mena of digestion. In this way, not merely has the absorption of the lacteals been gradually almost restricted to the taking up of fatty matter, by a process of minute division and endosmose, in which the exact shares of the intestinal and other structures still remain somewhat obscure and indefinite; but the vascular part of the absorptive act, without being released from all share in the reception of fatty matters, has been shown to take so vast a predominance in the absorp tion of nourishment as a whole, that the terms "chyme" and "chyle" have quite lost their previous meaning: the former being now known to be the residuum, and not the product, of gastric digestion; the latter a small part, instead of the whole, of that product itself.

The physiology of the blood itself has perhaps undergone fewer large modifications than that of most of the other organs of the body. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to select any subject, the present description of which would be in more striking contrast with that it received twenty-five years ago. The mere structural details are chiefly modified by the careful studies lately given to the corpuscles; especially by quantitative researches on the white and red corpuscles in the higher Mammalia, and by the aid furnished by comparative anatomy to the morphology, and even the import of both. But it is to physiological chemistry that we owe the most numerous and important accessions to our information. And among these, analysis has not only distinguished the proximate and ultimate components of the corpuscles and of the liquor sanguinis, and striven, with tolerable success, to push the inquiry to an indirect and minute comparison of all the details of each, but has especially attempted the more difficult task of detecting, in the latter fluid, the materials introduced into it from the various organs which it washes with its current. A large and increasing class of substances has been thus formed; midway between the tissues whose effete products enter the blood, and the excretory organs whose office it is to purify this fluid by removing such compounds. And the formation of this class of substances implies another distinction in the action of excretory organs themselves, such as was scarcely foreshadowed by the Physiology of a few years ago :-the distinction between those which do not, and those which do, construct or combine the principles they withdraw from the blood: between those which, as it were, merely filter out a pre-existent compound, like the urea removed by the kidneys from the blood; and those which form the main elements of their secretion, by a slower and more recondite chemical process, such as, to all appearance, constructs in the liver certain important ingredients of the bile.

Among other questions connected with circulation and secretion, few are more interesting than that of the afflux which, on physiological rather than mechanical grounds, was formerly assumed to constitute so remarkable an aid to the mechanism of the circulation. At a time when the physical details of this process were little understood, it was generally thought necessary to assume that there was an attraction of blood towards the capillaries, a vis à fronte, as it was termed, a force which was the result of the nutritive changes

(especially the exsudation) going on here. Contradicted, however, if not absolutely disproved, by the experiments and calculations of Volkmann and others, as well as by the consideration that such a force would (like that of the respiratory movement) impede in the veins to exactly the same degree as it would assist in the arteries; and certainly no way established by the singularly defective proofs sometimes* brought forward; the question of any definite attraction of this kind, with a special or exclusive influence on the arterial blood, must be regarded as still sub julice. The recent observations of Ludwig on secretion have, however, supplied what seems to be a satisfactory proof of a force of this kind, by showing that the fluid which occupies the duct of a gland undergoes, on its stimulation (as by the galvanizing of its nerves), an enormous increase of the pressure measured by a hæmadynamometer in its calibre; an increase which so greatly transcends the simultaneous pressure of the column of blood in the main artery distributed to the gland, as to be evidently in great part independent of intra-vascular changes. Even in this specific and intermittent withdrawal of fluid from the blood, however, it is difficult to see any but an indirect and irregular help to the arterial current; and it is equally difficult to avoid connecting it with that old rule, "ubi stimulus ibi affluxus," to which, after all, we must at present be content to refer so much of the obscure mechanism of inflammation.

Time fails to allude to many other of the steps by which this department of the science has recently advanced. The processes of growth, especially as regards their morphology, and the wide changes of the whole structure they often (as in bone) involve; the chemistry of starvation, as elucidated by Bidder and Schmidt; the large nutritional questions to which the investigation of this process of unopposed waste has helped to afford an answer; and the elaborate general inquiries by which Chossat, Regnault and Reiset, Valentin, and others had prepared for the more specific observations of the two first named observers; the structure of the various ductless glands; the chemistry of the urine; these, and many other topics, every one of which might be made the subject of a special description, all conduct us to the same conclusion with which we began. The harvest is ripe. Already, indeed, a crowd of labourers are gathering it in. Each, however unknowingly, assists all the others. Each, indeed, can do something. If he cannot reap, he can bind the sheaves, or help to store them up. And unless the cloud of war still threatening modern Europe burst in some deluge that reduces all science to a standstill, we may fairly expect that, twenty-five years hence, the Physiology of that day will have advanced over a far larger extent of ground than that of which we have now attempted so hasty and imperfect a retrospect.

