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ART. VIII.-The Vegetation of Europe; its Conditions and Causes. By ARTHUR HENFREY, F.L.S., &c.—
Lo don, 1852. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 387.
With a Map.

THIS Compact little volume is the first of a series which Mr. Van Voorst purposes to issue, under the title of Outlines of the Natural History of Europe;' and it contains a general resumé of the labours which have been most industriously carried on for some time past, by a large number of observers, into the geographical distribution of plants, and the circumstances which modify it,-some of these circumstances being the physical conditions afforded by climatic influences, and others the various modes of transport which bring about the migration of plants, and facilitate their radiation from original or acquired habitats. These general and special influences are considered in two introductory chapters, which will amply repay an attentive perusal; and the vegetation of Europe is then describ ed, as it presents itself in the ten principal provinces into which this quarter of the globe is marked out by the physical conditions of each part, rather than by actual boundaries.

The treatise, though small in compass, presents a large amount of well selected information, conveyed in a very pleasing style; and Mr. Henfrey's well-known eminence as a philosophical botanist and a painstaking writer, is a guarantee of the accuracy of his digest.

ART.-IX.-Lectures on Histology, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in England, in the Session 1850-51. By JOHN QUEKETT, Assistant Conservator of the Museum. Illustrated by 159 Woodcuts.-London, 1852. 8vo, pp. 215.

THIS volume consists of a reprint, with some additions, of the lectures which have already appeared in the Medical Times,' and which many of our readers have doubtless perused with pleasure and profit. The first nine lectures are devoted to the histology of Vegetables, which Mr. Quekett has done wisely to introduce into his course; since not only does the study of the minute structure and growth of plants throw great light upon that of animals, but in much that relates to manipulation and to the right interpretation of the phenomena examined, the young microscopist will find it the best possible introduction. This subject is very copiously treated; and all the points which are of special interest to the human physiologist and pathologist are very fully dwelt on. The histology of Animals is only commenced in this volume; the subjects included in the nine remaining lectures of the course, being the simple fibrous tissues, the various forms of cartilage, and fat.

It is almost superfluous to state, that these lectures are of the highest value, for the clear and concise expression which they give to Mr. Quekett's opinions on the various subjects of which they treat; and that those opinions, based as they are upon a knowledge of the whole subject to which scarcely any other microscopist can lay claim, are of first-rate authority. The numerous illustrations are for the most part very chracteristic, although not possessing the high finish with which we have been of late rendered familiar. And it only remains for us to express the hope, that Mr. Quekett will not follow certain bad examples we could name, in delaying the completion of his work, until those who may have purchased this first part have been driven to other sources of information on the subjects which remain to be treated.

We cannot refrain from expressing the pleasure we have derived from the recent appointment of Mr. Quekett as Professor of Histology to the College of Surgeons; the Council of which body has done itself great credit by this recognition of the importance of the subject, and of the distinguished ability which Mr. Quekett has shown in the prosecution of histological enquiry.

ART. X.-Chemical Manipulation and Analysis, Qualitative and Quantitative. With an Introduc tion, explanatory of the General Principles of Chemical Nomenclature, the Construction and Use of Formula, the Doctrine of Equivalent Proportions, and the Preparation and Management of Gases. By HENRY M. NOAD, Ph.D., Lecturer on Chemistry at St. George's Hospital. Second Edition, considerably enlarged.—London, 1852. 8vo, pp. 431.

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THIS work was originally prepared as part of a general treatise on Chemistry, which was designed to appear in a new series of the Library of Useful Knowledge.' The present "new edition" is a reprint of the portion which had been previously issued, with the addition of an Introductory Chapter on the Preparation and Management of the Gases, which had been previously somewhat strangely overlooked, and of an Appendix, in which some points of Quantitative Analysis are more fully dwelt on than in the body of the work. The whole has, consequently, a somewhat patchy character, which is not diminished by the difference in the style of printing between the introduction and appendix and the body of the treatise, the latter being in double columns, after the fashion of the well-known series in which it first appeared. We cannot say that the book is by any means complete or satisfactory; but the portion of it which relates to the ordinary manipulations of chemistry will be found very useful to the student who is out of the reach of oral direction; as it enters much more fully into this subject, than do any of the systematic treatises on chemical science.

