BIOLOaiCAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 863 



may still remain to be, so resolved ; but the public may rest 

 assured that in the kingdom of Biology no desire for a rectification 

 of frontiers will ever be called out by any such attempts at, or 

 successes in the way of, encroachment ; and that where physics 

 and chemistry can show that physico-chemical agencies are sufficient 

 to account for the phenomena, there their claim upon the territory 

 will be acceded to, as in the cases we have been glancing at; 

 and where such claims cannot be established and fail to come 

 up to the quantitative requirements of strict science, as in the 

 cases of continuous and of discontinuous development or self- 

 multiplication of a contagious germ, and in some others, they will 

 be disallowed. 



Pathology has of late made a return to Physiology for much 

 service she has received, and this in the following directions. 

 Dr. W. Ogle has thrown much light on the physiology of the 

 cervical sympathetic nervous system by his record of a patho- 

 logical history to be found in the recently issued volume (vol. lii.) 

 of the ' Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.' The rough and cruel 

 experimentation of war has had its vivisections utilised for the 

 elucidation of the physiology of nerves, and especially of their 

 trophic function, in the valuable volume issued by the American 

 Sanitary Commission, under the editorship of Dr. Austin Flint. 

 Dr. Broadbent has done something towards elucidating the question 

 of the localisation of functions in particular parts of the cerebral 

 convolutions, which was so extensively and so very exhaustively 

 discussed at Norwich, by his paper in our most useful and com- 

 prehensive Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,' May 1870, 'On 

 the Cerebral Convolutions of a Deaf and Dumb Woman.' 



I take this opportunity of mentioning two valuable papers on the 

 very practical question of the influence of the vagus upon the 

 heart's action. One of these is a German paper by a gentleman 

 who is a zoologist and comparative anatomist as well as a physio- 

 logist, Dr. A. B. Meyer ; ' Das Hemmungsnerven- System des Her- 

 zens' is the title of his memoir, a separate publication as I think : the 

 other is an abstract of a paper [I have not seen the paper published 

 in extenso as yet] by Dr. Rutherford, 'On the Influence of the 

 Vagus upon the Vascular System,' published in the journal just 

 referred to. Especially do I think Dr. Rutherford's view as to the 

 vagus acting centrifugally as regards the stomach, and carrying 



