340 



NA TURE 



[August 13, 1896 



low type, which may be proved by future discovery to 

 be a well-defined race, spread widely on the continent. 

 We agree with him that the cave-men used fire-sticks, 

 but we wait for further evidence before we can accept 

 the conclusion that they were acquainted with the art of 

 pottery-making. The cups, with round bottoms, found in 

 the caves of Engis and Modave, are of the types met with 

 in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, such as Moringen 

 and Concise, and are probably of Prehistoric and not 

 of Pleistocene age. Nor can we accept his identification 

 of the Felis spchca with the tiger. It has been clearly 

 shown in the PaLx-ontographical Society's Memoirs, some 

 twenty years ago, that it is a lion, differing from the 

 tiger both in the shape of its skull and of its lower jaw. 

 In treating of the range of this animal, our author has 

 been unfortunate. In page 123 he tells us that "the 

 great tiger of the caverns had disappeared in the Rein- 

 deer age," and, four pages later, that it was then alive. 

 He speaks of it in one place as a tiger, in another as 

 intermediate between a lion and a tiger, and in a third 

 as an "extinct" type. His inclusion of the Bos longi- 

 frons, the goat, and the rabbit among the Pleistocene 

 mammalia of France and Germany, is also open to 

 doubt, the two first being probably introduced in the 

 Neolithic age as domesticated animals, and the last 

 having found its way northwards from Spain at a later 

 time. 



Although the IMammalia and, it may be added, the 

 spelling of the names of places, people, and animals, are 

 weak spots, the book may be summed up as an interest- 

 ing addition to the literature of a complex and difficult 

 subject, to which it forms a hand-book with valuable 

 references. W. Bovd Dawkins. 



THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF HISTOLOGICAL 

 EVIDENCE. 



Atlas of Nerve-cells. By M. Allen Starr, with the co- 

 operation of Oliver S. Strong and Edward Learning. 

 Pp. X + 78. 53 plates. (Published for the Columbia 

 University Press by Macmillan and Co., New York 

 and London, 1896.) 

 " A CAREFUL drawing by a trained observer gives 

 -^*- a better idea of appearances seen under the 

 microscope than the best reproduction by photography 

 can at present achieve." This statement was called forth 

 by the consideration of a book similar in idea to the pre- 

 sent, and apparently one of the same series, the " Atlas 

 of Fertilisation and Karyokinesis of the Ovum," and was 

 made a short time ago by Prof Weldon in a notice of that 

 book in Nature. It is forcibly recalled by the present 

 book, the authors of which have been at the pains to 

 present photographic representations of preparations 

 showing nerve-cells, mostly prepared by the method of 

 Golgi, any and all of which representations might with 

 the greatest advantage, so far as clearness and facility of 

 comprehension is concerned, have been replaced by a 

 careful drawing of the cells which it was designed to 

 illustrate. 



The first idea that is evoked on looking at such plates 

 as are here given, is that they are beautiful photographs 

 NO. 1398, VOL. 54] 



of equally beautiful preparations. But the question ctii 

 bono f immediately forces itself upon one's mind. Are 

 they intended to exhibit to other investigators the results 

 of the author's investigations ? This can hardly be the 

 case, for it is not claimed that they show anything new, 

 and every investigator can more or less readily make 

 such preparations for himself Are they intended for the 

 student? This equally cannot be, since they are given 

 in an e.xpensive form, and are for the most part lacking in 

 clearness ; not from any fault in the preparations, but 

 because the camera cannot be got to see more than one 

 plane at a time. It is the hand which is constantly on 

 the fine adjustment of the microscope that enables the 

 shape of the body of a nerve-cell and the course of 

 all its branches to be followed accurately, and it is only 

 accidentally and imperfectly that these can be shown in 

 a photograph. 



The authors have themselves furnished the best possible 

 illustration of the comparative value for teaching purposes 

 of accurate drawings from good preparations, and of the 

 best possible photographs from the same preparations, 

 in giving (on p. 72, Fig. 10) a diagram of the cells of the 

 cerebral cortex, "the cells being reproduced from the 

 plates" (it would probably be more correct to say from 

 the preparations). This diagram shows the cells with 

 all their processes in relation to one another in the 

 clear manner which we are accustomed to associate with 

 representations of Golgi-preparations, and presents a 

 marked contrast to the difficulty with which we make 

 out some of the points which are stated to be shown in 

 many of the photographs. 



Moreo\er, as an account of the structure of the nervous 

 system, which appears in some measure to be aimed at 

 in this book, although not indicated in the title, the text 

 which accompanies the plates is of no great value, since 

 more complete and accurate accounts are within the 

 reach of every student. It is indeed remarkable, con- 

 sidering that Dr. Allen Starr is the principal author, that 

 quite serious errors, both of omission and of commission, 

 should have found their way into the text. Thus, to 

 take a single part of the nervous system, in a special 

 enumeration of the connections of the cerebellum, the 

 passage of the tract of Cowers into it by way of the 

 superior peduncle — a fact indicated by Lowenthal and 

 conclusively demonstrated by Mott— is ignored. On the 

 other hand, the extensive descending degenerations 

 described by Marchi, which have since been shown to 

 have been produced in all probability by injuries to the 

 bulb, accidentally made on removing the cerebellum, are 

 still put forward as indicating an important centrifugal 

 connection of the cerebellum with the spinal cord. 



It may, further, be remarked that the present authors, 

 like many others who have lately treated of the structure 

 of the nervous system, have altogether failed to appreciate 

 the importance of adopting for the nerve-cell a termin- 

 ology which shall bring it into a line with all other cells 

 in the body. Instead of speaking of the body of the cell 

 together with all its processes as a "cell," they restrict 

 the term cell to the body or nucleated part alone, and 

 adopt the misleading term " neuron " to designate 

 what is in fact the whole nerve-cell, ignoring the fact 

 that vtvpov literally means a sinew or fibre, and if applied 



