i88i.] 
Analyses of Books, j 
297 
the chief point in which it differs from ordinary grates. If the 
regulator in the chimney is not attended to, and the “ blower ” 
used, it consumes a very serious quantity of fuel, and roars like 
a furnace. The author’s own grate for dwelling-rooms is difficult 
to describe without the aid of diagrams. Like Dr. Arnott’s, it 
is kindled from above. For kitchens he, at any rate, condemns 
open fires, and recommends that the boiler for supplying hot 
water, the oven for roasting and baking, &c., should be heated 
by closed furnaces fed with coke or anthracite. It is, however, 
the question whether most cooking operations may not be per- 
formed with more economy and cleanliness by means of the 
gas-ovens devised by Mr. Fletcher. 
One difficulty remains : in thousands of houses the open fire 
in the kitchen has to serve the purpose, in all times of wet 
weather, of drying linen on “ washing-day.” This duty, we 
fear, cannot be well fulfilled either by the gas-oven or by a closed 
stove. 
We fear, however, that the difficulties in the way of any 
thorough improvement in the warming and ventilation of our 
houses, and indeed of all matters connected with domestic sani- 
tation, are rather of a sociological than an engineering nature. 
Nevertheless Mr. Edwards has done a good service in bringing 
so many neglected truths before the public, and we much regret 
that in certain quarters he has been encountered with the “ con- 
spiracy of silence.” 
General Physiology of Muscles and Nerves. By Dr. J. Rosen- 
thal, Professor of Physiology in the University of Erlangen. 
London : C. Kegan Paul and Co. 
We have here a summary of what has been done in a special, 
important, and difficult branch of biology. Everyone knows 
that an explanation of certain processes in the animal system — 
such as digestion, respiration, and secretion— necessarily involves 
an appeal to chemistry. In a very similar manner the functions 
of the nerves and muscles can be studied only by the physicist. 
The author, after an introductory chapter, in which he pronounces 
movement and sensation as animal characteristics, in so far at 
least that special organs for movement — muscles — have never 
yet been traced in plants, gives an account of protoplasmic 
amoeboid, and ciliary motion. He then describes the form and 
structure of muscles, their connection with the bones, their elas- 
tic^, irritability, the generation of heat during their action, their 
alteration in elasticity, exhaustion, and recovery, and the source 
of the force which they display. This is traced to chemical 
changes within the muscle itself* and affecting not so much the 
VOL. III. (THIRD SERIES). X 
