A Text-book of Histology: Descriptive and Practical For the use of Students

Abstract

A BOOK which is illustrated in so lavish a manner as the one before us, is calculated to catch the eye; but it must also bear the test of critical examination. By its coloured representations of the tissues, it challenges comparison with the well-known “Atlas of Histology” of Klein and Noble Smith, which was published some seventeen years back. Except, however, that it is smaller and less costly, it suffers grievously by the comparison. Klein's “Atlas” contained accurate representations made from preparations which were thoroughly up to date, and their description included much that was at that time new; so that the whole work had an unmistakable air of originality, and has remained of permanent value. The book before us has pictures which are pretty, as far as gaudy colouring can make them so, but which are, many of them, sadly lacking in accuracy of detail, or have been made from preparations fixed by imperfect methods. The very first figures we come to in the book furnish an illustration of this statement. In the representation of the stages of karyokinesis, the monaster stage is shown with nine chromosomes, each splitting into two. In a succeeding figure of the same stage their number is reduced to eight, and in the following two figures, representing the stage of metakinesis of the nucleus, we find, respectively, eight and ten chromosomes instead of eighteen in each! Then, again, in such a simple figure as the representation of human blood-corpuscles a spherical white corpuscle is represented of, at least, twice the diameter of the red corpuscles; while in the drawing of newt's blood, amongst a number of distorted red corpuscles, and some impossible white cells and blood platelets, a non-nucleated fragment of a white corpuscle is inserted, as if it were a normal constituent ! The author expresses his obligations to Prof. Rutherford for having taught him, the art of constructing histological diagrams. We wonder what Prof. Rutherford's feelings will be when he sees the diagram of two liver lobules, which is presented in Fig. 121.

A Text-book of Histology: Descriptive and Practical. For the use of Students.

By Arthur Clarkson Pp. xx + 554; with 174 original coloured illustrations. (Bristol: John Wright and Co. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, and Co., Ltd., 1896.)