ART. XL-Climate of Italy in Relation to Pulmonary Consumption; with Remarks on the Influence of Foreign Climates upon Invalids. By T. H. BURGESS, M.D., &c.—London, 1852. 12mo, pp. 206. DR. BURGESS justly remarks that the influence of climate upon health and disease is only to be determined by authenticated facts and positive observation; in comparison with which, vague assertions

and traditionary fame should cease to exert any influence. In regard to the climate, or rather the climates, of Italy (for the different parts of that peninsula offer a wide variety both in temperature and in every other climatic influence), a great body of information has been furnished by the meteorological reports of Schouw; and his statements form the basis of the enquiries of M. Carrière, whose work on the climate of Italy has acquired a standard value. Dr. Burgess's own experience, acquired during a residence in Italy, is in accordance with the scientific investigations of these eminent authorities; and we are disposed, therefore, to attach great weight to the opinions he expresses, although they are opposed to various notions that are prevalent in this country. We think, however, that, in common with some other writers who take his unfavourable view of the influence of climate on patients affected with pulmonary disease, he looks too exclusively at the meteorological conditions, and does not take sufficient account of the effects of change of scene and of habits of life, and of those moral influences which are engendered by free exposure to bright and sunny skies, in the minds of such as have previously suffered from the depression of spirits engendered by a monotonous and almost hopeless confinement. Although the removal of a patient in whom phthisis has already developed itself fully, may be of little avail, yet our personal knowledge prevents us from entertaining a doubt, that many persons are able, not merely to live, but to enjoy life, in well-selected parts of Italy or in Madeira, who could not bear exposure to our ungenial winters and cold springs, and who would soon find their malady forced into a fatal activity by the ennui of a protracted restriction to an artificial atmosphere.

Still we believe, with Dr. Burgess, that vast mischief is done by the faith reposed in popular notions upon the efficacy of change of climate in consumption; and we gladly welcome his work as a valuable contribution towards a more exact appreciation of the subject, both on the part of the public and on that of the profession. In common with Sir James Clarke, he fully recognises the beneficial effects of an appropriate change of climate in dyspepsia, nervous affections, rheumatism and scrofula.

ART. XII.-The Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man. By Robert Bentley TODD, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.P., &c. &c., and WILLIAM BOWMAN, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., &c. &c. Part IV., Section 1. -London, 1852. 8vo, pp. 208. With 53 Wood-engravings.

HOWEVER much we may regret the tardy appearance of the successive portions of this admirable work, we cannot feel that its authors are deserving of the blame which we consider to have been incurred by others, whose cases at first seem analogous; for they set out with the praiseworthy intention of examining all the more important departments of human anatomy and physiology for themselves, so as to give to their descriptions the value derived from original investigation; and they have been unwilling to lower its character by the mere reproduction of the untested statements and doctrines of others, notwithstanding that they soon found that the execution of their plan would require a far larger expenditure of time and labour than they originally contemplated. It may be said that they ought to have formed a more accurate estimate, in the first instance, of the extent of their undertaking; but we are strongly inclined to believe, that if they had done so, they would not have entered upon it at all, and our much-valued "Todd and Bowman" (as the book is usually designated) would never have come into existence. We are thankful, therefore, for what we can get; and would only express the hope, that if the increasing professional engagements of the authors should prevent them from themselves completing the work on the basis of their own personal researches, within a short interval, they will avail themselves of the assistance of some of those intelligent workers who have been trained up under their instruction, and will employ them (in the mode in which we know that Professor Kölliker is aided by his pupils) in carrying-out, under their superintendence, those enquiries which they are themselves unable to prosecute.

