260 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
something might he said. An excellent tabular scheme gives the conclu- 
sions at which the author arrives as to the pedigree and affinities of the 
animals with which the cat is most closely related ; and then, as was to he 
expected, the author passes on to consider the Cat’s origin, or, in other 
words, the doctrine of evolution in those aspects in which it commends 
itself to Prof. Mivart ; his contention now, as ever, being for an Individual 
Divine government of the universe, while the mass of scientific men are 
seeking to discover what the government really is, and how it operates for 
the well-being of the world. 
The book is strongly tinged throughout with the author’s individuality ; 
and it is obviously the outcome of his best and most earnest labour for the 
advancement of sound learning. 
MUSCLES AND NERVES * 
T HIS is one of the volumes of the International Scientific Series, and was 
written by the learned and intelligent Professor in 1877. He dedicates 
the book to the illustrious Emil Du Bois-Raymond, his master, and writes, 
in the Preface, that ‘ this attempt at a connected account of the general 
physiology of muscles and nerves is, as far as I know, the first of its kind.’ He 
makes the following extraordinary assertion : — ‘ But anyone who endeavours 
to gain an idea of this branch of knowledge from the existing text-books of 
physiology will probably labour in vain.’ Recalling, therefore, what we 
learned from Todd and Bownan, who had the advantage of witnessing the 
experiments of Mateucci, and who were perfectly acquainted with the work 
of Faraday on Electrical and Galvanic Currents , it is interesting to make 
out how much further Dr. Rosenthal, the careful recorder of the work of 
Ed. Weber, E. du Bois-Raymond, and H. Helmholtz, carries us. 
The first chapter relates to molecular and protoplasmic motions and 
ciliary motions, and there is no advance in it ; and in the second chapter 
there are the good old truths regarding muscles, their form and structure. 
But then a new subject is opened up, and the muscle begins to be treated as 
a lifeless thing, and the physics of elasticity are explained. Some very 
simple facts are proved over again by physical experiment — the principal 
use of physiological laboratories — and the conclusion come to is — ‘The 
muscle on contracting is capable of lifting a weight. The same weight, 
however, extends the muscle, and the co-operation of the two forces — the 
contractile tendency and the elastic extension — produces, as we shall find, 
the final operation on which labour depends.’ There is nothing new in this, 
except the new ‘ force ’ of contractile tendency, which really means contrac- 
tion pure and simple. The author deals with tetanus, and thinks that he is 
bringing us nearer the comprehension of that muscular condition by com- 
* General Physiology of Muscles and Nerves. By Dr. S. Rosenthal, Prof, 
of Physiology in the University of Erlangen. 8vo. London : 0. Kegan 
Paul & Co. ' 1881. 
