March io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



45 



dumps of ammunition and enemy ordnance had to be 

 destroyed, as well as thousands of aircraft, and when 

 thousands of airmen and many war-meteorologists 

 were waiting for demobilisation.' Is it not a pity 

 that all these forces have been left unemployed? 

 There still may be enough of them left to attempt to 

 execute at least part of such a programme. But there 

 is no time to lose, for every step that brings us nearer 

 complete demobilisation diminishes the facilities and 

 enhances the cost of the undertaking. 



V. SCHAFFERS, S.J. 



Louvain, January 28. 



The Designation of Vitamines. 



The opinion now appears to be general that the 

 bodies known as accessory foodstuffs should not be 

 termed "vitamines," as they have not been proved to 

 be amines, and, in fact, nothing appears to be known 

 of their constitution. Recently the name has been 

 written "vitamin," but this is not sufficiently dis- 

 tinctive for the spoken word unless the termination 

 be pronounced as "min," i.e. with the "i" short. 



If American authors cut off the final " e " from 

 "amine," as some do from chloride, iodide, sulphide, 

 sulphate, etc., the dropping of the "e" from 

 "vitamine" will not help matters so far as such 

 authors and their readers are concerned. I hope that 

 the practice of dropping the final "e" will not spread 

 to English writers ; for, although we should probably 

 soon get used to the appearance of chlorid, sulphid, 

 sulphit, sulphat, phosphat, etc., there may be a ten- 

 dency for some to pronounce these words with the 

 "i " short as in "fit " and the "a " short as in " fat," 

 while others would naturallv retain the present pro- 

 nunciation ; it is most undesirable to have two 

 different pronunciations for one and the same sub- 

 stance. The method of spelling sulphur and its 

 derivatives as sulfur, sulfates, etc., cannot affect the 

 pronunciation, and, moreover, the " ph " has crept in 

 in error. 



The " vitamines " might have been appropriately 

 called "vitalHnes," which would indicate the vital 

 part they play in nutrition, but that is, perhaps, too 

 near to "vitelline" in sound and unnecessarilv long; 

 if they were termed "vitams," "vitans," " vitines " 

 ("vitines" is probably more euphonious than 

 "vitams"), or "vitins," all possible chance of con- 

 fusion with other bodies would be avoided. The 

 different varieties could be distinguished by A, B, etc., 

 as has been proposed, or by o, /?, y, etc., in accord- 

 ance with the usual practice of so indicating closelv 

 related chemical substances; or the water-soluble 

 varieties might be written as w.s.. or simply w., 

 vitams, and the fat-soluble ones as f.s. or f. vitams ; 

 the letters w.s. or \v. and f.s. or f. would at once be 

 recognised as indicating their solubilities in water or 

 fat, and there would not be the same difficultv to the 

 reader of recollecting what .A, B, etc., stand for. 



A. LiVERSIDGE. 



Kingston Hill, Surrev. 



Scientific Names for Commercial Timbers. 



Tn the notice of "A Manual of the Timbers of the 

 World " in Nature of September 16, 1920, the 

 reviewer's final paragraph reads as follows : — " End- 

 less_ embarrassment to the landowning class resulted 

 during- the war from the confusion between the names 

 * silver spruce ' and ' silver fir. ' " 



Now, from my experience in the use of both 



1 [This sueextion w«s put forward by Prof. He Querv*in in January, iqiq, 

 »nd is referred to in NATua«, rol. cii., p. yrt, and vol. ciii., p. 31.— Editor.] 



scientific and common names, I feel sure all this 

 confusion could have been obviated by using scientific 

 names only, for in this case the timbers referred to 

 are both generically and specifically different, viz. 

 Picea sitctiensis and Abies pectinata respectively, 

 and, naturally, differently textured timbers. Although 

 it is a long way from "down under," I make this 

 appeal to the scientific man in the homeland, hoping 

 that he may prevail on the commercial man to use 

 scientific names exclusively, and to show him how 

 by his following a scientific lead it will be to the 

 latter's financial advantage. 



Much confusion existed in the nomenclature of the 

 product produced by eucalyptus-oil distillers when the 

 Sydney Technological Museum first undertook research 

 in this field of economics in 1897, for then it was only 

 with the greatest difficulty that oils true to name could 

 be obtained, all and sundry leaves being put in the 

 still. By using scientific names only from the start, 

 the pharmaceutical, perfumery, and other industrial 

 enterprises have in this direction been so much assisted 

 that the industry is placed on such a scientific basis 

 that all orders for Australian oils are given under 

 scientific names, the common names being absolutely 

 discarded, and so putting a stop to endless confusion 

 such as one finds in the timber trade. 



If this can be accomplished throughout the whole 

 essential oil trade, from oil distillers in the bush to 

 the city merchants, and finally to the chemist and 

 pharmacist, surely the timber trades and foresters 

 are not to be regarded as having a personnel on a 

 lower intellectual plane than, say, the bush distiller. 



This confusing of common names in Australia also 

 gives great trouble to the various trades using 

 timbers ; to give one instance only, there are five 

 distinct species of Proteaceous timbers placed on the 

 Sydney market under the name of "silky oak." In 

 order to assist the trades, I was moved to write a 

 paper on the subject, which was read before the Royal 

 Society of New South Wales. As a result, several 

 firms are now specifying scientific names when 

 placing orders for "silky oak," as thev know that by 

 so doing they will obtain the exact kind of timber 

 thev want for their requirements, and insist on having 

 that particular timber ; so in the end there is satis- 

 faction all round. Richard T. Baker. 



Technological Museum, Sydney, N.S.W., 

 January 6. 



NO. 2680, VOL. 107] 



" Elementary Practical Biochemistry." 



In the otherwise discriminating and useful review 

 of my little book, " Elementary Practical Bio- 

 chemistry," which appeared in Nature of Novem- 

 ber 25 last, there are certain statements due to a mis- 

 understanding- which I should like to correct, as they 

 might lead to an unjust estimate of the standards 

 in the medical school with which I have the honour 

 to be associated. The reviewer regrets that insuffi- 

 cient attention is paid to preparative and quantitative 

 work, whilst the absence of treatment of hvdrogen- 

 ion determination constitutes a "serious defect." 



As the preface indicates, this volume is one of 

 three. Of the other two, one is to be devoted to 

 clinical applications, and the remaining one to pre- 

 parative and quantitative procedures. There is 

 alreadv in the press a detailed description of hvdrogen- 

 ion determination by the indicator method, and also 

 bv the electrical method, usinc the Leeds-Northrup 

 potentiometer and a special electrode which is the 

 outcome of some years of patient investigation by 

 Dr. J. M. Lewis, a research student in my laboratory. 



W. A. Osborne. 



University of Melbourne, January 24. 



