November 26, 1908] 



NA TURE 



93 



should be tested. Only when independence of observ- 

 ation and thought had been secured by the pioneers 

 of modern science was progress possible. Any race 

 which places the wisdom of its early fathers above the 

 work of its sons, which regards past knowledge as 

 sufficient for future salvation, must remain stagnant. 

 IMr. G. O. Chisholm accurately expresses the applica- 

 tion of this fact to China in the " International Geo- 

 graphy " in the following words : — 



■■ All Chinese institutions concur in impressing on 

 the people respect for authority and the established 

 order. Xone is more influential in this respect than 

 the system of examination, for all the examinations 

 test merely the knowledge of the ancient Chinese 

 classics first systematised by Confucius, and give no 

 encouragement to the spirit of independent inquiry." 



It would be easy to select numerous other 

 points from Dr. Keltic's book for description or 

 comment. The six chapters in the volume deal 

 respectively with general considerations, geography 

 iipplied to commerce, the geography of Africa 

 in its bearings on the development of the con- 

 tinent, the British Empire, some common commodities, 

 and the unslaked or unexplored parts of the earth. 

 Each chapter is rich in information, and the style of 

 the whole work is far removed from that of books in 

 general on commercial geography. Our only regret 

 is that a book which embodies so many facts of 

 importance should be published without an index. 



QUAIN'S ANATOMY. 



Qiiain's Elements of Anatomy. Edited by Prof. E. A. 

 Schafer, F.R.S., Prof. J. Symington, F.R.S., and 

 Dr. T. H. Bryce. In four vols. Vol. i.. Embryology. 

 Eleventh edition, by T. H. Bryce. Pp. viii + 275. 

 Price 10s. bd. net. Vol. iii.. Neurology. By Prof. 

 E. A. Schafer, F.R.S., and Prof. J. Symington, 

 F.R.S. Part i., containing the General Structure 

 of the Nervous System and the Structure of the 

 Brain and Spinal Cord. Price 15s. (London : 

 Longmans, Green and Co., 1908.) 



WHEN in 1828 Jones Ouain, " Lecturer in the 

 Medical School, Aldersgate Street," published, 

 as a modest volume, the first edition of his " Elements 

 of .-Vnatomy," he could scarcely have hoped that 

 eighty years later it would still remain the standard 

 work of its kind in the English language, and that it 

 would take and keep a place as a cosmopolitan text- 

 book ; and yet if the truth must be told, very little 

 of Ouain remains in the work which now passes under 

 his name. In the original edition a chapter of some 

 4000 words told the story of the development of the 

 human body; now, in the eleventh edition, embry- 

 ology requires a special editor and a special volume 

 containing more than 100,000 words and considerably 

 more than 300 illustrations. 



The new edition is marked by a number of changes, 



some of them of considerable magnitude. Chief 



amongst these is the change in the editorial staff, and 



it will be with very sincere regret that anatomists, 



XO. 2039, '^'OL. 79] 



not only in England, but in every country, will see 

 that Prof. George Dancer Thane's name no longer 

 appears on the title-page. In width and accuracy of 

 anatomical knowledge, in clearness of statement and 

 draughtsmanship, he has no compeer amongst present- 

 day anatomists. Dr. T. H. Bryce, lecturer in an.i- 

 lomy in Queen Margaret College, Glasgow, has 

 joined the editorial staff, replacing Prof. Schafer as 

 editor of the volume dealing with embryology. The 

 present edition is to appear in four volumes, of which 

 the volume by Dr. Bryce, containing the embryology, 

 is the first ; general and visceral anatomy will con- 

 stitute a second, the nervous system and sense organs 

 a third, the remaining subjects being grouped to- 

 gether in a fourth volume. It is to be hoped that, 

 as in the last edition, each of these remaining volumes 

 will be issued in separate parts, for big volumes are 

 very inconvenient for reference and use. In the present 

 edition the " general introduction " has been wisely 

 omitted, for it shared the character of nearly all intro- 

 ductory chapters in being unintelligible until the whole 

 contents of the work had been mastered and appre- 

 ciated by the student. It is also to be hoped that the 

 precedent set by the present volume of referring 

 readers to foreign text-books for the literature of the 

 subjects dealt with is not to be followed in the other 

 volumes, although it must be admitted that Dr. 

 Bryce does supply references to important papers of 

 more recent date. 



In preparing a new edition of " Embryology," Dr. 

 Bryce 's task was not an easy one, and he has done it 

 well. In the eighteen years which have elapsed since 

 the last edition was published there has been a re- 

 markable extension in every phase of our knowledge 

 of the development of the human body. Especially is 

 this true of the early stages in the development of 

 the human embryo and of its attachment to the uterus. 

 The ova described by Leopold, Peters, Beneke, and 

 Graf v. Spee, represent earlier stages than were known 

 when the last edition was published, and it is not 

 improbable that the specimen described by Drs. Bryce 

 and Teacher since the present edition was ready for 

 publication represents a younger stage of the human 

 embryo than has been hitherto seen. Our conception 

 of the manner in which the ovum becomes embedded 

 in, and attached to, the uterus has undergone a com- 

 plete revolution. The elaborate changes undergone 

 by the nucleus of the cell, especially those nuclear 

 changes which preceed the formation of genital cells, 

 have been recently investigated by a large army of 

 workers, a line of research, if one may judge from 

 the space here devoted to it, with which Dr. Bryce 

 has a particular sympathy. On the other hand, later 

 stages of development are dealt with very meagrely, 

 and the descriptions of the origin of such organs as the 

 lungs and prostate are far too slight to be of real 

 use. It is strange, too, that a book which is primarily 

 intended for medical men should provide so imperfect 

 an explanation of the many malformations to which 

 the various parts of the human body are liable. 



.\ study of the text makes it very evident that Dr. 

 Bryce has regarded a full and accurate description 