For example, the circulation of the blood in a fetus devoid of a heart has been held by one author as almost tantamount to an experimentum crucis. But it need hardly be said that, unless the mother were equally devoid of this central propulsive organ, the circulation in the child could not have been thrown exclusively on the vis à fronte. Indeed, Physiology supplies observations of the cardiac pressure being largely transmitted through smaller and more resistant media than those of the placenta (as in the ureters or veins). And pathology shows what large variations in the force of the current of the blood are compatible with a certain degree of nutrition of tissues.

Hitherto we have said little about the work itself, the name of which stands at the head of this Article. The lapse of time, and the progress of science, these are the topics towards which we have diverged, far out of the beaten track of ordinary reviewing. But while such a procedure is fully justified, both by the numerous notices which its various Essays have from time to time received in the pages of this Review, and by the sheer impossibility of making the most cursory attempt adequately to discuss them within the limits accorded to this Article, it would be unjust, alike to the public, the publishers, and the Editor, to forego all award of that praise or blame which it is the especial office of the critic to make. As regards the Editor, if the reader, after pondering over the graceful preface by which the work is really completed, thinks that gentleman requires any further excuses for the delay and interruptions which have impeded its progress, we recommend him to seek such excuses in the articles of which Dr. Todd is himself the author, and in the equally well-known work for which he is jointly responsible with Mr. Bowman. The delays in the publication of this Cyclopædia have, indeed, been one chief element of its value; since they have not only made it a history of the advance of the science, but have in many instances been a necessary condition of those researches which its Essays have often specifically published, and have almost always incorporated. And not only does the latter part of the work bring its contents up to the latest date of our knowledge, but the number and grouping of the articles have permitted some of the more recent to modify and complete the unavoidable deficiencies of the earlier ones on the same or kindred subjects-a kind of super-fœtation, or rather alternation of generations, which, whatever it may detract from the unity of the work, seems to us to have been rightly favoured by the Editor. For just as it is one of the chief advantages of a Cyclopædia to be elastic and unfettered in its growth, so its first requirement is goodness of details rather than any mere symmetry or concord, such as the number and diversity of its authors would alone suffice to render impossible of attainment.

The reader of the work will therefore do well to remember the unequal development and value of its earlier and later portions. And he will scarcely fail to find that among so many authors and articles there are some of very unequal merit. While we have already hinted at some incidental deficiencies which seem to have escaped the compensations— especially in Physics and in physiological Chemistry-above alluded to as having been in other cases supplied by more recent articles.

On the other hand, it must be owned that these, its defects, are far outweighed by its merits, which may be stated as follows-That it brings together a larger amount of information, is more carefully constructed, and more profusely illustrated, than any similar Dictionary or Cyclopædia hitherto published. That most of its materials are to a great extent inaccessible even to the scientific public, and many of its parts (we allude especially to its beautiful Essays on comparative anatomy) are still practically otherwise unpublished. That others of its articles are the choicest productions or studies of their several authors; who

wrote little but what they had verified, and cared still less for that dangerous smoothness which sometimes beguiles the reader into a fancied knowledge of the subject, and thus makes the fortune of the book at his expense. Lastly, that most of them are singularly free from the vice of book-making: so much so, that the learning and historical research many of them involve would be little suspected by any one unacquainted with the subjects, or accustomed only to that style of writing which often gains the erudite character-a kind of literary bird's-nesting, which rejects the contents of the eggs, but always carefully strings their shells.

