REVIEW. 
691 
The only thing that can be said against minute anatomy — if 
aught can be said against it — is that description is apt to be 
over-wrought. And yet, in the case before us, attention to 
minutiae is, if anywhere, not only allowable, but well bestowed ; 
since the foot , of all other parts, demands our profoundest consi- 
deration and study. In order that we may convey to the mind of 
our reader some notion of the length to which the anatomical 
detail is carried in the present treatise, we may mention, that 
the description of the coffin-bone alone occupies fourteen large 
8 vo pages. The nomenclature adopted draws largely upon the 
one introduced many years ago by Bracy Clark ; and we are 
pleased to see this, because the new names given to parts are 
purely of scientific derivation, though some of them be used to 
express their author’s peculiar views and opinions, in all of which 
we do not profess to be, for our own part, true believers ; though, 
we may add, they appear to have made considerable way 
in France. If we follow up these remarks by stating that M. 
Bouley has everywhere observed that order and method in his 
descriptive accounts for which the continental writers in general 
are so superior to our own, we shall, we hope, have imparted 
some idea of the anatomical section of the work before us. The 
subjoined extracts, taken, 'passim, from the account of the Third 
Phalanx or Coffin Bone, will bear us out in the remarks we 
have made : — 
“ The third phalanx, ungual phalanx of Rigot, Coffin-hone of 
the English (literally, bone of thejcoffin, in allusion to the box or ' 
hoof in which it is enclosed), more commonly, os pedis or bone 
of the foot, forms the base or first layer of the divided column 
represented by the limb. 
In an anatomical view, we look at it in its double relation to 
physiology and surgery with an importance which the details 
into which we are about to enter will sufficiently explain. 
The third phalanx is a short bone, which, though of extreme 
irregularity posteriorly, partakes of the form of a cone in its 
general curvature, and in the circumferent segment of its 
base. 
According to the happy expression of Bracy Clark, the coffin- 
bone constitutes the nucleus of the foot. 
Around it we find disposed, after the manner of the pericarp 
of fruit, the vascular and nervous parenchyma, the continuation 
within the hoof of the general tegumentary covering; it serves 