The present Part is entirely occupied with the organs of digestion, absorption, circulation (including the blood), and respiration. It is almost superfluous to remark, that it maintains the high character of the preceding portions; but we feel it right to state, as one of the evil results attendant on this mode of publication, that the earlier sheets even of this fasciculus are prematurely old, having been in print before the appearance of important memoirs of at least two years' date, which are consequently not referred to.

Whenever the work shall be completed, we promise our authors a full review, in which its peculiar merits shall be carefully and discriminatingly set forth; at present we must be content with thus briefly noticing the appearance of a further instalment.

ART. XIII.-The Hand; its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing Design. By SIR CHARLES BELL, K.G.H., F.R.S., L. & E., &c. Fifth Edition, revised, with Woodcuts.-London, 1852. Post Svo, pp. 428.

We believe that this work has been among the most popular of the series of 'Bridgewater Treatises, of which it originally formed one. And we do not wonder at that popularity, whilst we confine our view to the happy mode in which the author brings down his argument to the most ordinary capacity, and illustrates it by the teachings of the most familiar experience. The truly scientific reader, however, can perceive many blemishes and many omissions; and whilst fully sympathizing with the writer in the pleasure with which he expounds his numerous and well-arrayed illustrations of special adaptation, cannot but feel regret that he should have dwelt so little upon the wonders of that

general plan, of which these are only individual cases. But Sir C. Bell wrote at a time when it was the fashion to consider these two sets of doctrines as antithetically opposed to one another, when "unity of type" was the bugbear of the theologist, and the idea of "design" was no less offensive to the so-called" philosophical anatomist." The two schemes of enquiry are now pursued in mutual harmony, according to the method so ably marked out by Professor Owen; and we have no longer any difficulty in imagining that a general plan may include every kind of subordinate modification, and that the hand of man does not less certainly display a designed adaptation to its varied offices, be cause the limb of which it forms part may be shown to be the "diverging appendage" of the occipital vertebra.

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We cannot but regret, therefore, that this treatise should be republished in its original form; since it is not only behind the present state of anatomical science, but tends to keep up erroneous and prejudiced views in regard to it. The editor, Mr. Alexander Shaw, seems to have entertained a sort of superstitious veneration for his uncle's work; for he has not done anything to amend or correct it; and the only difference between this and previous editions consists in the introduction of about eighty pages of additional matter, derived from the author's notes to Paley's Natural Theology,' and from his Aninial Mechanics.' The "respiratory system," of course, retains its place; and no hint is given of the more general scheme of "reflex action," its isolation from which, by Sir C. Bell, was one of his greatest errors, instead of being, as we believe he always considered it, one of his most important discoveries. And the perpetuation of Cuvier's classification of the Animal Kingdom, which still maintains its place at the end of the volume, notwithstanding the glaring errors which the progress of research has shown to exist in it, is another mark of that indisposition to advance with the times, which seems to have descended from Sir C. Bell to his nephew and editor. On all these accounts therefore, we greatly regret the re-issue of the work in its present form; and trust that, should another edition be called for, it may be modified in the manner we have pointed out.

ART. XIV.-1. Homœopathy and the Homœopaths. By J. STEPHENSON BUSHNAN, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., do— London, 1852. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 214.

