not know him by another name. 



" ' I think they sometimes call him Pottums. But we 

 call him Stumpy. Now I must go to Auntie.' " 



And then our author tells us much about those three 

 strange and remote types, the elephant, hippopotamus, 

 and girafife, in his own pleasant manner— their singular 

 structure and habits, their external diversities concealing 

 so much internal resemblance — devoting, however, most 

 attention to the elephant, and correcting some exaggerated 

 statements that have been made respecting that animal. 



One of the most interesting chapters is that on snakes. 

 It is full of information, and there is an almost fascinat- 

 ing account of the whole process of capturing and de- 

 vouring its prey by a python, as observed at the Antwerp 

 Zoological Gardens. Prof. Lloyd Morgan has visited, or 

 lived in, many lands, and often enlivens his pages with 

 personal anecdotes, of which the following is by no means 

 the most remarkable : — 



" My first experience of South African death-dealing 

 snakes was somewhat different. One of my pupils 

 brought me, in a large cigar-box, a ' ring-hals-slang,' a 

 deadly and courageous snake not uncommon at the Cape, 

 and turned him out on the verandah for our delectation. 

 He was a spiteful little fellow, with an ominous hood, 

 dark glossy skin, and glistening brown eye. He struck 

 viciously at the cigar-box held up before him, indenting 

 the wood, and moistening it with venom and saliva. I 

 was particularly anxious to dissect out the poison- 

 gland and examine the poison-fang of the snake, so 

 my friend kindly presented it to me, replacing it in 

 the cigar-box, which he tied securely. After examin- 

 ing the fastenings, I placed the box on the window- 

 sill of my bedroom, which looked out into the veran- 

 dah, and left it there for the night. Next morning I 

 procured a large washing-pan, big enough to drown a 

 small python, placed the cigar-box therein, loaded it 

 with a couple of bricks, and poured in water to the brim. 

 I gave the ' ring-hals ' three good hours to get thoroughly 

 drowned, removed the bricks, took out the box, gently 

 cut the string, lifted the lid — and found that I had been 

 drowning with the utmost care an empty cigar-box. It 

 had been securely tied, and how a creature more than 

 thrice the girth of my thumb had managed to escape 

 was, and still is, a mystery to me. 



" I leave the reader to imagine the detailed search of 

 every cranny of our bedroom, on which my wife insisted. 

 For several days every boot had to be hammered with a 

 stick before it was put on ; I stood on a chair and shook 

 every pair of trousers, and other analogous garments, 

 lest they should be already occupied. But no ' ring-hals ' 

 was forthcoming. And 1 suppose it must have been a 

 week or so afterwards that I was summoned to the 

 kitchen to expel an unwelcome intruder— the black cook 

 being, so far as her skin permitted, pale with terror — which 

 proved to be none other than the missing ' ring-hals.' I 

 despatched him promptly, but not by drowning." 



Among the specially good chapters are those on " Cousin 

 Sarah," the chimpanzee ; on the sparrow as typical of 

 birds, under the title " Master Impertinence" ; on chame- 

 leons, frogs, sticklebats, crayfish— but it is useless to par- 

 ticularize when all are good. The book is well illustrated, 

 NO. I161, VOL. 45] 



both with pictures and diagrams ; and we may especially 

 note that the structure of the elephant's tooth and that of 

 the bee's compound eye are clearly elucidated by the cuts 

 that accompany the descriptions. 



Lastly, there is a pervading tone of sympathy with all 

 that lives, as well as a general love and admiration of 

 Nature, that renders it a most suitable work for the 

 young. The cover and general get-up are attractive, and 

 every school should add this charming volume to its list 

 of prizes, with the certainty that it will be highly appre- 

 ciated for its own sake by the recipients, and that its 

 influence will be altogether wholesome and good. 



A. R. W. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY FOR MEDICAL 

 STUDENTS. 



Outlines of Practical Physiological Chemistry. By F. 

 Charles Larkin, F.R.C.S., and Randle Leigh, M.B., 

 B.Sc. Second Edition. (London : H. K. Lewis, 

 1891.) 



THE authors state in their preface that this edition of 

 the work is " the result of seven years' experience 

 in teaching the subject to medical students," from which 

 we gather that the medical student is being treated in 

 the physiological laboratory in much the same spirit as 

 he has long been dealt with in that of the chemist. The 

 work before us is constructed upon an essentially similar 

 principle to those numerous little treatises, the be all and 

 the end-all of which is to instruct the medical student in 

 three months how to analyze simple salts. For such 

 treatises, and the unedifying kind of instruction to which 

 they give rise, neither teacher nor student is to be 

 blamed : the fault lies with the authorities who frame the 

 medical curriculum and the syllabus for the subjects of 

 examination. The root of the mischief lies in having to 

 treat the medical student during his preliminary scientific 

 training as a separate genus from the student of general 

 science, a course which is rendered necessary through the 

 attempt to crowd such a large number of subjects into a 

 period of time which is wholly inadequate for the purpose ; 

 whilst another evil|tending to degrade the standard of the 

 examinationsis the existenceofcompetingcorporate bodies 

 possessingthepowerof granting medical qualifications. For 

 these ills the obvious remedies are, on the one hand, ex- 

 tension of the minimum time occupied by the curriculum, 

 whilst, on the other hand, a uniform standard for quali- 

 fication is required for the whole of the United Kingdom: 

 fortunately, both of these changes are already in progress. 

 Consideringthenecessarilytechnicaland empirical charac- 

 ter of the greater part of medical education proper, it is, in 

 our opinion, of the greatest importance that in the teach- 

 ing of the pure sciences to medical students there should 

 be as little empiricism and rule-of-thumb as possible ; 

 and it is, therefore, just in his study of chemistry that 

 the future physician and surgeon should receive an in- 

 sight into the scientific use of the understanding. 



Now, it is in this respect that the work before us, which 

 contains a large number of facts arranged in a handy 

 form, falls short of what/ is required. The subject of 

 physiological chemistry is still at best such a very em- 

 pirical one, that it becomes the more necessary to give an 



