1890.) Physiology. 1207 
PHYSIOLOGY.! 
Mr. Victor Horsley, F. R. S., who has done so much to advance the 
knowledge of cerebral localization, has been elected Fullerian Profes- 
sor of Physiology at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. 
Among the subjects of memoirs for which the Boston Society of 
Natural History offers prizes is ** Original Investigation on the Physi- 
ology of Flight.’’ The first prize is $60 to $100, and the second $50. 
The memoir must be in Englislt, and must be presented before April 1, 
1891. For particulars address the secretary, J. Walter Fewkes. 
Time-Relations of Mental Phenomena.—In the sixty pages 
of his book,? Professor Jastrow has made a most excellent, valuable, 
and apparently careful résumé of the work done in this field. Simple 
reaction times are first discussed and analyzed, together with the 
effects of various conditions influencing them, such as the nature of 
the impression, the intensity of the stimulus, the mode of reaction, 
the subject's foreknowledge of what is to take place, distraction, 
practice, fatigue, and also the differences between motor and sensory 
reactions, individual variations, the action of drugs, and reaction times 
in the insane. Methods of experimentation are touched upon, and a 
table of simple reaction times, as determined by the leading investi- 
gators, accompanies. Complex or adaptive reactions, involving dis- 
tinction and choice, are similarly treated, and an excellent and full 
table of complex reaction times is given. Several pages are devoted 
to a discussion of association times. There is added a fairly complete 
bibliography, made more valuable by its classification in accordance 
with the text, 
Foster's Text-Book of Physiology.—The third part of the 
fifth edition of this work, just published by Macmillan, is a book of 
nearly three hundred pages, and is devoted to the central nervous sys- 
tem. The treatment of the subject has been entirely changed, much 
histological and other matter has been added, including excellent new 
figures, and the whole, nearly five times larger than its former size, may 
be considered practically a new work. It is doubtless entirely safe to 
say that it forms the best general treatment of the subject existing in 
English, if not in any language. Itisa great advantage to have the 
histology discussed from the standpoint of the physiologist, with the 
1 This department is edited by Dr. Frederic S. Lee, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 
2 The Time-Relations of Mental Phenomena, by Joseph Jastrow. New York, N. D. C. 
Hodges, 1890. 
Am. Nat.—December.—7. 