2. Homeopathy Unveiled: or, Observations on Hahnemann, his Doctrines, and Treatment of Disease, By WILLIAM PERRIN BRODRIBB, M.R.C.S. Second Edition.-London, 1852. 8vo, pp. 45. THESE two publications have the same laudable purpose in view, that of showing the utter baselessness of the system of Homœopathy, and the extraordinary gullibility or dishonesty of those who prac tise it. They are both of them intended rather for the professional than the general public; and are designed to satisfy the minds of those who may be tormented by the doubts suggested by the ac knowledged uncertainties of legitimate medicine, or staggered by the confident assertions of success which are so liberally sent forth by homœopathic practitioners, and so eagerly caught up by the public; or, again, to furnish those whose own minds are in no danger of being thus unsettled, with the requisite data, whereby they may be enabled to give a ready answer to those who are teasing them with narratives of wonderful cures, and with challenges to refute the system. Both are written in a calin, gentlemanly tone, and with an entire freedom from that arrogant assumption of superiority, and that manifestation of contempt for those benighted idiots who hold a different opinion, which die figures the greater part of the productions of the homœopathic press. But we would especially re commend Dr. Bushnan's little volume, as containing a much fuller and more searching examination of the subject, than the narrower limits of Mr. Brodribb's pamphlet admit. And we deem it parti cularly valuable, as containing, in Hahnemann's own words, an exposition of his system, from which, notwithstanding its alleged perfection, many of his professed disciples have departed just as much as it suited their convenience or policy to do, thereby tacitly admitting its fallacies. We can scarcely comprehend the state of mind, which, after a careful perusal of Dr. Bushnan's exposé, can continue to uphold Homœopathy on any other basis, than its admission of Nature to work out her cure without interference for evil or for good.-We have so recently brought the leading points at issue under the consideration of our readers, that there is no occasion for us now to go over the ground again.

PART THIRD.

Periscope.

ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

On the Structure of the Liver. By C. HANDFIELD JONES, M.D., F.R.S.

DR. LEIDY and Professor Retzius, with Müller, Weber, and Kronenberg, maintain the existence of plexuses of ducts in the parenchyma of the liver containing the cells in their tubes. Some other anatomists, especially Gerlach, believe the ducts to be prolonged into the lobules of the parenchyma, under the form of mere intercellular passages without walls.

Injectious of acetate of lead in saturated solution, thrown into the ductus communis choledochus, produce appearances which seem to confirm the latter view. The author, however, believes them to be fallacious, and that the ducts really terminate, as he has described them in his former paper, by closed extremities, either rounded and even, or somewhat irregular. Further details are given of the condition of the ultimate and penultimate ducts in the several vertebrate classes.

In the class of fishes, the minute ducts most commonly appear as solid cylinders of soft granulous substance, in which scarce anything but some oily molecules are to be discerned; but not very unfrequently two other conditions are observed, which seem to illustrate very well the active character of the function of the duct. In the first the granulous matter exists in much smaller quantity, and the nuclei imbedded in it are consequently seen much more distinctly; their presence is thus unequivocally determined; it is shown that there is no real difference between the ducts of the fish's and those of the mammalian liver, only that the granulous matter is usually accumulated in the former more abundantly than in the latter. The presence of free nuclei in granulous matter indicates an active change to be proceeding in the part. In the second condition sometimes observed, the granulous matter has imbedded in it a varying number of pellucid vesicles of great delicacy, but quite distinct; these testify that a process of active growth takes place in the minute ducts, and show, the author thinks conclusively, that these minute ducts are not mere efferent canals.

Sugar was detected on two or three occasions in the livers of fishes; it seems to be absent when the organ is extremely fatty.

In the minute hepatic ducts of reptiles, the condition of the epithelium is very similar to that in fishes; the nuclei sometimes appearing with great distinctness, sometimes being obscured by much granulous matter, sometimes developing themselves into pellucid vesicles. The livers of frogs and toads almost constantly contain dark yellow masses, which were formerly regarded by the author as biliary concretions, but are now considered to be only pigmentary deposits; they coexist sometimes with much diffused black matter.

The ultimate ducts have been traced recently very satisfactorily in Birds, Mammalia, and Man: and the description given of them in the paper accords with the author's former account.

The development of the liver and its apparatus of ducts has been traced out in fishes and reptiles, and the following results obtained in both classes:

(1.) The liver (i. e. the parenchyma of the organ) is formed as an independent mass, and does not proceed as an offset from the intestine.

(2.) The gall-bladder is developed separately as a transparent vesicle, containing a clear fluid.

(3.) The gall-bladder elongates itself at one end, tends towards the intestine, and at last opens into it, while from one part of its extent hepatic ducts are developed; in the frog the hepatic ducts seem, however, to be formed at the same time as the gall-bladder, and to be developed pari passu along with it. The cystic duct is lined by ciliary epithelium, which plays very actively.

