504 
“ oriental names”; it should refer to “ Hindu- 
Arabic numerals.” The alphabetical index is 
not as complete as one might wish it to be. 
Frorian Cazorti 
COLORADO COLLEGE, 
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. 
A Laboratory Course in Physiology. By 
Watrer B. Cannon, A.M., M.D., George 
Higginson professor of physiology in the 
Harvard Medical School. Second edition. 
Published by Harvard University. 1911. 
This is the set of loose-leaf laboratory notes 
and directions used in the course in physiol- 
ogy in the Harvard Medical School. It be- 
longs to a class of works which have only 
begun to appear in recent years. It is not a 
general laboratory manual like the well- 
known handbook of Burdon Sanderson, or 
that of Stirling. Its scope is much narrower. 
While these works aimed to give, within the 
limits of their size, accounts of all ordinary 
physiological methods, the work before us, on 
the contrary, is merely a precise description 
of a particular course. Accordingly, it is 
limited to such methods as the facilities of the 
Harvard School allow. Within these limita- 
tions, however, it is excellent. It has already 
been adopted as the basis of the physiological 
course in a number of other institutions and 
contains much that is valuable and suggestive 
for the teaching of physiology anywhere. 
The most striking defect of this “ course” 
is that it contains far too much of the physiol- 
ogy of the frog and too little of the mammal. 
For the medical student direct personal ex- 
perience in working with the circulation in 
one living cat or dog is worth two or three 
experiments upon the frog’s heart, and a 
dozen upon the frog’s leg. It is most unfor- 
tunate that the limitations which misguided 
humanitarians and anti-vivisectionists place 
upon the supply of cats in Boston should 
make it necessary to have the circulation in 
this animal worked out by the students in 
groups of twelve. This certainly falls far 
short of the important educational principle 
urged by Pearce that “the students should do 
it themselves.” The reviewer knows from 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Von. XXXV. No. 900 
personal experience that the largest number 
of students who can possibly take part in a 
blood-pressure experiment on one cat is five. 
If mammalian material were as abundant as 
it ought to be for such a course, the work on 
the frog here outlined could profitably be cut 
in half. Each group should number four or 
five students instead of twelve and should 
have, instead of one cat, six to ten. 
Much of the work on the frog here given 
could be profitably replaced by experiments on ~ 
man. Simple sphygmomanometers can be pro- 
vided cheaply, and should be used for experi- 
ments on the students themselves on a much 
more extensive scale than is outlined in these 
notes. 
The weakest point in the notes is the sec- 
tion on respiration. Only eight pages are de- 
voted to this subject, while muscle nerve 
physiology receives eighteen. The progress in 
knowledge of respiration within recent years, 
for which we are indebted principally to 
Haldane and his pupils, has been made largely 
by experiments upon man. These experi- 
ments are ideally suited to a laboratory 
course. Among them may be mentioned that 
of voluntary forced breathing and the suc- 
ceeding apnea; that of the artificial produc- 
tion of Cheyne-Stokes breathing requiring for 
its demonstration merely a tin of soda lime 
and a long tube; and that of the duration of 
the voluntary holding of the breath without 
preparation, after forced breathing, after 
oxygen and after forced breathing and oxy- 
gen. 
These, however, are merely criticisms of de- 
tail. In general this work is certainly by far 
the best of its kind that has yet appeared. 
No other educational institution in America, 
perhaps none in the world, in recent years has 
made so many valuable experimental contri- 
tributions to the theory and methods of teach- 
ing as has Harvard. Among these contribu- 
tions not the least valuable is the demonstra- 
tion that science in general and physiology in 
particular can be, and ought to be, taught by 
laboratory methods. Originally conceived by 
Huxley and first practised in this country by 
Newell Martin at Johns Hopkins and by the 
