NATURE 



11 



THURSDAY, MAY 26, li 



MODERN PHYSIOLOGY FROM THE 

 CHEMICAL STANDPOINT. 

 Text- book of Physiology. Edited by E. A. Schafer, 

 LL.D., F.R.S. Voi. i. (Edinburgh and London : 

 Young J. Pentland, 1898.) 



UNDOUBTEDLY, as the editor remarks in bis 

 preface to the above work, there has been a great 

 desire on the part of teachers of physiology in this 

 country to obtain a complete text-book on their subject, 

 written in English, somewhat similar to the classical 

 Handbuch of Hermann. Prof. Schafer, with the aid of 

 some of the best-known physiologists in Britain at the 

 present day, has succeeded in bringing out a work which, 

 if one may judge from the first volume, is destined to 

 supply more or less completely the want that has been so 

 long felt. It is a text-book essentially intended for ad- 

 vanced students ; and although all the parts are not 

 treated with like fulness, still the fact remains undoubted 

 that at present no text-book in English is so complete as 

 this one. The first volume deals practically entirely with 

 the subject from the chemical standpoint. The first two 

 chapters, by Halliburton, on the chemical constituents of 

 the body and food, and on the chemistry of the tissues 

 and organs respectively, are praiseworthy in so far as 

 they give a fairly full account of the subjects with which 

 they deal. But, seeing that these chapters must contain 

 from their very nature many of the points to be discussed 

 afterwards tmder special chapters, it would have been 

 better, perhaps, had they been slightly shorter and more 

 interestingly written. Then, again, a number of errors 

 liave crept in that ought not to have appeared. For 

 example, the statement that the sugars are designated 

 according to the number of carbon atoms they contain is 

 hardly correct, as one may see by taking one of the 

 examples given in the book. Rhamnose, although it 

 contains six carbon atoms, is not a hexose but a pentose, 

 viz. a methyl-pentose CH3(CHOH)4COH. They are 

 designated not by the number of carbon atoms they 

 contain, but by the number of oxygen atoms they possess. 

 Here and there careless methods of expression are used, 

 especially in the case of the sugars. Levulose is a ketone 

 of sorbite as well as mannite. The note at the foot of 

 p. 6 is slightly vague in meaning. Of course, as the 

 writer says, the letters ^, /, i do not refer to the rotatory 

 power of the sugars, but to their genetic relationship to a 

 fixed aldo-hexose. The letters only agree with the 

 rotatory power in the case of the natural aldo-hexoses. 

 Small points here and there are vaguely expressed. 

 There is absolutely no doubt that vitellin is not a 

 globulin, but a nucleo-albumin. The statement that 

 Kossel has described four nucleic acids corresponding to 

 four separate nuclein bases is hardly correct. He merely 

 surmised that there might be a nucleic acid furnishing on 

 decomposition a single definite alloxur base, and he 

 based this supposition upon his investigation of the 

 nucleic acid obtained from the nuclein of the thymus 

 gland, which he at first termed adenylic acid because he 

 imagined that adenin only was obtained from its decom- 

 position. This, of course, has been shown by Kossel 

 NO. 1 49 1, VOL. 58] 



himself to be incorrect. Up to the present no such 

 nucleic acids have been prepared. Again, it is more 

 than doubtful whether any genetic relationship exists 

 between hasmatogen and haemoglobin, as Bunge thought. 

 The way in which the iron is bound in the former is 

 absolutely different from that in the case of the latter. 

 Again, there are points of the greatest interest that 

 might have been put in a more interesting fashion ; for 

 example, the extremely important relationship betweer* 

 chitin and chondrin. The classification of the proteids 

 which is given is not a particularly good one. There are 

 too many repetitions, and the divisions into which the 

 author has classed the different members are so scattered 

 that it is difficult to grasp the subject at all well. There 

 are many other points that would have been the better 

 for a little fuller description, e.g. carnic acid (Siegfried) 

 and the paired acids of glycuronic acid. 



These articles have entailed undoubtedly a great deal 

 of labour, and contain much that is interesting and 

 difficult elsewhere to obtain, but they are hardly intended 

 for students. 



The part dealing with haemoglobin and the principal 

 products of its decomposition, by Gamgee, is exceed- 

 ingly well written. It suffers, however, from its more 

 or less one-sided character. Some of the more recent 

 work — as, for example, the acids obtained from haematin 

 — by Kvister has been wholly disregarded. Through it 

 all, however, the reader can easily perceive that it is a 

 subject with which the writer is familiar. 



The section on the blood, by Schafer, is very well 

 written. 



The effect of acids on the reaction of the blood of 

 herbivora might have been more clearly explained. 



The proteids of the tissues in herbivora do not break 

 down to furnish ammonia to neutralise the acid intro- 

 duced, and hence the alkali of the blood is taken up 

 with the result that mineral acids act as poisons in such 

 a case. 



The equation given on p. 157, showing the action of 

 disodic phosphate in the transmission of CO2 in the 

 blood, is incorrect. It ought to be 



Na2HP04 -h H.,C03 = NaHjPO^ -h NaHCOy 



Some reference might have been made to the im- 

 portant work done before Hiirthle on the cholesterin 

 esters in the blood ; and it would also have been better 

 if Nasse's work contradicting that done by Ldpine on the 

 absence of the glycolytic action of the blood in diabetes 

 had been mentioned, as it is so important. 



The recent work of Hammarsten on the coagulation of 

 the blood might have been more fully referred to, as it was 

 so carefully done, and the results obtained were so im- 

 portant. Many of the important points in Hammarsten's 

 paper are referred to, but the source is not always 

 acknowledged. 



Diffusion, osmosis and filtration are treated of by Way- 

 mouth Reid in a very interesting chapter. This subject 

 has been so much worked at in Germany within recent 

 years, that the author would have no difficulty in gather- 

 ing together and weaving into an interesting whole a 

 number of facts scattered through the Zdtschrift fiir 

 physikalische Chemie and Pfeffer's new text-book. 



The chapter on the production and absorption of 



E 



