74 



NATURE 



[May 26, 1898 



lymph, by Starling^, is short but good, and gives a 

 succinct account of our present-day knowledge of this 

 very interesting subject. 



The next chapter, by Moore, on the chemistry of the 

 digestive processes, must have entailed a large amount of 

 labour, as the literature is overwhelming. It might have 

 benefited by curtailment, and by the omission of such 

 words as " flocky," " unsolvable," and some others. The 

 mass of unproved details with which Kiihne deluged 

 physiology has been largely made use of. Those who 

 ■wish to be able to criticise this work of Kiihne might 

 with advantage look up the original papers by Kiihne 

 and Chittenden and Neumeister. They will then per- 

 ceive that a number of bodies there referred to depend 

 for their separate and definite existence upon very 

 insufficient data. The physiological chemist of a later 

 date will smile when he reads of anti-albumid, anti- 

 albumate, anti-albumose, and so on. A lot of details 

 given in this paper might have been, perhaps, with ad- 

 vantage omitted, as after all they are only of use to those 

 working at the subject, and later on will be merely of his- 

 torical interest. PaijkuU's work on the mucin of bile 

 requires to be repeated. It is by no means certain that 

 the mucin is a nucleo-proteid. This chapter, however, 

 jjives as good an account of the subject as any one could 

 desire. It has been kept well up to date, including as it 

 does such recent work as that of Nuttall and Thierfelder. 

 The chapter, by Langley, on the salivary glands is an 

 excellent one, distinguished alike by its clearness and 

 suggestiveness as well as its succinctness. 



The mechanism of the secretion of gastric, pancreatic, 

 and intestinal juices is discussed in an interesting way by 

 Edkins, as is also the section on the secretion of bile, 

 by Noel Paton. 



The important chapter on the chemistry of the urine 

 has been entrusted to Hopkins, who has succeeded, in the 

 space at his disposal, in giving a most excellent account of 

 the subject. Here, of course, an author must exercise the 

 gift of selection, as, in order to be complete, one would 

 require to give another Huppert and Thomas' Hand- 

 buch. It ought to have been noted that the Kriiger and 

 Wulfif method for estimation of the nuclein bases and 

 uric acid is not a trustworthy one, as other nitrogen- 

 holding bodies are precipitated. The inorganic con- 

 stituents of the urine have received but scant attention. 



The chapters on the secretion of urine and on that of 

 milk, by Starling and Schafer respectively, are clearly 

 written ; as is also that on the secretion and absorption 

 of the skin, by Waymouth Reid. 



The chapter on the chemistry of respiration, by 

 Pembrey, is a good one ; as are also those on animal 

 heat, by the same author, and on metabolism, by Schafer. 

 It is a pity that in such a book as this there is not 

 only a necessary repetition, but also a tendency to 

 omission of certain facts because they fall under two 

 headings. An example of this may be given. The re- 

 lationship between leucocytosis and the excretion of uric 

 acid and nuclein bases is referred to in the section 

 dealing with the chemistry of the urine, and also in that 

 on metabolism. The result has been that in neither is 

 there a proper description of Horbaczewski's experi- 

 ments, nor are the conclusions which Horbaczewski 

 arrived at clearly defined. 



NO. 1 49 1, VOL. 58] 



The work of Sandmeyer, on the effect of giving 

 pancreas by the stomach to dogs that have had their 

 pancreas removed, has not been referred to. This volume 

 closes with an exceedingly interesting account of the 

 internal secretions of the ductless glands and their effects 

 upon metabolism. As one would expect from the writer 

 of this article, the supra-renal extracts have received a 

 good deal of attention, a little of which might have been 

 bestowed on the thyroid therapy. 



The points which have been drawn attention to in this 

 review as perhaps admitting of improvement are few in 

 number. The book stands as a monument of industry 

 care and thought on the part of the editor and his 

 coadjutors. It is, without doubt, the best book that we 

 at present possess in English on the subjects dealt with 

 in the first volume of what will prove to be a text-book of 

 the greatest advantage to all interested in the subject of 

 physiology. Before the value of such a book can be 

 accurately appraised, it must be read carefully and in- 

 telligently, and compared with the original papers from 

 which all such books must be built up. Those working 

 at a special department of the subject may think that 

 there might have been some additions or omissions ; but 

 one must remember that the subject is such a huge one, 

 and the mass of literature to be consulted so immense, 

 that after all such a complete text-book for the scientific 

 worker must always remain mainly as a stepping-stone 

 between the ordinary smaller text-book and the original 

 papers. It is the conscientious perusal of the latter that 

 must always remain, if the slowest, still the surest way to 

 gain a knowledge of that most fascinating subject, 

 physiology. T. H. MiLROY. 



VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 

 Organographie der PJianzen. By Dr. K. Goebel. Part i. 

 With 130 figures in the text. Pp. ix -f 232. (Jena : 

 Gustav Fischer, 1898.) 



IT is difficult to realise that this book is the work of the 

 same author who wrote the now classical text-book 

 of morphology. Later publications of Dr. Goebel's have 

 been largely occupied with biological subjects, and he 

 appears in the book before us to have abandoned the 

 morphologist's standpoint, and assumed a physiological 

 or, perhaps more correctly, a biological position. In 

 making this change he admits that phyllogenetic specu- 

 lations are, without doubt, more attractive than the 

 investigation of the illusive causes, external or internal, 

 which determine modifications of form ; yet for him the 

 recognition of the factors which bring about the un- 

 symmetrical form of a leaf is of more importance than 

 the construction of insubstantial theories of phyllogenetic 

 development. 



In the introduction the author further insists on the 

 insufficiency of morphology, and quotes from Herbert 

 Spencer to emphasise the fact that function and form 

 are mutually interdependent. In the strict study of 

 morphology the functions have been treated as some- 

 thing extraneous, and as having nothing at all to do with 

 the characteristics of the organs. 



The latter part of the introduction is devoted to a 

 discussion of the two rival hypotheses as to the form- 

 ation of the organs of plants, e.g. the theory of the 



