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is in two small volumes, very well organized from the printer's 

 Standpoint and the material is clearly and definitely put. 



The first voluine deals with the organic chemistry of plants. 

 The subject receives different treatment from that of many of the 

 texts in organic chemistry purported to aid especially the biochemical 

 Student, and which begin with the simple hydrocarbons (few of 

 which appear at all in the economy of organisms, plant or animal) 

 and work thence to the alcohols, aldehydes, etc. Euler's book 

 begins with the alcohols and only the Compounds of the nitrogen- 

 free aliphatics, the nitrogen-free cyclic and the nitrogenous Com- 

 pounds (alkaloids, amins, purins, amino acids, Polypeptids and pro- 

 teins) are considered which have any interest to the Student of the 

 chemistry of living things. Brief qualitative and quantitative data 

 are included after the discussions of the Compounds; and their dis- 

 tribution in plants and likewise in animals is mentioned. The 

 second volume is confined to the general laws of plant life, with 

 special reference to the physical chemistry of the various processes. 

 The second half of it is devoted to a discussion of the chemical 

 processes. While there is, therefore, a distinction in regard to these 

 two phases, there is no unnatural limitation tending to classify 

 organic processes into those concerned with the chemistry of the 

 carbon atom and the phenomena of surface tension, osmosis, etc. 



The second publication, also concerned with the biochemistry of 

 plants, is a small primer by Frederick Czapek the well-known author 

 of the two-volume " Biochemie der Pflanzen." The little volume is 

 entitled "Chemical Phenomena in Life" and is one of Harper's 

 Library of Living Thought. The point of view is principally that 

 of the physical chemist undertaking a rationale of plant processes, 

 protoplasm being considered as proteins in the colloidal State, the 

 cell-membrane being considered in the light of permeability and 

 semi-permeability, enzymes being considered in the light of the in- 

 organic catalyzer data and the laws of mass action, etc. It is an 

 excellent book for the teacher to put into the hands of the beginner 

 in biochemistry, for if this does not stimulate an interest in the sub- 

 ject, it is doubtful whether anything eise will. 



The excellent treatment of the physico-chemical phenomena of 

 the animal body which Hedin (Upsala) contributed to Mandel's 



