454 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 351. 



The descriptive portion of the book is followed 

 by an appendix of practical directions, covering 

 forty-three pages. Herein are given general 

 directions for study and for the preparation of 

 material, together with special directions for 

 the dissection of each group of organs — as they 

 present themselves to the student and not in 

 the order in which they are studied in the de- 

 scriptive portion of the work. The separation 

 of these notes from the body of the book of 

 course preserves continuity to the descriptions 

 and enhances the value of the book as a work 

 of reference ; on the other hand, it necessitates 

 such an amount of turning of pages by the stu- 

 dent that it would have been wiser to have 

 brought the practical directions into closer re- 

 lation with the text — at the beginning or at the 

 end of each section or chapter. 



In thematter of nomenclature, as the authors 

 maintain, and properly, that the primary pur- 

 pose of such a work is not to illustrate or de- 

 fend any particular system of nomenclature, 

 but to aid in obtaining a knowledge of the 

 structures themselves, and as they hold that 

 the time has not come for an absolutely uniform 

 nomenclature, they have adopted such terms as 

 they judge likely to be measurably permanent. 

 As a basis, therefore, they use, as far as possible, 

 the Latin terms (and their English equivalents) 

 proposed by the German Anatomical Society, 

 but freely substitute for these other terms, either 

 when those proposed are not appropriate for 

 the cat, as, for example, the names for the cere- 

 bral sulci or gyri, or when the substitutes are 

 better known to English anatomists and are not 

 likely to be given up, as, for example, trapezoid 

 for OS multangulum minus. In cases of substi- 

 tution the Latin name proposed by the German 

 Society is given as a synonym. Whenever a 

 structure has two names, equally well-known, 

 both names are given. It is certainly most de- 

 sirable that each structure should have a single 

 name ; if however, there be two, the student 

 should learn them. 



As terms of direction the authors properly 

 use, almost exclusively, such intrinsic terms as 

 dorsal and ventral; cranial and caudal ; proximal 

 and distal; medial and lateral^ and they discard 

 the older extrinsic terms anterior and posterior ; 

 superior and inferior ; inner and outer. Dorsal 



and ventral are also applied, less happily we 

 think, to surfaces of the limbs ; the dorsal side 

 being indicated by the convexity of the joint, 

 elbow or knee, the ventral side by the con- 

 cavity of the joint. The constant use of ad- 

 verbial forms such as dorsad, craniad, proximad, 

 etc., certainly gives brevity and directness to 

 the text ; they do not add, however, to its ele- 

 gance — nor does the use of onto for on. 



We have examined the greater part of the 

 book with care and find it to be well planned, 

 clearly written and based on accurate original 

 study. Some things are omitted which, from 

 the general thoroughness of the work, one would 

 have expected to find, as, for example, an ac- 

 count of the interesting arrangement of the 

 tendons and ligaments attached to the terminal 

 phalanges. To reduce the book to a convenient 

 size, omissions, of course, are necessary ; what 

 shall be omitted must remain a matter of per- 

 sonal opinion. The drawings by Mrs. Jennings 

 which illustrate the work are excellent ; they 

 show clearly what the student is expected to 

 see and are not burdened with unnecessary de- 

 tail. A few diagrams from frozen sections to 

 show the relations of organs would have been 

 instructive. The book is well made ; type, 

 paper, printing and binding are all good ; and 

 there is a capital index. 



Horace Jayne. 



Zell- und Protoplasmastudien. By F. Doplein. 



1900. 



Under the above title Dr. F. Dofleiu publishes 

 in brochure form a reprint of his paper in 

 Spengel's * Zoolog. Jahrbiicher,' XIV. This 

 contribution is the first Heft of the author's 

 studies on the morphology and physiology of 

 nuclear and cell-division. It deals, in the main, 

 with the process of nuclear division in Noctiluca 

 miliaria. The author gives a very detailed ac- 

 count of his work on preserved material. He 

 differs in several particulars from the results of 

 previous writers, the most important diflferences 

 being his failure to identify the centrosome in 

 any part of the astrophere, and his denial of a 

 longitudinal splitting of the chromosomes as 

 described by Calkins. The latter author has 

 shown, from the arrangement of the chromatin 

 threads at a certain phase in the division that 



