June 3, 1922] 



NATURE 



705 



To take a concrete example, nothing could be more 

 truly in the domains of biochemistry and biophysics 

 than are the chemical and physical properties of 

 haemoglobin. When our knowledge of these pro- 

 perties is complete — and it is now only commencing to 

 open up — we shall be but in a position to commence 

 the study of the red corpuscle — its birth, its fate, the 

 extent to which it may be regarded as a living entity, 

 and its relationship to other tissues in the body. These 

 are physiology — physiology surely remains ; and indeed 

 these reflections apply not only to physiology but to 

 pathology and medicine. It is only a matter of time 

 till corresponding books on these subjects appear. 

 There are chemical and physical aspects of pathology 

 and medicine as truly as of physiology, but when 

 pathological chemistr\' and the chemistry of medicine 

 have said all that they should say, they too will be 

 rather the necessary apparatus of pathology and 

 medicine than the subjects themselves. Pathology 

 and medicine will consist in the application of the 

 chemical facts to the human subject as a whole — 

 jointly with many other kinds of facts which are not 

 chemical. 



In the future of medical schools it would look as 

 though chemistry and physics would be taught all 

 along the line by persons specially qualified for the 

 task, not merely as at present for the first M.B., or as 

 in some cases organic chemistry for the second M.B. 

 is now taught, not as side issues or luxuries or as the 

 affairs of specialists, but as the necessary ground- 

 work from which medical science grows — soil necessary 

 to the tree. The line between the ground and the tree 

 may be artificial and may be movable, but the dis- 

 tinction between the ground and the tree does not 

 lack reality on that account. 



Early Chinese Pottery. 



The Early Ceramic Wares of China. By A. L. Hether- 

 ington. Pp. xviii + 160 + 44 plates. (London : Benn 

 Bros., Ltd., 1922.) 3/. 3^. net. 



THIS excellent and trustworthy piece of work, 

 obviously the fruit of prolonged research and 

 consideration of the available evidence, is precisely the 

 book one would recommend to the student or collector 

 who was about to enter upon a serious study of the 

 earlier Chinese pottery and porcelain with a view of 

 forming a collection for his personal delight and study ; 

 for it is conceived and carried through in such a fine 

 vein of reasoned enthusiasm that one could scarcely 

 wish for a saner yet more inspiriting guide. Though 

 our knowledge and understanding of the progressive 

 steps by which the early pottery and porcelain of that 

 vast territory were slowly brought to perfection are 

 NO. 2744, VOL. 109] 



still incomplete, and must probably always remain so, 

 really competent works such as this are of great value, 

 if further progress is to be made in the task of elucida- 

 tion, because they focus attention so clearly on what 

 is known and, at the same time, remind us of the most 

 important points that are still unknown or, at best, 

 imperfectly understood. 



European knowledge of the earlier centuries of 

 Chinese ceramic history is a plant of slow and com- 

 paratively recent growth. There is all the more reason, 

 therefore, to welcome a volume of this scope and style 

 — illustrated by an abundance of choice examples 

 which have been carefully selected from the most 

 famous English collections, especially from those which 

 are . still in private keeping — which describes, in a 

 connected narrative with copious references to the 

 standard authorities, those delightful and alluring 

 examples of the potter's skill which are anterior in 

 date (many of them long anterior), to the foundation 

 of that important masterful dynasty known as " The 

 Ming " (the chiefs of a western warrior race which 

 seized the Imperial throne in a.d. 1368, and held it in 

 the most brilliant fashion for close on three hundred 

 years). 



Although the Chinese potters of Sung times, under 

 their native rulers, had made an abundance of fine 

 porcelains of superb artistic quality for some centuries 

 before the advent of the Ming rulers and overlords, 

 it was only during the sway of the latter that the 

 mysterious substance, Chinese porcelain, found its way 

 into the treasure-cabinets of European princes in any 

 appreciable quantity. For centuries after its first 

 sporadic appearance in Europe, the novelty of its 

 substance, together with the matchless skill displayed 

 in its fabrication and decoration, gave rise to a crop 

 of the wildest legends and guesses as to its nature and 

 composition. This is especially shown in the writings 

 of our medieval European naturalists and alchemists, 

 who, while groping in the dark among things old and 

 new, were laying the foundations of modern scientific 

 methods and knowledge. The era that saw the Ming 

 emperors firmly seated on the throne of China was of 

 great moment in the history of civilisation, for all 

 over the old world a spirit of keen intellectual activity 

 and enterprise worked like a new leaven, manifesting 

 itself in eager inquiry into all the things of heaven 

 and earth no less than in the accomplished production 

 of fine material things. It seems like one of nature's 

 own revenges that a period of time which was once a 

 chosen domain for the historians of the drum and 

 trumpet school is now seen to have been pregnant with 

 discoveries and inventions which were to revolutionise 

 the subsequent progress and prospects of mankind. 



In a work of this class the reader will always consider 



2A I 



