zutniuitt 



für 



allgemeine und experimentelle Biologie 



Bd. II. 2. Augustheft, 1. und 2. Septemberheft. Nr. 10/11/12. 



1. Allgemeines, Lehr- und Handbücher, Nach- 

 schlagewerke usw. 



(Siehe auch Nr. 827, S28, 829, 853, 864.) 



691) Ritter, Win. E., The controversy between materialism and 

 vitalism: can it be ended? 



(Science 33,847. p. 437—441. 1911.) 



Der Streit zwischen Materialismus und Vitalismus könnte beendet werden, 

 wenn beide Anschauungsweisen als „Meilensteine an der Straße des Fort- 

 schrittes" erkannt würden. Den Phänomenen materielle Substrate, die nie zur 

 Beobachtung gelangen, unterzuschieben (Materialismus), und ihrem Wesen 

 nach unkörperliche Kräfte, die sich nie erweisen lassen, zur Erklärung heran- 

 zuziehen (Vitalismus), sind Verfahren, die ihre Wurzeln in magischen und 

 animistischen Vorstellungen vergangener Zeiten haben. Beide Male wird über- 

 sehen, daß jeder Vorgang als ein Ganzes und in seinen organischen Beziehungen 

 zum übrigen Universum erfaßt „its own final and only adequate exploration" 

 in sich schließt (Anschluß an Bergs on). J. Schaxel (z. Z. Neapel). 



692) Mac Dougal, D. T., Organic response. 



(Amer. Naturalist 45. p. 5—40. 1911.) 



This presidential address before the American Naturalists' Society is a 

 consideration of the effects of environmental factors in producing variations 

 in organisms, the heritability of such induced variations, and their bearing 

 on general evolutionary problems. A wide ränge of recent results showing 

 the effects of various environmental forces upon the soma, is quoted, in some 

 of which cases there seems to be evidence of at least partial inheritance of 

 these effects. The experiments and observations quoted ränge in plants from 

 bacteria and fungi to seed plants, and in animals from Protoza to man himself. 



The observations of Zederbauer on genotypes of Capsella bursa pa- 

 storis on the plains and adjacent table lands of Asia Minor, shows with con- 

 siderable probability that the highland form is the result of a direct response 

 to a changed environment, and that the continued impress of the alpine climate 

 has resulted finally in these changes becoming heritable. 



Anthropologists have long pointed out the striking way in which human 

 races vary in their shade of color according to their geographical distribution, 

 this also being considered an adaptation. 



The extensive results obtained by laboratory experiments in which orga- 

 nisms have been subjected to varying illumination, temperature, salinity, alka- 

 linity or chemical composition of the medium are also considered, and the 



Zentralblatt f. allg. u. exp. Biologie. II. 18 



