1 68 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



recent and sudden rise of physical chemistry, which has drawn away from the 

 organic field many chemists who would doubtless have carried the older branch 

 much further forward than has been possible without their assistance." 



These are hard sayings to place before the average organic chemist in the first 

 few pages of a book intended to describe to him recent advances in the science 

 he particularly affects. Both Collie and Stewart appear to be distressed at 

 the rapidity with which new compounds are being prepared and described, and 

 their dossiers neatly tucked away in " Beilstein," the "Abstracts" published by 

 the various Chemical Societies, or in other equally convenient depositories of 

 information. Collie goes so far as to say that " organic chemistry has become 

 a vast rubbish-heap of puzzling and bewildering compounds," while Stewart 

 adds that " if 70 per cent, of them had never been synthesised we should not 

 feel the lack of them to any appreciable extent." Both mentors are agreed that 

 this is not progress, and the three quotations with which this notice opens are 

 some of Stewart's reflections on the situation. With the first two of these 

 organic chemists sympathise to a certain extent, but they can scarcely be expected 

 to admit that their branch of science has become somewhat of a " back number " 

 in recent years because here and there an eminent chemist has elected to become 

 what a chemical Kipling might call " a kind of a giddy harumfrodite " — chemist 

 and physicist too ; for after all, it may be said with equal justice that physical 

 chemistry has proved very barren in many directions in the last twenty years. 



Turning to the subject-matter proper of the book, there are thirteen chapters 

 devoted to the consideration of those branches of organic chemistry in which 

 chemists have been particularly active in recent years, including the Grignard 

 reaction, so-called asymmetric syntheses, the terpenes, synthetic alkaloids, the 

 polypeptides, chemical action of light, and so on, and the exposition given of the 

 work accomplished in each section is usually good and readable. It is not to be 

 expected that every one will agree with Stewart's selection of subjects to be 

 discussed, since such selection is essentially a matter of personal taste, and it is 

 therefore only as an individual opinion that we suggest that a chapter on the 

 correlation of chemical constitution with physiological action might usefully have 

 been included, since that is a field of work in which only a beginning has been 

 made as yet, and in which the interest of chemists might with advantage be 

 stimulated. 



There are evidences throughout the book that it has been compiled in a rather 

 hurried manner. Thus, on p. 46, "polyketides " are defined as "substances which 

 are obtained by polymerisation of keten, and subsequent addition of other 

 atoms," whilst "any substance which can be produced from a polyketide by 

 addition, subtraction, or substitution" is regarded as a "polyketide derivative." 

 A little consideration will show that these two definitions do not distinguish a 

 "polyketide" from a "polyketide derivative." On p. 160 it is stated that non- 

 volatile alkaloids are extracted from plant tissues by treating the latter " first with 

 alkali and then with acids, which dissolve the alkaloids." It ought to have 

 occurred to Dr. Stewart that the alkali is unnecessary if an acid is to be employed 

 subsequently, and further inquiry would have shown him that a chemist ex- 

 perienced in alkaloidal work rarely resorts to the use of an acid-extracting 

 medium unless the use of a neutral low-boiling organic solvent is for some 

 reason precluded. 



The author has a curious habit of indulging in rather loosely-worded state- 

 ments and of using nouns as adjectives, of which one or two examples may be 

 given. Thus (p. 83), " When the saps and tissues of plants belonging to the 



