BOTANY Foil STUDENTS OF MEDICINE AND PIIARMACY 6L 



fled in the production and issue of this handsome and useful vohnne, 

 which will appeal to a far wider circle of students than that for 

 which it is nominally intended. As the authors imply in the pi'c- 

 fatory note, " the ordinary medical syllahus and that of the Pharma- 

 ceutical Society's Minor Examination is" much more "than ade- 

 (piately covered." Should the young aspirant, enthusiastic beyond 

 the limits of his examinational syllabus, carefully go through and 

 study the thirty chapters, he will provide himself \vith the material 

 for a thorough groundwork of structural and physiological botany; 

 and should he acquire a compound microscope, he will find a perennial 

 interest in its use for extending his studies, assisted by the summary 

 in the form of an appendix. The logical sequence of the chapters 

 (and their apt titles) is a commendable feature of the handbook, 

 beginning with the plant considered as a whole and ending with a 

 concise review of heredity and evokltion as applied to plants. More- 

 over, the subject-matter of the text is not disfigured with notes, 

 comments, partisan views, and controversial points. The figures, of 

 which a large proportion are original, are extremely good, though the 

 Potometer represented on p. 159 {iig. 76) may "^ remind one of an 

 Egyptian divinity holding up a sacred symbol with one arm and 

 indicating with the other a hieroglyphic script, so that the ^^oz'-pait 

 seems to support a double function. 



The authors are fortunate in their selection of common and 

 familiar types as pegs whereon to hang examples which serve the 

 ])urposes of discussing variation in structure and function from the 

 l)iological standpoint, especially where the same types are referred to 

 under several headings. The diligent tyro is encouraged in his 

 general observations when diverse aspects of plant-economy can be 

 readily demonstrated in " easy finds," such as Shepherd's Purse, 

 Horse Chestnut, Buttercup, Dead-Nettle, and Bracken. The subject 

 of the non-living contents of cells (chap, ix.) receives, as it deserves, 

 much more attention than it usually gets in manuals of this kind ; 

 the origin and use of such food-substances as starch, sugar, oils, 

 inulin, proteins, built up from simple inorganic' compounds, is lucidly 

 dealt with, ending with a useful table of the food-content of various 

 ])lant-products. In the following chapter a similarly useful table 

 summarizes the action and source, etc. of the principal alkaloids 

 familiar in medicine and pharmacy. The section on the nutritive 

 processes of the plant (chap, xvii) treats the subject in a jiractical 

 manner (often neglected in text-books), discussing successively water- 

 cultures, chlorophyll, photosynthesis, parasites, saprophytes, and in- 

 sectivorous plant. The chapter on Classification of Plants is brief, 

 but not out of proportion to the relative importance of the manv 

 other subjects dealt with. 



The final chapter on Heredity and Evolution is one of the most 

 interesting and lucid in the book, though it will hardly appeal to 

 the average medical or pharmaceutical student. The central idea, 

 borrowed from a great naturalist, is concisely stated : — "The organisms 

 of the present are the offspring of those of the past, and will them- 

 selves, in turn, give rise to the organisms of the future. The larf'e 



