Feb. 20, 1879] 



NATURE 



359 



The absence of any very recent English work of the 

 kind does not lighten the difficulty of \vriting one ; but 

 the disadvantage of this absence is not so great as it- 

 might at first sight seem ; for on the Continent there are 

 text-books which in case of need might have serv^ed as a 

 standard or lay-figure. 



The difficulties of the task have, therefore, without a 

 doubt, been many ; but the task itself should not 

 have been hopeless or ungrateful. English workers 

 in physiological chemistry have at present to betake 

 themselves to Hoppe-Seyler, Kiihne, Gautier, Gorup- 

 Besanez, for the chemico-physiological facts they stand 

 in need of. English students have to make do the brief 

 sections on Animal Chemistry — admirable, but of necessity 

 imperfect and categorical — contained in the English text- 

 books of physiology'. Hence an English book specially 

 devoted to animal chemistry, if at all exhaustive, accu- 

 rate, and modem, would be likely to bespeak for itself a 

 hearty welcome, and a disposition to extenuate its short- 

 comings. 



Such were the prospects, unfavourable and favourable, 

 of an attempt to fill up the book-shelf of English workers 

 in natural science by a manual of animal chemistry. We 

 turn to Mr. Kingzett's book, and, after a careful and 

 reiterated perusal of it, we can say that never was attempt 

 so rashly undertaken. We had expected a soimd, if 

 modest, substratum of physiological knowledge, and we 

 find slipshod notions and the speculations of the amateur. 

 We had expected apposite illustrations from pathology, 

 and we find, in most cases, trivial and meaningless re- 

 ferences to disease. We had expected a complete and 

 careful account of the more piu-ely chemical portions, and 

 we find a degree of imperfection which sends us back 

 with thankfulness to the chemical sections of Foster and 

 Hermann. 



Nor is this all. The book is styled a book of animal 

 chemistry, and we therefore expected animal chemistry' ; 

 but in addition to the sections so called we find scattered 

 here and there reflections on life, character, and the 

 morals of scientific work which, even were they not mere 

 platitudes, would be utterly out of place in a work like 

 this. 



These strictures may seem severe, but they would not be 

 wholly unexpected by any one who had read Mr. Kingzett's 

 preface. He says : — " For four years I was occupied 

 with the practical study of subjects comprehended in the 

 following chapters, and during the whole of that time 

 there were no fluctuations in the success attending the 



labours in which my services were involved It 



was therefore a matter of sincere regret with me that 

 circumstances (which are said to be stronger then men) 

 ultimately necessitated the discontinuance of my connec- 

 tion with work which had given me so much real plea- 

 sure." Then follows a page or so of reflections on the 

 pleasure to be derived firom original investigation ; com- 

 parisons of the " scientist " and the " sentimentalist ; '' and 

 so forth. "It ^vas natural, then," he continues, "that, 

 having experienced so much pleasiu-e, I should be moved 

 with equal regret in resigning the practical study of phy- 

 siological chemistry ; and in order to complete a well- 

 remembered but brief connection with this subject, I 

 determined to attempt a task which should prove of ser- 

 vice to scientific men, namely, to collect and systematise, 



as far as could be, all the trustworthy work on record in 

 relation to animal chemistry, so far as it concerns the 

 human body." We submit that four years' practical 

 work at a subject like animal chemistry, be the success 

 of the worker never so unfluctuating, is hardly warrant 

 enough to undertake that which taxes the matured judg- 

 ment even of a master, viz., the making of a useful and 

 comprehensive text-book. Nor do we perceive that Mr. 

 Kingzett's desire to signalise his departure from the field 

 of chemico-physiological research adds any urgency to 

 the warrant. We hope to show in the sequel that this 

 prefetory confession on the part of the author, of prac- 

 tical unpreparedness for the task he had set himself to 

 do, is fully borne out by the internal evidence of the 

 book. 



Mr. Kingzett does not profess to have included any 

 account of the practical methods of the science. This, 

 while it much lightens the labour of writing the book, is, 

 we think, doubly to be regretted ; because the book is to 

 be read by medical men, who are not supposed in every 

 case to remember chemical methods, and by scientific 

 chemists who cannot be expected to know, for example, 

 the modes of practising fistulae, or rapidly removing blood 

 from brains intended for analysis. 



Mr. Kingzett' s haphazard preparation for his task is 

 weU displayed in his seeming ignorance — not of the latest, 

 but even of the penultimate — advances of the chemistry 

 of physiological processes. Thus, while treating of pep- 

 tones, whether in this part (p. 63) or ob p. 386, Kiihne' s 

 well-known and suggestive researches on the action of 

 the digestive juices on proteids are inexphcably omitted ; 

 and nowhere, indeed, is the formation of peptones and 

 their relationship to the albuminous bodies attempted 

 systematically or adequately to be discussed. In treating 

 of pancreatic juice the beautiful and conclusive work of 

 Heidenhain on the production of the active ferment — a 

 subject surely of the first chemico-physiological interest 

 — is not once referred to, and indeed, by implication, ig- 

 nored. (Cf. p. 70, where the preparation of extracts of 

 pancreas is briefly described without any caution being 

 given as to the time the pancreas should be let stand 

 before being used.) 



The inaccuracy of the author may be illustrated by 

 a reference to pp. 49 and 60. There the effects of alkalis 

 and acids of various strengths in amylolysis and proteo- 

 lysis are mis-stated, and the important inferences from 

 the facts altogether ignored. 



Let us now turn to the chapter on the blood in Part 

 III. Here, if anywhere in the book, we should expect 

 to find completeness and the traces of careful work. 

 On the contrary', on turning up Coagulation (p. 144) — the 

 much-investigated, if not best-understood, process of the 

 blood — we find the phenomenon itself imperfectly stated, 

 the retarding influence of alkaline salts described without 

 any quantitative conditions being given, and the theory 

 of A. Schmidt discussed so slovenly and unintelligently 

 that the important fibrin-ferment is nowhere directly 

 treated of, but only implied (p. 146), if, indeed, it is not 

 confused with paraglobulin. (See p. 146, the first para- 

 graph, and p. 144, the second paragraph : the various 

 statements taken together wiU, undoubtedly, bear such 

 an interpretation.) 



The blood as a respiratory tissue fares no better (p. 



