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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
his fellows. The work, however, as we have stated, was much wanted, and 
we have little doubt its merits will be soon and extensively appreciated. 
Another member of the rising school of dermatologists is Dr. Balmanno 
Squire, who has produced some photographic representations of skin disease, 
which, in a purely scientific aspect, are very beautiful. The first of Dr. Squire’s 
series of photographs is now upon our table, and is accompanied by a page of 
letter-press, containing a description of the disease whose ravages are dej)icted 
in the illustration. The case was one of diffused psoriasis, and was success- 
fully treated. The plate (which is coloured) represents the patient’s limbs — 
the variety diffusa of the disease appearing upon one, and that of guttata 
upon the other. The appearances are tolerably faithful, but in our opinion 
the photograph would be more reliable if uncoloured. It is true it would 
lose much of its attractiveness ; but if photography is to be employed in 
order to delineate peculiar conformations of parts, which cannot be portrayed 
with equal fidelity by the artist, it seems to us that the application of the 
painter’s brush in order mettre la derniere main to the picture, leaves ample 
room for the cavils of the sceptical. 
LTHOUGH to the general reader there is not much in this brochure 
which is calculated to be understood, it contains a great deal of very 
important information upon a matter which is full of interest for the physio- 
logist. It is a fact which is strangely true, that Nature, in striving, as it 
were, to reach some final result, gropes her way along, as though devoid 
of the inventive faculty necessary to select the straight path. Of course there 
must be some grand reason for this, to us, anomaly ; still, as regards our present 
knowledge, it is no less an anomaly on that account. The formative power 
(we use the expression only for want of a better one) does not proceed in a 
direct line toward the construction of any particular organ which is situate 
at the end of the series. On the contrary, it first shapes out of the formless 
blastema one particular structure, and then, as though having discovered that 
this does not suit the required end, it immediately breaks it up, and shapes 
from its remams an entirely new apparatus ; this in its turn undergoes 
a metamorphosis, and perhaps in the next instance the sought-for object is 
attained. This fact is patent to the embryologist, and even the human 
anatomist is familiar with structures which he finds in organs that belong 
to the adult, and which he knows to be the ruins of some former stage of the 
individual’s existence. There is no set of organs of more interest to him 
from this stand-point than that which comprises the Wolffian bodies. It 
is the history of these curious mechanisms which Dr. Banks relates ; and we 
confess that, judging from his analysis of the observations of others, and 
accepting his own observations as sound, we see every reason for uniting in 
his general conclusion, that the Wolffian bodies do not enter into the con- 
“ The Wolffian ^Bodies in the Foetus and their remains in the Adult,” 
&c. By William [Mitchell Banks, M.D. Edinburgh ; Maclachlan & 
Stewart. 1864. 
THE ANATOMY OF THE EMBRYO.* 