The examination of the process of development in the chick has confirmed, so far as it was carried, the account given in the former paper.

In mammalia, the subject of enquiry has been chiefly the following-viz., to ascertain how far there was evidence that the secretion of bile actually is affected in and by the hepatic cells, or whether its presence in them is accidental, and the bile is really and necessarily secreted by the ultimate ducts.

It is remarked that the existence of a portal vein conveying blood from the intestinal surface is coeval, not with the formation of a bile-secreting structure (for many animals have organs which secrete abundance of biliary matter without any portal vein), but with the addition of a parenchymatous mass to the biliary organ, to which mass exclusively the portal vein is distributed. It is known that the parenchyma of the liver during, and for many hours after, digestion of food, forms, from the blood supplied to it, abundance of sugar, which thus appears to be its proper secretion; and it is not proved that the hepatic cells in a healthy state contain biliary matter, though they often do in various morbid conditions. Extracts of the hepatic parenchyma tested for bile by Pettenkoffer's method, give only very imperfect and doubtful traces of the presence of biliary matter, and, on the other hand, the sugar formed by the parenchyma, which is found so abundantly in the blood of the hepatic vein, is absent from the bile. The case of fatty liver, as occurring either pathologically or normally, seems also to require an explanation consonant with the view to which the above facts point, for otherwise it seems impossible to understand how perfectly formed dark green bile could be contained in the efferent channels of a gland whose tissue is a mass of oil.

The structural condition of the ultimate biliary ducts is compared to that of the epithelium of the thyroidal cavities, and the nucleated granular tissue surrounding the lacteal in a villus ; and it is shown to be probable that the terminal portions of the ducts, so far as they possess the peculiar characteristic structure, exert an active elaborating energy, by means of which bile is formed or generated out of oily, albuminous,

or saccharine material, which surrounds and may be said to bathe them.-Proceedings of the Royal Society, Jan. 29, 1852.

[We have thought it right to place Dr. Handfield Jones's views before our readers, as those of a painstaking and conscientious observer; but we cannot help feeling great surprise that he should consider his physiological deductions to be required or even justified by the facts he adduces.]

On the Rhythmical Contractions of the Veins of the Bat's Wing. By T. WHARTON JONES, F.R.S., &c. THE author finds that the veins of the bat's wing contract and dilate rhythmically, and that they are provided with valves, some of which completely oppose regurgitation of blood, others only partially. The act of contraction of the vein is manifested by progressive constriction of its calibre and increasing thickness of its wall; the relaxation of the vessel, by a return to the former width of calibre and thickness of wall. The rhythmical contractions and dilatations of the veins are continually going on, and this, on an average, at the rate of ten contractions in the minute. The contractions centrad and distad of a valve appear to be simul taneous, as also the dilatations.

During contraction, the flow of blood in the vein is accelerated, and on the cessation of the contraction, the flow is checked, with a tendency to regurgitation, which brings the valves into play. But this check to the onward flow of the blood is usually only momentary; already, even while the vein is in the act of again becoming dilated, the onward flow recommences and goes on, though with comparative slowness, until the vein contracts again. It is the heart's action which maintains the onward flow of the blood during the dilatation of the vein, whilst it is the contraction of the vein, coming in aid of the heart's action, which causes the acceleration.

The contractility of the arteries the author finds to be altogether different from that of the veins, being tonic, not rhythmical. He has been able to observe unequivocal evidences of tonic contractility of the veins, which they have been alleged to possess.

The author further finds that nowhere do the arteries and veins of the web of the bat's wing directly communicate, as has also been alleged; the only communication being the usual 'one through the medium of capillaries.-Proceedings of the Royal Society, Feb. 5, 1852.

On the Structure of the Papilla of the Cutis. By Professors WAGNER and KÖLLIKER.

