October 21, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



381 



In Chirurgeon Browne's " Compleat Treatise 

 of the Muscles," 1681, which is not mentioned 

 by Frank or Choulant, these same plates appear, 

 strangely metamorphosed. Dissected gentle- 

 men, wearing wigs of the period, are placed 

 like dancing statues on absurd pedestals, and 

 one lacerated creature has been transferred 

 from the bare ground to a bed. 



Much graver omissions are inevitable in a 

 book of such wide scope, but it is thankless to 

 refer to them in view of all that the authors 

 have accomplished. It is a pleasure to see a 

 reproduction of Wirsung's very rare first pic- 

 ture of the pancreatic duct, even though it 

 probably has suffered much in reduction and 

 printing. This, we believe, is the only figure 

 of an original plate illustrating an important 

 anatomical discovery which the volume con- 

 tains. 



The three appendices introduced in this edi- 

 tion are a fragmentary treatment of Chinese 

 anatomy by Choulant, an interesting treatise 

 on sculpture and painting as modes of anatom- 

 ical illustration by Drs. Garrison and Streeter, 

 and ten pages by Garrison, chiefly an anno- 

 tated list of books, concerning anatomical illus- 

 tration since the time of Choulant. 



The whole volume is designed as a memorial 

 of Dr. Mortimer Frank, who died at the early 

 age of forty-four — a kindly, modest and able 

 student of medical history whose work is of 

 permanent value. 



F. T. Lewis 



Ohservaiions on Living Gastropods of New 

 England. By Edward S. Morse, Peabody 

 Museum. Pp. 1-29, pis. I.-IX. 

 There are so few papers describing and figur- 

 ing even the external features of the animals 

 of moUusks, that all students and lovers of this 

 group will hail with pleasure the paper whose 

 title is given above. It is a companion piece to 

 the one published two years ago by the same 

 author, " Observations on Living Lamelli- 

 branchs of New England." In the present 

 paper 46 species are figured in 118 sketches 

 gathered on 9 plates. The first 22 pages are 

 given to a discussion of the anatomic struc- 

 tures figured, while the last 7 are devoted 



to an arraignment of modern nomenclatorial 

 methods. 



There is only one criticism that we have 

 found covering the first 22 pages and plates, 

 in fact this has been discovered by Professor 

 Morse himself, as stated in a letter to me by 

 him. This concerns figure 18 which shows an 

 appendage in Aporrhais occidentalis. This rep- 

 resents an abnormality and should have been 

 eliminated or designated as such. 



Some may criticize the doctor for retaining 

 an ancient nomenclature and may even go so 

 far as to say that had he spent as much time 

 in revision as he did upon the preparation of 

 pages 23 to 29 he might have saved some one 

 else the task of bringing the names up to date 

 and rendered his observations more readily 

 available to the general public. I have gone 

 over the revisional work and shall publish the 

 results in the Nautilus. In so doing, I may say 

 that I have been greatly aided in disposing of 

 some of the questions of identity of West 

 Atlantic with East Atlantic species by the ana- 

 tomic data presented in this paper. 



Finally, we would fail did we not remind 

 Professor Morse that he was one of the pioneers 

 who by his careful studies, so long ago, showed 

 that some of the large groups then in use, were 

 complexes requiring the splitting which he 

 fearlessly bestowed upon them. He should not 

 forget the shock delivered to no less a celebrity 

 than the elder Agassiz when he pointed out 

 that Brachiopods were not Mollusks, as here- 

 tofore held, but animals more nearly akin to 

 certain worms. These, however, were conclu- 

 sions based upon structural characters and 

 merited that recognition and welcome which 

 such discoveries will ever find accorded to 

 them. The lamentable nomenclatorial changes 

 are those which are occasioned by preoccupa- 

 tion. I have frequently wished that some or- 

 ganization could be prevailed upon to under- 

 take the preparation of a card catalogue of 

 scientific names, generic and specific, beginning 

 with Linnaeus, giving in addition to the name 

 and citation of publication, the family to which 

 a given genus belongs, and the type locality for 

 each species. In the case of secondary combi- 

 nation, a cross reference card should be pre- 



