Jl^LY 22, 1920] 



NATURE 



639 



things and brings in the physiology of the germ 

 or heredity, which it requires an effort of the mind 

 to associate with physiology at all. With so 

 novel an outlook and so enlarged a sphere, it 

 is impossible that everything should be exact and 

 beyond argument ; much must remain for a time 

 uncertain, and theories will abound, and do 

 abound, within the cover of this book. For 

 example, the statement that the normal new-born 

 infant is in a condition resembling acidosis is not 

 by any means secure against attack, as a research 

 by Sehom, made so recently as 1919, shows. 



Dr. Feldman does not claim to carry over into 

 pathology the ideas which this widened outlook 

 of physiology suggests, and yet indirectly disease 

 and the abnormal are recognised as lying just 

 below the horizon in almost every part. Thus 

 the peculiarities of the foetal circulation underlie 

 every statement which one can make regarding 

 congenital heart disease. And the converse is 

 also true, for the fact that the foetal heart beats 

 before and even at birth in a foetus possessing 

 neither brain nor spinal cord throws light upon 

 the physiology of cardiac action before birth, and 

 suggests that its rhythm is myogenic, and not 

 neurogenic, in origin. Interesting notions spring 

 up on every page, and the reader can scarcely 

 escape the stimulation to think out for himself 

 their application to all sorts of phenomena. One 

 is well accustomed to apply physiology to the 

 clarification of the diseases of adult tissues and 

 organs; but a certain degree of novelty attaches 

 to the effort to look at the pathological occur- 

 rences in the new-born infant in the light supplied 

 by the special conditions of ante-natal physiology. 

 For example, the umbilicus is, so to say, the "one 

 portal " by which all things (food supplies, oxygen 

 for respiration, and the germs of disease and toxic 

 substances) reach the unborn infant — it lives 

 through its umbilicus, and it may die by its um- 

 bilicus — and after birth, whilst it is no longer 

 nourished by the navel, it may yet for a time be 

 infected through it, as in cases of septic mischief 

 round the root of the cord stump. Most text- 

 books speak with an uncertain sound regarding 

 the diseases peculiar to the new-born infant — the 

 neonatal maladies, as they are called ; it will ere 

 long be found that much which is inexplicable in 

 their characters and causation is made plain by 

 the study of ante-natal physiology as it is affected 

 by the impact of birth-traumatism. 



The book is abundantly illustrated and admir- 

 ably arranged, and the author is particularly 

 happy in his choice of the quotations with which 

 he ushers in each chapter. For instance, what a 

 range of thought along novel lines is brought 

 NO. 2647, VOL. 105] 



before the reader's mind by Samuel Butler's para- 

 doxical truth with which the work begins : " Birth 

 ... is commonly considered as the point at 

 which we begin to live. More truly it is the 

 point at which we leave off knowing how to live." 

 One is tempted to turn away from the thought as, 

 in a sense, mental somersaulting; but if one re- 

 sists this inclination and looks fairly and wholly 

 at it, one sees that Nature's ante-natal provision 

 for the well-being of the unborn child is as near 

 perfection as can be imagined. The foetus, so to 

 say, knows how to live. Birth comes as the jolt 

 due to the changing of the gearing, and it is some 

 time before the new-born infant, with all the aid 

 that doctor, nurse, and mother can give him, can 

 be said to be in harmony with his environment. 



We should like to follow out other lines of 

 thought suggested by this volume, such as His's 

 dictum : "The ultimate aim of embryology is the 

 mathematical derivation of the adult from the dis- 

 tribution of growth in the germ " ; but enough 

 has been said to send the interested reader to the 

 book itself, where he will find fertile fields for the 

 intellect to water and in due season to reap. 



J. W. B. 



Forest Research. 



The Fungal Diseases of the Common Larch. By 

 W. E. Hiley. Pp. xi + 204. (Oxford: At the 

 Clarendon Press, 1919.) Pr-ice 12s. 6d. net. 



THIS volume is the most important contribu- 

 tion to the scientific literature of forestry 

 that has been made for some years. Mr. Hiley 

 was well advised to select the larch as the subject 

 of his first investigation as Research Officer in the 

 School of Forestry in Oxford, for it is in many 

 respects the most important species of tree that 

 is cultivated in this country. Moreover, it is a 

 tree the health of which has given much concern 

 to foresters and others for many years past. 



After an introductory chapter on the general 

 relationships of host and parasite, and on the 

 morphology of the larch, Mr. Hiley proceeds to 

 deal with the larch disease, or larch canker in 

 the specific sense of the term. This is due to the 

 attack of a Discomycetous fungus, which is 

 usually known in this country under the name of 

 Dasyscypha calycina. The author does well to 

 remind us that M. J. Berkeley was the first to 

 recognise the fungal character of this disease, 

 although the work of Willkomm and of Robert 

 Hartig is more frequently cited. Hartig, followed 

 by Massee, believed that infection could take place 

 only through a wound, and it must be said that 

 there is much observational and experimental evi- 



