REVIEWS 691 



recall the extraordinary influence exerted on many chemical reactions by most 

 minute traces of impurities to realise that analyses accurate to, say, 99'g per cent, 

 may be quite inadequate if, as is often the case, the remaining o'i percent, be 

 some catalyst capable of upsetting completely the course of a reaction ; it becomes 

 increasingly necessary that analytical methods should be refined day by day, and 

 it is probable that in many cases the cult of quick and only moderately accurate 

 "routine" analyses may have to give way to more tedious but more accurate 

 methods as the operations of chemical technology become increasingly complex 

 and delicate. 



Dr. Hillebrand also discusses the question of standardised reagents, and calls 

 attention to the well-known abuse of "purifying" reagents by the simple process of 

 transferring them to new bottles bearing the mystic words " Puriss " or the like ! 



A considerable portion of the lecture is devoted to a discussion of means for 

 providing new standardised methods of analysis, and generally encouraging the 

 development of analytical chemistry by the creation of a new chemical institution 

 in the United States which, working in conjunction with the Bureau of Standards, 

 would assist in developing this branch of chemistry, and enable it to take its 

 proper position in national affairs. 



It is not, of course, possible here to show the workings of the scheme in detail, 

 but the whole lecture is full of interesting points, and will well repay careful study. 



F. A. M. 



The Chemical Constitution of the Proteins. Part I. Analysis. By R. H. A. 

 Plimmer, D.Sc (Monographs in Biochemistry.) [Pp. xii + 174.] 

 (London : Longmans, Green & Co., 191 7. Price 6^. net.) 



The earlier editions of this monograph are too well known to those interested in 

 biochemistry to require any detailed review for the present one ; suffice it to say 

 that the new edition brings the subject of protein analysis up to date. As new 

 methods of analysis are being continually produced, whereas the descriptions of 

 the methods for determining the constitution and synthesising amino acids are not 

 liable to much change, the author has decided in this edition to divide the 

 subject matter of Part I. of the old monograph into two : Part I. Analysis, and 

 Part II. The Aminoacids. The present volume therefore deals with analysis only, 

 and contains all the important additions to the subject contributed since the issue 

 of the last edition in 1912. By this arrangement it should only be necessary to 

 reissue Part I. at intervals in order to keep the monograph up-to-date, since the 

 subject-matter of the remaining parts does not, for obvious reasons, require such 



frequent revision. 



P. H. 



A Technical Handbook of Oils, Fats, and Waxes. By Percival J. Fryer, 

 F.C.S., and Frank E. Weston, B.Sc, F.C.S. Vol. I. Chemical and 

 General. [Pp. x + 279, with 33 illustrations and 36 plates.] (Cambridge : 

 at the University Press, 1917. Price gs. net.) 



This volume forms one of the excellent Cambridge Technical Series published by 

 the University Press, and appears to be well up to the standard of the volumes 

 already issued. 



It has been designed primarily to meet the needs of the technical worker, the 

 works chemist, and others less directly concerned in the technology of the oils, 

 fats, and waxes. 



