368 Analytical Notices of Books. 



Art. XLIX. Analytical Notices of Books, 



N^ova Acta Physico-Medica Academice Ccssarece. Leopol- 

 dino-Carolince J^aturce Curiosorum. Tomus XIV. — 

 Boiinffi 1828. 



In resuming our analysis of this valuable collection of memoirs, our 

 attention is again directed in the first instance to a theory " de la cause 

 " de I'Hybernation chez les Animaux Dormeurs." The paper now 

 before us, written by Dr. Pastre, is, however, of a very different character 

 from that by Dr. Otto, with which we commenced our notice of the 

 previous volume. Instead of proceeding on the basis of anatomical 

 facts, it is entirely theorectical in all its parts, and the " physiological 

 " abstraction" on which it professes to be founded, is, we are reluctantly 

 obliged to confess, too subtle for our comprehension. To avoid miscon- 

 ception, we give in the authour's own terms, the statement of the 

 immediate and essential cause of hybernation, contained in his concluding 

 paragraph "The principle of life," he says, " is no longer occupied 

 " with nutrition, or assimilation, or the perception of external objects ; 

 " it breaks off almost all communication with the moral or instructive 

 " faculty; realizes a sort of asphyxia by means of the power of fixed 

 " situation; and by this means preserves the animal body in all its 

 " physiological integrity." It may fairly be questioned whether these 

 conditions are not rather the symptoms than the cause of a state of 

 hybernation, on the modus operandi of which state, (dependent as it is 

 universally admitted to be on a peculiar idiosyncrasy), such general 

 observations as those contained in the present paper are calculated to 

 throw but little light. 



Dr. Rathke's Essay " Ueber die Entwickelung der Athemwerkzeuge 

 " bei den Vdgeln und Saugthieren" is, like all the writings of that acute 

 anatomist, replete with novel and interesting matter. The gradual 

 developement of the respiratory organs in Birds and Quadrupeds is 