IN the Gottingen "Gelehrte Augeige," for Feb. 2, 1852, Professor Wagner published an account of recent investigations by Meissner and himself into the structure of the papillæ of the skin. The chief results of these investigations (of which we gave a brief statement from the Gazette Médicale" in our last number) were-1. That the papillae of the palm of the hand and of the fingers are of two kinds, tactile papillæ and vascular papillæ the former contain no vessels, the latter contain no nerves.-2. Each tactile papille contains an oval body, the "corpusculum tactus," composed of a horizontally laminated substance, between the layers of which nuclei are scattered. The corpusculum is invested by a striated finely granular cellular tissue, and externally by the epidermis, which sometimes possesses a basement membrane and sometimes does not.-3. The principal sensitive nerves divide, as those which are distributed to muscles and electric organs are known to do. They are usually dichotomous or trichotomous, dividing down to the axis cylinder, and then enlarging again so as to have double contours. Each nerve-fibril runs in the subcutaneous cellular tissue, and gives off its branches perpendicularly upwards into the papillæ; these then apply themselves to the corpuscula tactus; their ends curl round, and the axis cylinder passes out and splits up into branches. The nerves of the papillæ form no loops.-4. In conclusion, Wagner regards the "corpuscula tactus" as peculiar sensory organs, as elastic cushions, for the purpose of transmitting and intensifying tactile impres sions to the nerves of touch.

Incited to a re-examination of the subject by the statements of Wagner and Meissner, Professor Kölliker has just published ("Zeitschrift für Wissenschaften Zoologie," Band iv. heft 1, 1852) the conclusions derived from an elaborate and apparently careful re-investigation of the structure of the papillæ of the cutis in all parts of the body. His results differ widely from those of Professor Wagner. In the first place, he denies that the corpuscula tactus, or axile bodies of the papillæ, as he prefers to call them, can be by any means so sharply distinguished morphologically, as Wagner asserts. They are not laminated, but are com posed of a mass of homogeneous areolar tissue, with an external layer of imperfectly developed elastic tissue, consisting of ramified cells more or less elongated into fine fibres, with elongated nuclei. The elastic tissue winds transversely round the mass, which sometimes contains nuclei in its interior. In fact, these axile bodies are essentially similar to the bundles of fibrous tissue encircled by elastic fibres, which are to be found in the cutis. In papilla which were investigated without the application of any re-agent, the axile bodies did not appear more sharply defined than Kölliker had already figured them in his "Mikroskopische Anatomie" (fig. 4). Nor did a dilute solution of caustic soda, the re-agent which he chiefly employed in examining the course of the nerves, render them much more marked. On the other hand, acetic acid, which was employed by Wagner and Meissner, usually, though not always, gives these bodies a more defined cylindrical or oval contour.

The axile bodies are to be found only in the palm of the hand, the red edges of the lips, and the point of the tongue; a few traces of them may be detected in the sole of the foot, and upon the back of the hand; but none were to be discovered in the skin of the toes, thorax, back, glans penis, or nymphæ. In the hand, they existed chiefly in the compound papillæ. In the lips they were discovered in two persons, and not in a third. In the tongue, they were found in the papillæ fungiformes of one person out of three examined. In direct opposition to Wagner, Kölliker describes and figures capillary loops in papillæ containing axile bodies and nerves. He asserts, on the other hand, that vascular papillæ (containing no axile bodies, do, at times, possess ordinary nerve-fibrils; and suggests that even where no such fibrils have been detected, the difficulty of the investigation, and the possibility of the existence of such pale fibres as those discovered by himself in the skin of the mouse, should detract from the importance of mere negative evidence.

As to the course of the nerves of the papillæ, Kölliker, while he does not deny the possibility of the exist ence of free terminations, describes and figures six instances of unquestionable loops which he has recently observed. In any case, the nerves never terminate in the axile bodies, but only wind round them.

With regard to the function of the axile bodies, Kölliker argues that their non-existence in many parts of the skin which possess every variety of tactile sensation, is evidence that they have no such close and necessary relation to the sense of touch as Wagner suggests; and that they are, in fact, by no means to be con

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