566 BOOK REVIEWS

NERVE IMPULSE. Transactions of the First Conference, March 2-3, 1950. Edited by D. NACHMANSOHN, New York City, Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation. 159 p. $3.00.

Under the chairmanship of 1%. H. Merritt, 15 leading neurologists discussed nerve impulses, and the present book gives an almost verba- tim report of this meeting. When Houston Merritt closed his intro- ductory remarks with the words “I am sure we are going t o go far afield in our discussion, ” he was entirely right. Grundfest, Quastel, Ladd Prosser, Bodian and Steinbach gave the formal presentations. The discussions that developed around these reports went generally quite far afield. But. they never became so diffuse that the reader becomes annoyed ; frequently references are thrown in to enable any- one to follow up a seemingly casual remark.

To give a detailed account of the contents of the book would fill almost as many pages as the book itself contains. It should be read slowly and carefully, perhaps laid aside for reading during one of those periods of relaxation which mat)erialize only too rarely.

Merely by way of examples, the reviewer happened to be impressed by Grundfest’s lucid demonstration of electrophysiology as a tool for the neuroanatomist, by the remarks of the same author (p. 41) on control and amplifying mechanisms in the brain, by the allusion of Wald (p. 79) to intriguing experiments by Adrian and Buytendijk on the spread of excitation in the cerebral cortex. In reading through the volume, he also got the impression that too little is known about the synaptic structures in the cerebral cortex. Bodian comes nearest to expressing this in an aside to Grundfest’s discussion (p. 27, con- cerning the “neuropile”).

Any neurologist should derive profit, and some better insight into his problems after he has read this highly stimulating volume.

GERIIARDT VON BONTN

RECEIVED AT THE EDITORIAL OFFICE

A COMPANION to Manuals of Practical Anatomy by E. R. Jamieson. 7th Edition. New York City, Oxford University Press. 1950. 735 p., price $3.50.

A STUDY of Epilepsy in its Clinical, Social and Genetic Aspects, by Carl Henry Alstrom. Acts Psychiatrica et Keurologica, Supplementum 63, Munksgaard, Copenhagen. 1950. 284 p., price 20 Swedish crowns.

JOURNAL of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology, The van Ophuijsen Memorial Volume (12, No. l), 1951, Ed. in Chief, Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. 103 p., no price.