324 



'SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 348. 



are made available to him who would work 

 and has the requisite capacity. 



All these advantages will, however, count 

 for nothing if zoological research does not 

 attract the best men, and if the best men be 

 not accorded time and means for research. 

 Our best students slip from our grasp to go 

 into other professions or into commerce be- 

 cause we can offer them no outlook but 

 teaching, administration, and a salary reg- 

 ulated by the law of supply and demand. 

 We must urge without ceasing upon college 

 trustees and corporations the necessity of 

 freedom for research and liberal salaries if 

 America is to contribute her share to the 

 advance of zoology in the twentieth cen- 

 tury. 



Chas. B. Davenport. 

 University of Chicago. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Legons de physiologic experimentale. By M. 

 Eaphael Dubois, professor in the University 

 of Lyons, with the collaboration of M. Ed- 

 MOND CouvREUR. Paris, Georges Carre et 

 q. Naud. Pp. vi + 380. 



These lessons in experimental physiology 

 constitute a course of demonstrations, or lec- 

 tures illustrated by demonstrations, given suc- 

 cessfully by Professor Dubois and his pupil and 

 collaborator, M. Couvreur, to the students in 

 physiology of the faculty of sciences of the 

 University of Lyons. As the authors state in 

 the preface, they are now published with the 

 view "of relieving the students attending the 

 demonstrations from the necessity of taking 

 notes, so that they may be able to devote to 

 what they see the greatest amount of attention 

 possible." In addition to viewing the demon- 

 strations, the students are expected to repeat 

 for themselves, under the direction of a master, 

 all the classical experiments. For those who 

 do not possess the advantage of expert super- 

 vision it is intended that the exercises described 

 shall serve as a guide by the aid of which they 

 may acquire a practical knowledge of physi- 

 ology. 



While it is encouraging to learn that some- 



thing is being done to improve the teaching of 

 pi'actical physiology in the countries of conti- 

 nental Europe, where hitherto it has in general 

 scarcely entered as a factor of any importance 

 into the education of the student of science and 

 particularly of medicine, we doubt whether 

 there is a single teacher of experience in Amer- 

 ica or England who would bestow an unquali- 

 fied approval upon the method adopted in this 

 book. At the same time we can most' heartily 

 congratulate the young gentlemen (and ladies, 

 if such there be,) of Lyons whom it releases 

 from the bondage of the note-book and the 

 pencil, and whose eyes and fingers {facile prin- 

 ceps in the armamentarium of physiology) it 

 sets free for the practical study of this fascinat- 

 ing science. 



Two well-established methods of imparting a 

 practical knowledge of the subject are in vogue 

 among us in schools of good standing ; demon- 

 strations by a teacher to small classes of stu- 

 dents and practical exercises performed by the 

 students themselves. -Each of these methods 

 has its uses, although for most purposes, and 

 wherever the number of students is not un- 

 manageably large, the second is by far the 

 most satisfactory. The French lesson in ex- 

 perimental physiology, as typified in the Lyons 

 course, is neither a demonstration pure and 

 simple nor an exercise calculated to guide the 

 student in individual practical work. It is 

 rather a lecture on some portion of physiology, 

 with a certain amount of actual demonstration 

 or of talk about instruments and methods 

 'shoved into the belly of it.' Not full enough 

 for systematic lectures, not precise enough in 

 the practical directions, nor arranged with 

 sufficient simplicity and order to be of much 

 use as a laboratory guide, such hybrid disquisi- 

 tions are neither likely, we fear, to thoroughly 

 instruct the learner in the facts of the science 

 nor to introduce him to a real knowledge of 

 the methods by which the facts have been 

 ascertained. 



But when this has been said, criticism has ex- 

 hausted its quiver. Faulty as is the plan of 

 these lessons for the purposes of the elementary 

 student, they are capable of being used with 

 much advantage by teachers of practical physi- 

 ology whom they will supply, in a somewhat 



