TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
I undertook the publication of a translation of Ecker’s ‘Anatomie des Frosches’ at the suggestion of Professor A. Gamgee while I was working under his superintendence in the physiological laboratory of the Owens College. The work was subsequently accepted by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, as one of the series of ‘Foreign Biological Memoirs,’ published by them. Early in the progress of the work it became evident that a mere translation would be unsatisfactory, and that it would be desirable to recast and modify several portions of the book. It was deemed advisable to give greater completeness to the work by descriptions of the minute structure of the several organs. For these purposes the appearance of the work has been unavoidably delayed.
I have done my best to bring the book up to date by including the results of recent researches, to which I have added many facts derived from my own personal investigations. All such additions are enclosed within square brackets [ ]. More than a hundred new figures, of which one-third are original, have been added; and copious, though it is feared still incomplete, lists of references to frog-literature have been drawn up. By these additions the size of the book has been considerably increased.
In the several sections into which the book is divided the following points may be more particularly noticed:—
Sect. I. The Bones and Joints. The nomenclature of Parker and Bettany has been adopted throughout.
Sect. II. The Muscles. This section remains in its original form.
Sect. III. The Nervous System. The chapters on the central nervous system and the sympathetic system have been rewritten. The description of the arteries of the brain is entirely new, while the chapters on cranial and spinal nerves have received many smaller additions, and have been rearranged to facilitate reference.
Sect. IV. The Vascular System. The chapter on the heart is practically new, and many additions and alterations have been made in the descriptions of the blood-vessels and lymphatics.
Sect. V. The Alimentary Canal, with its appendages, the Spleen and the Peritoneum. In this section much new material has been added: the descriptions of the blood-vessels of the liver, the ducts of the liver and pancreas, etc., being the results of original investigation.
Sect. VI. The Respiratory Organs, the Thymus and Thyroid Glands. These organs have been carefully studied and numerous new details are noted. The lymphatic glands of the hyoid region have, after some hesitation, been designated tonsils.
Sect. VII. The Urino-Genital Organs. A very large number of preparations have been made to investigate the vessels and uriniferous tubes of the kidneys; and the descriptions of the remaining organs of this section have received large additions from recent publications.
Sect. VIII. The Skin and the Sense-Organs. This section has, with the exception of very small portions, been re-written and very much enlarged.
Before concluding this preface, I must thank my friend Professor A. Milnes Marshall, of the Owens College, for all the help and kindness he has extended to me before and during the time this work has been in hand; to him I am indebted not alone for the loan of books, pamphlets, etc., and for much useful information, but also for the care and patience with which he has read and corrected the whole of the proof-sheets.
To Professor G. Lunge, of Zürich, I am indebted for the use of the library of the Gesellschaft der Naturforscher of Zürich; and to my friend Mr. C. Herbert Hurst, of the Owens College, for the drawings for figures 132, 133, 134, and 136; also to Dr. Max Köppen, of Strasburg, for the proof-sheets of his valuable paper, ‘Zur Anatomie des Froschgehirns’: to these gentlemen I beg to express herewith my heartiest thanks. Lastly, I must express my sense of indebtedness to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, who have kindly allowed me to alter the original plan of the book, and to make extensive additions far beyond the limits originally intended.
A second edition of the original German work is in course of publication. The first part, on the bones and muscles, has already appeared.
GEO. HASLAM.
Zürich, 1888.