184 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
* # 
Influence of Cutting on Growth of Hair.* * * § — Herr C. W. Bischoff 
has investigated this interesting question. In 1893, E. Rcmesow sought 
to show (on dog and rabbit) that cutting the hair induced stronger 
growth. He described various changes in the bulb ; the bulb thickened, 
the cells became larger and more full of sap, a large number of mitoses 
occurred, and so on. Bischoff has followed the same methods, and tried 
various modifications, but without finding what Remesow described. 
It is therefore probable, he says, that the cutting of the hair has no 
influence on its growth. It also follows that the hair is not capable of 
transmitting a stimulus of the kind discussed. 
Regeneration of Descemet’s Membrane. j — Prof. L. Ranvier asks 
whether there is in histogenesis anything analogous to the influence of 
the original crystal on a process of crystallisation. His observations on 
the regeneration of a partially destroyed Descemet’s membrane (on the 
posterior surface of the cornea of the eye) lead him to answer the ques- 
tion in the affirmative. The old membrane has a histogenetic influence 
on the formation of the new one. 
Herve-Endings in (Esophagus and Stomach of Birds.; — N. Mali- 
scheff finds that the nerve-endings in the glands of these regions are free, 
and exhibit relations to the cells similar to those seen in the case of 
smooth muscle. Pericellular networks, as described by Dogiel, Fusari, 
Panasci, Korolkoff, were not seen, though an impregnation of the inter- 
cellular substance might produce a similar appearance. 
Molecular Attraction in Vital Phenomenal — Prof. A. L. Herrera 
thinks that molecular attractions play an important role in vital phe- 
nomena, e.g. in protoplasmic movements, inter-relations of nerve-cells, 
phagocytosis and chemotaxis, amoeboid movements, arrangement of red 
blood-corpuscles in rouleaux, conjugation and reciprocal movements of 
nuclei. 
c. General. 
Text-Book of Zoology. || — Our welcome to the new Text-book of 
Zoology by Professors T. Jeffery Parker and William A. Haswell is 
shadowed by the regret that Parker did not live to see the work appre- 
ciated. The work is clear in its method and exposition, full and 
explicit in its descriptions, and altogether such as an advanced student 
wishes. It is illustrated profusely and beautifully, and on the whole 
with freshness. The work rises at once to a first place among text- 
books of Zoology. 
Germinal Variation.^ — Dr. A. E. Ortmann has made a critical study 
of the origin of variations — of those variations which, fixed by inherit- 
ance and preserved by natural selection, may give rise by separation to 
distinct species. He sums up in four propositions : — 
(1) Every new deviation of an individual from the norm of the species 
* Arch. Micr. Anat., li. (1S98) pp. 691-703. 
+ Comptes Rendus, cxxvi. (1898) pp. 23-6. 
X Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou, 1897, pp. 278-89 (8 figs.). 
§ Bull. Soc. Zool. France, xxii. (1897) pp. 235-6. 
U ‘A Text-Book of Zoology,’ by T. Jeffery Parker and W. A. Haswell. Vol. i., 
xxxv. and 779 pp., figs. 1-663. Vol. ii., xx. and 683 pp., figs. 664-1173. 8vo, Mac- 
millan & Co., London, 1897. Tf Biol. Centralbl., xviii. (1898) pp. 139-57. 
