REVIEWS 701 



express conviction as to the validity of the results detailed nor do the figures 

 which accompany them produce a more favourable impression. It is difficult 

 to resist a feeling that the author and his collaborators are traversing difficult 

 ground without an adequate acquaintance with the real nature of the dangers 

 that must be inherent in any methods so drastic as those which they employ. 

 In short, the appearances they describe are far more suggestive of lethal con- 

 ditions than of anything else and having regard to the poisonous nature of the 

 substances used in quite large doses, it does not seem necessary to regard 

 them as due to any other cause. Nevertheless the influence of poisons on 

 living cells is well worth investigating for its own sake but the results need to 

 be very carefully used, as the factors involved are both numerous and hard 

 to disentangle. At present, at any rate, it is premature to relate the results 

 recorded by Mr. Ross and his colleagues with those cellular alterations responsible 

 for the incidence of cancer. 



Some Neglected Factors in Evolution. An Essay in Constructive Biology. 

 By Henry M. Bernard. Edited by Matilda Bernard. (New York 

 and London: Putnam's Sons, 191 1.) 



THOSE who enjoyed the personal friendship of the late Mr. Bernard will open 

 the pages of a work which is largely posthumous with mixed feelings of pleasure 

 and regret. Mr. Bernard was an ardent worker, as witness the years he devoted 

 to the classification of corals. He was also a keen intellectual speculator and 

 those who knew him will well remember the half-serious, half-humorous disputations 

 on biological and sociological questions into which he could be so readily induced 

 to enter. 



The volume before us, which has been carefully and lovingly edited by 

 his wife, who survives him, brings back to us very vividly the man as we knew 

 him. Boldly speculating, often whimsical but always in earnest, he believed 

 thoroughly in the message he felt called upon to deliver. In these " Neglected 

 Factors" whoever runs may read his message — which enhances the evolution of 

 life and only stops with its culmination in the highest development, mental and 

 spiritual, of man. Probably many will hardly agree with the principles and 

 conclusions enunciated in the book but that would not have surprised the author 

 had he lived to see the completion of his work. At any rate the matter is well 

 presented and Mrs. Bernard may be congratulated on the judicious care she has 

 exercised in editing and preparing it for the press. 



Bulletin of the Bureau of Agricultural Intelligence and of Plant Diseases. 



(International Institute of Agriculture, Rome.) 



The International Institute of Agriculture was established under an International 

 Treaty of 1905 ratified by forty Governments and has since received the adhe- 

 sion of eight others. The business of the Institute is to collect and publish as 

 promptly as possible statistical and economic information concerning farming 

 and agricultural products ; to make known the new plant diseases that may 

 appear in any part of the world and report on the spread of the disease and on 

 effective remedies ; to study questions concerning agricultural co-operation ; 

 lastly to publish various bulletins. 



Of these latter, one contains abstracts of papers dealing with investigations 

 directly or indirectly bearing on agriculture. The chief editor is Prof. Italo 



