240 



NATURE 



[April 20, 



i')i \ 



a general character, all of which, it may be remarked, 

 have in this article already been given in an intro- 

 ductory description of general properties of the 

 group. 



Apart from dttails, nearly all the articles which 

 deal with subjects of gfneral interest will be found 

 to present a well-known and familiar appearance to 

 the biochemist. Any laborator>' which possesses 

 E. Fischer's work on the amino-acids and poly- 

 peptides can have little service for the present mono- 

 fjraph on the same subject in this series. The article 

 on the vej^etable proteins in the " Biochemischen 

 Arbeitsmethoden." written by the same author, edited 

 by the same editor, anci issued by the same publish- 

 ing house (reviewed in Nature a few months ago), 

 takes much of the wind out of the sails of the article 

 on the " Proteine der Pflanzenwelt " in the present 

 colossal work, which is appearing simultaneously 

 with the equally colossal " Handbuch der bio- 

 chemischen Arbeitsmethoden " under Prof. Emil 

 Abderhalden 's jjuidance. 



There would appear to be a paying market for any 

 large work on chemistry issued in Germany, for that 

 country seems to have become the world's factory for 

 this tj'pc of literature, and of all German editors Prof. 

 Emil Abderhalden seems to be the most prolific, as 

 witness the twin works, each of about seven volumes, 

 and each volume so fat that it becomes itself a twin, 

 issuing at the same time under his editorship. But 

 one occasionally feels there can be too much of this 

 thing, and is inclined to cry out, " Halt, halt ; we 

 must work as well as read," and spend our money, 

 at least in part, upon materials and equipment for 

 our laboratories, which bid fair to be starved by too 

 much cooking for our libraries. 



Benjamin Moore. 



METABOLISM OF PLANTS. 

 Der Stoffivechsel der Pflanzen. By Prof. A. 

 Nathansohn. Pp. viii + 472. (Leipzig: Quelle 

 and Meyer, 1910.) Price 12 marks. 



THE great advances that have been made in recent 

 years in research into the leading principles and 

 fundamental facts of the physiology of plants have 

 made it necessary to specialise in particular direc- 

 tions, and the literature of the subject shows in con- 

 sequence a tendency to deal with two aspects of the 

 general life of plants almost entirely apart from one 

 another. Of these the first embraces the phenomena 

 of the individual life; the second, the relations of the 

 individual to the conditions of its environment. In 

 the present volume Dr. Nathansohn has undertaken 

 to deal almost exclusively with the former of these 

 problems, and has set before himself the task of dis- 

 cussing the present position of the metabolic pheno- 

 mena characteristic of the green plant. The book is 

 not intended to displace the standard text-books on 

 the subject, but to deal more exhaustively than is 

 possible in the latter with the gradual unfolding of 

 knowledge and the gathering together of the mass of 

 detail which has been accumulating for the past 

 decade or longer. 



In pursuance of this design he has dealt with his 

 NO. 2164, VOL. 86] 



subject in eight secticms, following the general line 

 of treatment of his predecessors. Beginning with the 

 absorption of material from the soil and the atmo- 

 sphere, he deals with the construction and nr 

 ment of foods, certain problems of nu:. 

 immediate and deferred, respiration and the regulation 



of energy, and the pluruiminn of •^iin-lian ami 



excretion. 



The discussion of the ni.>i ui iin>,r uui.stiun>. in- 

 volving the absorption and transport of water, 

 involves the examination of many physical and 

 chemical questions, which are ably handled, with a 

 due avoidance of dogmatism. The author introduce"^ 

 the second problem with a historical summary <>f ili<- 

 earlier work on the question of photosynthesis, 

 he prefers to call it, carbon dioxide assimilatiui.. 1. 

 is a little disappointing to find him almost stopping 

 short here with the researches of the Sachsian 

 period, and dealing very briefly with the result of 

 later investigations. His treatment of the metabolic 

 processes and phenomena in which non-nitrogenou5 

 substances are concerned leads one to regret that 

 while the sugars are dealt with at great length, he 

 has very little to say about the glucosides, inulin, and 

 the celluloses. The metabolic phenomena in which 

 these are concerned are of considerable importance, 

 and a graphic presentation of them is just now much 

 to be desired. In his treatment of nitrogenous sub- 

 stances, too. Dr. Nathansohn has dealt at some length 

 with the proteins, giving them, as is natural, a posi- 

 tion commensurate with their importance in meta- 

 bolism; but he leaves us wishing he had devoted 

 more space to such bodies as the alkaloids, which ht 

 dismisses somewhat briefly. 



While appreciating the great amount of valuable 

 material which the book contains, the English reader 

 will be struck with particular deficiencies. The point 

 of view leaves something to be desired. The book 

 treats of the plant as a machine rather than as a 

 living organism. No doubt it is a machine, but it 1- 

 much more than that; it is capable of regulatinfi 

 all its chemical and physical processes according to 

 its requirements from time to time and to the varia- 

 tion of external conditions. The part played by the 

 living substance in the various changes and re- 

 arrangements that constitute metabolism is only too 

 easily lost sight of. It is especially necessary to 

 emphasise this fact, particularly in the discussion of \ 

 the respirator\' phenomena, or one might suppose that 

 the respirator}' interchanges take *place for the most 

 part without any involvement of the protoplasm, as if 

 sugars, or fats, or what not, are oxidised in the cell 

 by direct action of oxygen upon them. The fact that 

 respiration is an indication of profound auto-decom- 

 position and reconstruction of the protoplasmic mole- 

 cule might have been made more impressive to the 

 reader of the chapters w-hich deal with this subject. 



Another feature which is ven,' remarkable is the 

 narrow range of literature which the author quotes. 

 Out of a total of some 450 references, a bare dozen 

 or so are English, and scarcely more than a score 

 are French. The English reader will certainly regret 

 the very scant attention that has been paid to Eng- 



