Dr. Cordes finds in quinine an efficient oxytocic in incomplete
abortion. He administers two and a half grains hourly till the desired
result is accomplished.
_REVIEWS._
THE APPLIED ANATOMY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM—Being a study of this
portion of the human body from a standpoint of its general interest
and practical utility. Designed for use as a text-book and as a work
of reference. By Ambrose L. Ranney, A.M., M.D. Second edition,
revised and enlarged. 8vo. Profusely illustrated. Cloth, $5.00;
sheep, $6.00.
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, and 5 Bond Street.
A second edition of this work has just been issued and, as the author
says, has been enlarged. It contains 791 pages including the index; and
is divided into four main parts, the first part treating of the brain;
2d, the cranial nerves; 3d, the spinal cord; 4th, the spinal nerves.
It is very difficult to give a review of a work like this, which treats
so largely of the anatomy of the nervous system; and which is the most
difficult part of anatomy, and a great deal of which is not positively
settled, but is under sharp discussion by those who pay special
attention to the subject.
The work is a more or less successful compilation, which is prepared
with the idea of its being used as a text-book. Its size indicates that
it contains an enormous quantity of material on the gross and fine
anatomy, but excursions are also made into the domain of medicine to
illustrate the application of the anatomical knowledge to the
explanation of symptoms in disease; and quite frequently physiology and
pathology are dealt with.
As a text-book the work appears to me a great deal too large; and the
treatment of the subjects too diffuse; and often not clear; this is
especially so in the anatomical part. Cerebral anatomy is one of those
subjects of which it is very difficult to treat in a clear and
comprehensive manner so that others can understand it; and for this
reason a text-book should be small and contain only such anatomy as is
clearly made out and can be made practical use of as applied anatomy.
The finer anatomy and the study of the course of fibres, etc., should be
taken up as a special work, and studied with patience on specimens,
sections, etc.
A great many digressions into physiological questions might have been
left out, and some other subjects properly belonging to general
medicine, which the student could best study in some of the recent works
on diseases of the nervous system, or at the clinics. As an illustration
of what is meant, take, for instance, a consideration of the tendon
reflex on page 576, and the short imperfect sketch on page 621, on
progressive muscular atrophy, when on the next page is a figure of a
man, forty-five years old, with progressive muscular atrophy, from
Freidreich’s work; a case which, by the way, is probably not a case of
chronic myelitis of the anterior horns, but one of the cystrophies. The
subject of progressive muscular atrophies is now undergoing close study,
and a large number of cases are not dependent upon lesions of the
anterior horns, but are due to changes in the muscles themselves. The
work of Freidreich, Erb, Lichtheim, Ladaur, Charcot, Landonzy and
Dejeuni, and many others, have placed the subject in a different light
from that in which it was viewed some ten years ago.
Subjects like these can be found more satisfactorily treated in other
works, and are altogether out of place in a book like this and only adds
to its bulk.
The descriptions are often such as to confuse and mislead a student; for
instance, take the opening chapter on the brain, where the author says:
“In man and the vertebrates, the cerebro and spinal axis may be divided
into three separate portions, each perfectly independent of one another
and yet very intimately connected.”
Now this division is quite artificial, and is only for purposes of
description, and these parts are not _perfectly independent of one
another_.
Again, he says: “The nervous system of all animals may be subdivided
into two distinct histologic elements, nerve cells and nerve fibres.”
What has become of the neuroglia and neuroglia cells; are they not
important histologic elements in the nervous system of all animals?
Without this supporting framework what would become of the nerve tubes
and ganglion cells? And in many of the diseases of the central nervous
system this neuroglia takes on a very active condition, as is seen in
such a disease as disseminated cerebro and spinal sclerosis.
On page 45, in speaking of the study of sections of the cortex, the
author says: “By a judicious employment of gradually increasing powers
in the microscopic objectives used, the general arrangement of the
elements may be first mastered, and later on the minute details of each
of the component parts may be studied.”
This sounds like a most formidable and delicate task in the _judicious
employment_ of objectives in increasing powers in the study of these
sections. No one should attempt to study the histology of the nervous
system without previously knowing something about the use of the
microscope and having some practical knowledge of general histology and
pathology; to such a person the study of sections does not depend upon
_the judicious employment of gradually increasing powers in the
microscope objectives_; if he use a No. 2 and a No. 7 of Verick, or some
objective of about the same magnifying power, it is then simply a
question of studying the specimens with those powers and learning to see
and understand what he sees; there is no mystery about it.