But not even the torrid atmosphere of the present summer is any excuse for undue warmth, or for general censure, especially where pleasanter duties are equally within our choice. We may fairly congratulate the Editor and his subordinate authors on the completion of their task. Not less may we congratulate our own Profession, that in its ranks, toiling reputably by daily practice for daily bread, are to be found so many who have shown themselves well qualified to further, and to teach, a science so intricate and so collateral to their practical duties. And while we may certainly feel proud that researches so toilsome and costly as many incorporated in this work should have been undertaken and carried out (like the whole efforts of British science) without any help from the Government or the public, and by the unaided efforts of individuals themselves, we cannot but express some obligations to the eminent firm by whom this truly national work has been finally completed and set before the public. Indeed, we will go further, and add that they are strictly entitled not only to gratitude, but to a speedy sale of the whole impression of the Book. It is true that the profession is not a rich one; that our Gideon Grays must think twice before they spend six pounds, even though it give them the hundreds of monographs, and thousands of large pages and goodly engravings, contained in these six volumes. And hence, if they are unwillingly compelled to withstand the temptation of getting a whole library of Physiology in one book, or to postpone it to the Greek Kalends, in the shape of Mr. Gladstone's promised abolition of the Income-tax, we can scarcely find fault. But there is a large (and therefore remunerative) class of persons who are, we humbly conceive, bound forthwith to buy, and even to read, this work; and on whom a little persuasion, or even threatening, may not be quite thrown away. It is notorious that an awful "cacoethes scribendi" has seized our profession; and threatens to surcharge all our Journals and Reviews with a literature not always entitled to criticism. Everybody is so anxious to teach, to write, and to publish, that listeners, readers, and even critics (the mildest and most indulgent of men), are becoming impatient. The construction of the edifice of science is somewhat impeded by a new confusion of tongues: in which few men can hear, and still fewer understand, their neighbours, because so many are talking at once. And (what is really the unkindest cut of all) few of what we may call our minor medical Essayists are satisfied, unless they can drag into their practical deductions some abstract physiological speculations, often of a very loose or doubtful character. Others, again,

distress us with elaborate re-discoveries of anatomical and physiological details known long ago, or with still more elaborate corrections of the casual or unavoidable omissions of some brief or condensed Text-book of the science. Many of these amusing authors disport themselves in a region where we must not attempt to reach them. Thus, the amiable and considerate writer who a few months ago blandly suggested castration as a remedy for phthisis, claimed the judicial notice of our Surgical colleague, for a sentence, let us hope, not analogous to that of Phalaris. And the American author who lately deduced the infectiousness of tetanus from what seems to a common mind a case of over-poisoning of a bullock with strychnia by some negroes actuated by a natural (but indiscreet) yearning after fresh meat, might be fitly left to the criticism of our Toxicological friends. But writers of Physiological Essays will, it is hoped, take it as a friendly hint if we suggest that, before rushing into print with new and brilliant discoveries, they look into the pages of what we must, for years to come, regard as the text-book of British Physiology; or at any rate, if they choose to teach, before they have learnt, the subject, to recollect that these volumes may at any moment supply a bitter and unsparing (because true and impassive) criticism. With the utterance of this mysterious warning and strong inducement to a large class of apparently wealthy writers, we feel that we complete our duty alike to them and to the publishers; who are quite entitled to expect a large and rapid sale for what is as incomparably the best, as it certainly is the cheapest, scientific work of the day-a work indispensable to the Physiologist, and scarcely less so to the Physician.

REVIEW VIII.

First Annual Report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.

THERE is always some danger when there is an acknowledged abuse to remedy, that the authorities put in motion to accomplish the object will set about their task with more zeal than discretion, and that while they are directing their attention to the magnitude of the evils which have called for their interference, they will overlook the reasonable claims to consideration to which those are entitled who, though themselves parties to a most objectionable state of things, cannot fairly be held responsible for them, but must rather be regarded as accidentally committed to a vicious system, from which it would have been very difficult for them to have escaped, and which it may be charity to suppose they never saw in its true light.

Considering, then, the deplorable condition of a large proportion of the insane in Scotland, as disclosed by the Report of the Royal Commissioners, it is very satisfactory to find that the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland, appointed under the 20th and 21st Vict. cap. 71, have approached the subject with singular freedom from prejudice, and have more than justified their appointment by their first report, admirable alike for its tone and temper, for the valuable in