Septeubeb 3, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



311 



One is curious to know why sucli an obso- 

 lete work was deemed worthy of reprinting at 

 this time and after the lapse of more than 

 sixty years. Cyrus Elder, who writes the in- 

 troduction, is evidently a layman in matters 

 anatomic and psychologic and therefore 

 doughtily attacks the doctor of medicine and 

 the psychologist as knowing nothing of the 

 mind in the one case and nothing of the brain 

 in the other. Mr. Elder is either innocent of 

 knowledge of, or he ignores the results of, pa- 

 tient researches conducted along clinico-patho- 

 logic, experimental, physiologic and develop- 

 mental lines which have furnished us with a 

 good working map of the somesthetic and 

 sense-areas and, inferentially, of the associa- 

 tion-areas of the cerebral cortex. But even 

 such a topographic map, delineating areas 

 called motor, visual, auditory and so on, is not 

 to be considered as mathematically accurate 

 or sharply defined as the areas of a state, 

 county or township. The areas rather shade 

 off in a diffuse manner and really show only 

 the maximum concentration of those cortical 

 parts which most distinctly appertain to the 

 function alleged for them. Also, while less 

 than one third of the cortical expanse is di- 

 rectly concerned with receptive and emissive 

 functions, the remainder is presumed to be 

 devoted to the elaboration of the higher 

 mental activities manifested in abstract 

 thought, ideation, reasoning and language. 

 Further than this, present-day cerebral locali- 

 zation of function in the cortex does not pre- 

 tend to go. Although an aggregation of psy- 

 chic areas and therefore the seat of the wiU, 

 the neuronic connections of any portion of the 

 cortex with other cortical parts and of these 

 with other centers in the brain, are so intri- 

 cate, complex and interdependent that all 

 search for isolated " centers " of moral quali- 

 ties, qualities of consciousness, has thus far 

 been quite futile. Of the neurone, the de- 

 velopmental, structural and functional unit 

 of the nerve-system, and of the grouping and 

 chaining of neurones as revealed by modern 

 methods of investigation. Gall and Spurz- 

 heim knew nothing, of course; apparently the 

 editor of the volume before us is no better off. 



With the increase of the intellectual facul- 

 ties in the course of evolution, the brain has 

 developed in bulk and complexity and with it 

 the skull has undergone expansion and modi- 

 fication of form. Some of the intellectual 

 faculties have found somatic expression in 

 the relative expanse of certain cortical areas 

 and these in turn have exerted some influence 

 upon the configuration of the skull, but not to 

 the degree nor of the same kind of protuber- 

 ances that Gall and Spurzheim's phrenology 

 proposed ; protuberances, by the way, which in 

 certain instances overlie normally variant air- 

 sinuses, blood-sinuses, sutural thickenings or 

 muscle. 



Unless it be that a certain historic interest 

 attaches to a work which for a time attracted 

 attention and even afforded disciples of its 

 doctrines a means of livelihood, and which 

 may be regarded as a stepping-stone toward 

 modern cerebral physiology, the reprinting of 

 Spurzheim's work must be regarded as a some- 

 what otiose undertaking. 



Edw. Anthony Spitzka 



Jeffebson Medical College, 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 

 VI., No. 3, June, 1909, contains "The Mode 

 of Oxidation in the Organism of Phenyl De- 

 rivatives of the Fatty Acids " : Part IV., Fur- 

 ther Studies on the Fate of Phenylpropionic 

 Acid and Some of its Derivatives; Part V., 

 Studies on the Fate of Phenylvaleric Acid 

 and its Derivatives; Part VI., The Fate 

 of Phenylalanine, Phenyl-^-alanine, Phenyl- 

 serine, Phenylglyceric Acids and Phenyl- 

 acetaldehyde, by H. D. Dakin. These papers 

 are a continuation of the author's earlier work 

 on the mode of catabolism of fatty acids. 

 They show the stages through which the sub- 

 stances studied pass in their transformation 

 in the body and lead to the view that the 

 catabolism of a fatty acid group is effected 

 by the removal of two carbon groups at a 

 time. This process is termed by the author 

 " successive /3-oxidation " and is believed to 

 be a general biochemical reaction. " The 

 Nuclein Ferments of Yeast," by M. N. 



