512 



NA TURE 



[March 28, 1901 



organic substances" (p. 265) Dr. Cohen has made a 

 most praiseworthy attempt to systematise the analysis of 

 organic substances. This part of the book might 

 advantageously have been expanded (if necessary at the 

 expense of the appendix), when the futility of the closing 

 hint ^ might have been avoided. 



The old method for the preparation of diethyl malonate 

 —the pons asinoruin of the organic chemist — is still 

 -given, but a better yield is obtained by the method of 

 Noyes (y^«r«a/ of the American Chemical Society, 18, 

 .1105, 1896); succinic acid melts at 185°, not 180''; the 

 conversion of citraconic into mesaconic acid (p. 112) is 

 due to Fittig, not to Jacobson ; methyl oxalate (Prep. 24) 

 is not indexed ; and the preparation of kreatinine 

 might advantageously have been omitted. 



We must, however, congratulate Dr. Cohen on having 

 produced the best elementary book, in the English 

 language, on practical organic chemistry, and we have 

 found that our students use the book with great con- 

 fidence and are perfectly able to prepare any of the 

 substances from the descriptions. The book, which is 

 well printed and free from typographical errors, should 

 rank with the similar works of Ludwig Gattermann in 

 German, and of Dupont and Freundler in French. 



W. T. L. 



■ OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Description of the Human Spines, showing Numerical 

 Variation, in the Warren Museum of the Harvard 

 Medical School. By T. Dwight, M.D., LL.D. 

 (Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History). 

 Vol. V. No. 7. Pp. 75. (Boston, U.S.A., 1901.) 



This memoir is for the greater part a careful description, 

 with elaborate tabulation and adequate illustration, of 

 forty-five anomalous human back-bones which, with one 

 exception, were obtained during many years spent by the 

 author in the dissecting-room of the Harvard Medical 

 School. In the introductory portion of the work the 

 author discusses Rosenberg's methods and well-known 

 theory of "concomitant variations," based on the 

 appreciation of a tendency of the cervical and lumbar 

 regions of the column to absorb into themselves the 

 thoracic, with change progressive and retrogressive at 

 the opposite ends of this. Accepting, without proof, the 

 theory that the human ilium enters into relation with 

 different vertebrae during development, the author passes 

 on to the consideration of irregular segmentation, and a 

 discussion of the views of Baur, Bateson and others on 

 inter- and ex-calation, deferring the latter author's theory 

 of "homoeosis " for consideration in the body of the work. 

 He finally denies the existence of a precise number of 

 lumbar vertebras, and finds refuge in Welcker's theory of 

 the vertebra fuleralis. With this as a determining factor 

 he largely deals, and the most interesting portion of his 

 memoir is that in which he shows it to be the twenty- 

 fourth vertebra in each of seven examples lacking one of 

 the praesacral series. He classifies his specimens into 

 classes, and clearly, systematically formulates the in- 

 dividual spines of each, and deals in some cases with 

 correlated modification of the spinal nerves. Arguing that 

 the "essential part of the ofiice of the spine is to form 

 the median support of the trunk," he deduces what he 

 terms a " vitalistic conception," viz., that parts in corre- 

 sponding situations exhibit a tendency to develop in a 



1 ["2, Solids. — A mixture of solids may be separated either by use of a 

 su'table solvent which will dissolve one of the constituents more readily 

 than the other, or by means of one of the reagents described above" 

 P- 272)]. 



NO. 1639. VOL. 63] 



corresponding manner ; and in finally discussing Rosen- 

 berg's view, he remarks that its success has been largely 

 due to the fact that "it fitted in so perfectly with the 

 doctrine of descent by gradual modifications," and gives 

 as his opinion that, "unfortunately for science," it has 

 "become too much the custom to make everything 

 square with this." 



The memoir as a whole is laborious, but accurate and 

 systematic, and will be of great use to the working 

 anthropotomist. There is appended a description of 

 some incomplete specimens of interest in the author's 

 collection, and we would remind him that among the 

 quadrupedal mammals co-ossification of the atlas vertebra 

 with the skull is at times found to be an effect of disloca- 

 tion, and would recommend to his consideration the 

 recent description by Broom of an Echidna's spine 

 having eight cervical vertebras, and his discovery that in 

 some marsupials the fourth lumbar and anterior caudal 

 vertebrae bear in the young state free ribs. 



Where Black Rules White : A fourney across and 

 about Hayti. By H. Prichard. Pp. 288. (West- 

 minster : Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1900.) \2s. 



Mr. Prichard visited Haiti in the year 1899 as a 

 special correspondent of the Daily Express ; and in the 

 volume under notice we have his impressions and experi- 

 ences described, with anecdotes and illustrations. He 

 made a short trip into Santo Domingo, to which he devotes 

 a chapter, but otherwise the book is concerned with the 

 people, places and affairs of the part of the island 

 governed by the Haiti Republic. Referring to the 

 people of the Dominican State, Mr. Prichard remarks : 

 " They are not nearly so likeable as the Haytian 

 peasantry, and hospitality does not flourish in the same 

 degree as on the western side of the border. On the 

 other hand, the Government of San Domingo is less 

 jealous of foreign influence. The Dominicans speak 

 Spanish, and have preserved the purity of their language 

 to a far greater degree than can be said of the Haytians, 

 whose French has degenerated into a Creole patois so 

 corrupt that it can with difificulty be understood by 

 outsiders." 



From a scientific point of view, the most important 

 statements made relate to Voudou worship and sacrifice. 

 The author says that the people of Haiti are practically 

 under the control of Papalois or Voudou priests, other- 

 wise Haitian witch-doctors and medicine-men ; and he 

 brings charges against them of murders and human 

 sacrifices which the Government of the Republic appears 

 unable to prevent. As to the ceremonies connected with 

 the worship of Voudou, he remarks : " There are said 

 to be two sects of Vaudoux : one which sacrifices only 

 fruits, white cocks and white goats to the serpent-god ; 

 the other, that sinister cult above referred to, whose 

 lesser ceremonies call for the blood of a black goat, but 

 whose advanced orgies cannot be fully carried out with- 

 out the sacrifice of the goat without horns— the human 

 child." Miss Kingsley touched upon this subject in 

 her "West African Studies." 



Mr. Prichard made a special point while in Haiti of 

 obtaining information as to Voudou ceremonies and 

 sacrifices, and m some cases was able to obtain direct 

 knowledge. He gives an account of personal observa- 

 tions of sorne of the rites, which should be of interest to 

 ethnologists. 



Untersuchungen zur Blutgerinnung. By Dr. Ernst 

 Schwalbe. Pp. 89. (Brunswick : Vieweg, 1900.) 



Dr. Ernst Schwalbe herein summarises the previous 

 researches on the chemistry and morphology of the 

 coagulation of the blood, and adds some new observations 

 of his own. 



He has employed Reye's method of separating 



