BOOKS RECEIVED 



The BioCHEMiCAL Bulletin promptly acknowledges here the receipt of 

 publications presented to it. Reviews are matter-of-fact Statements of the 

 nature and contents of the publications referred to, and are intended solely to 

 guide possible purchasers ; the wishes or expcctations of publishers or donors of 

 volumes will be disregarded, if they are incompatible with our convictions re- 

 garding the interests of our colleagues. The sises of the printed pages are 

 indicated, in inches, in the appended notices. 



Artificial parthenogenesis and fertilization. By Jacques Loeb, memb. of 

 the Rockefeller Inst. Originally translated from the German by W. O. Redman 

 King, assis. lecturer in zoology, Univ. of Leeds, Eng. ; supplementcd and revised 

 by the author. Pp. 312 — 6]/^ XsH', $2.50 net. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1913. 



A prescntation, in the author's accustomed masterly manner, of the " meth- 

 ods by which the unfertilized egg can bc caused to develop into an embryo and 

 the conclusions which can be drawn concerning the mechanism by which the 

 Spermatozoon produces this effect." The voluminous mass of facts recorded 

 and discussed by the author not only supports his thcory that at least two factors 

 are involved in this process — one ("essential") which induces a change in the 

 siirface of the tg^; a second which is "corrective" — but also relates to such 

 Problems as the "natural death of the ovum and the Prolongation of its life by 

 fertilization; the fertilization of the egg by foreign blood and the immunity of 

 the egg to blood of its own species; the relations between heterogeneous hybridi- 

 zation and artificial parthenogenesis, between fertilization and cytolysis, and 

 between permcability and physiological efficiency of acids and bases." Gies. 



Materia medica: pharmacology: therapeutics: prescription writing. By 

 Walter A. Bastedo, assoc. in pharmacology and therapeutics, Columbia Univ. 

 Pp. 602—7 X 4 ; $3-50. W. B. Saunders Company, Phila., 1913. 



The work is divided into three sections. Part I serves as a gencral intro- 

 duction and is cspecially commendable for the excellent discussion of the con- 

 stituents of organic drugs. Part II deals with the individual remedies, which 

 are considered on Schmiedeberg's plan. The discussion of the action and uses 

 of the cathartics is unusually practical and valuable. The forty odd pages 

 devoted to an explanation of the action of digitalis is justified by the importance 

 of the drug and by the great increase in our knowledge of cardiac physiology 

 and therapeutics. The action of digitalis is discussed in an original way, which 

 makes more easy the apprehension of the complex action of this drug. The 

 changes in the circulation are taken up according to the action on the sinus 

 node, the cardiac muscie, the A-V bündle, the coronary and the systemic arteries. 

 The action on each structure is first studied separately and the combined effects 

 are then made clear. The numerous pol3'graphic tracings accompanying this 

 chapter are unusually good, but it seems unfortunate that they are not elucidated 

 by diagrams. The scction dealing with the gcneral ancsthetics is also worthy 

 of note. Part III, devoted to prescription writing, is short but comprehensive. 

 Enough Latin grammar is given to facilitate prescription writing for those who 

 have not studied Latin. The pages devoted to practice in prescription writing 

 will prove a boon to students and teachers. It is to be regretted that preference 

 is given throughout the book to the apothecaries' System of weights and meas- 

 ures rather than to the metric system. There are, as is to be expected in a first 



