28 



NATURE 



[December 12, 1895 



■classical " Lectures," yet it is so concise, that there is room 

 in it to describe as many or more experiments than in 

 the latter book ; and it contains a great amount of recent 

 work, which is naturally not to be found in the older text- 

 book. The conciseness has, of course, its disadvantages, 

 for in consequence of it the book is not so readable, nor 

 is there space for the same philosophical treatment of 

 the subject which is characteristic of the work of Sachs. 

 Much, however, is done to lessen these necessary draw- 

 hacks by the clearness of the arrangemenf and the de- 

 scriptions, and references to the original papers are in 

 most cases given, so that the reader is presented with 

 much of the literature on each subject. From these 

 references the names of English authors are almost 

 •completely absent ; this is in part due to the fact that, 

 unfortunately, so few of our countrymen occupy them- 

 selves with plant physiology, and in part to the fact that, 

 even when such work is' to hand, the author often fails 

 to allude to it. 



Finally, the usefulness of the book is increased by a 

 very complete index ; and we are glad to learn that an 

 English edition is in preparation. H. H. D. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 .Science and Art Draiuing : Complete Geometrical Course. 

 By J. Humphrey Spanton, Instructor in Drawing, 

 H.M.S. Britannia. Pp. 582, and 689 figures. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 1895.) 

 This is a somewhat bulky but handsome well-printed 

 volume, the title of which is a little unfortunate ; it 

 should, however, prove useful to students preparing for 

 such examinations as those of the Science and Art 

 Department, for the Army, or for Cooper's Hill. The 

 author takes as a basis the South Kensington syllabus, 

 and, by sundry additions, covers nearly the whole ground 

 necessary for other examinations. The book is a trifle 

 paradoxical, for while in the solid geometry information 

 -abounds, in the plane geometry the opposite is the case, 

 and generally anything approaching to an explanation 

 of the principles underlying the constructions has ap- 

 parently been eliminated. This, we think, is a matter 

 for regret, as a much larger sphere of usefulness would 

 be obtained by a few judicious explanations, or by an 

 ■occasional reference to Euclid ; indeed, a step further 

 might well be taken, and the equations of curves be given. 

 The student would thus be familiarised with mathematical 

 formulas, and by a little instruction would be enabled 

 to follow the rationale of the construction instead of 

 simply learning it by heart ; for instance, the equation, 

 r = a-\-b cosec ^, of the conchoid of Nicomedes (p. 183), 

 shows at once the reason for the given construction being 

 adopted. Such additions need not necessarily make the 

 book more bulky, as the drawings on pp. 31-34, 60, 61, 

 78-80, and 164 might well be omitted. 



The figures, which must of necessity form a distinctive 

 feature in a work of this nature, are good throughout ; 

 those for the plane geometry, however, suffer by com- 

 parison with those of the remainder of the book, as the 

 lettering of the former is not by any means neat ; also, 

 some of the diagrams illustrating horizontal projection 

 are too small. For exhibiting the conic sections to 

 junior students, the author hits on the happy method of 

 cutting off, from the light of a candle, a cone of rays by 

 means of a circular hole cut in a sheet of cardboard, and 

 then by inclining another piece of cardboard across the 

 cone the various conies are produced in shadow ; later 

 -on,' the conies are again discussed in an instructive manner 

 as the sections of a cone. The author is not always 

 fortunate in his definitions, and ambiguities occasionally 



occur; for instance, the spheroid (p. 13) is defined as 

 " resembling the sphere in shape, but all its sections are 

 not circles." Again with the conchoid (p. 183), we are 

 told that " it has the peculiar property of always ap- 

 proaching nearer a straight line as it is produced, but 

 would never meet it." From this it would almost appear 

 that an asymptote occurred with the conchoid only, as 

 it is never mentioned elsewhere, not even in connection 

 with the hyperbola. 



In the solid geometry the interest of the student is 

 first excited with the plan and elevation of the simple 

 solids ; then a good chapter on spheres and spherical 

 triangles is incongruously wedged in between this and 

 the following chapters on points, traces of lines and 

 planes, intersection of solids, &c. ; the author faithfully 

 following the South Kensington syllabus (omitting, how- 

 ever, any reference to perspective), and finally closes 

 with elementary graphic statics, in which, by the way, 

 a slight error has occurred in Fig. 331, the component 

 {q) being shown in the wrong direction. The pages are 

 remarkably free from error, and the book will no doubt 

 fulfil a want felt by many for a practically complete 

 course. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous comtnunications.'] 



The Discovery of the Anti-Toxin of Snake-Poison. 



I DESIRE, without offering any comments on the facts, to 

 bring under the notice of your readers the following simple 

 statement. 



In the Annates de flnstitut Pasteur, May 1894, Dr. Calmette 

 described in full detail his researches on snake-poison, and 

 demonstrated that not only can animals be rendered resistent to 

 cobra (and other snake) poison by the injection into them of 

 graduated doses of the poison (so that rabbits were rendered 

 tolerant of sixty times the lethal dose), but that the serum of 

 such immunised rabbits is found to contain a powerful anti-toxin 

 which can be used successfully as an antidote to snake-poison. 

 In April 1895, in the same Annates, Dr. Calmette described the 

 results of a year's further work on this subject, giving the most 

 important facts as to the antidotal action of snake anti-toxin in 

 regard to poisons allied to snake-poison, and of other anti-toxins 

 in regard to snake- poison. 



On both occasions Dr. Calmette formulated his discoveries in 

 such a way as to render them applicable to the treatment of 

 snake-bite in man. 



On June 3, 1895, Prof. Thomas R. Fraser, of the University 

 of Edinburgh, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a paper 

 (subsequently printed in the Proceedings of that Society) " on 

 the rendering of animals immune against the venom of the cobra 

 and other serpents ; and on the antidotal properties of the blood- 

 serum of the immunised animals." 



In this paper, read more than a year after Calmette's first 

 paper above cited was published, Prof. Fraser has refrained from 

 any textual reference to Calmette's published work, flis only 

 mention of Calmette is as follows : " Within the last few 

 months, Phisalix and Bertrand have obtained experimental indi- 

 cations of the antidotal power of the blood-serum of animals 

 immunised, but only to a low degree, against the venom of vipers ; 

 whilst Calmette, working in the Pasteur Institute of Paris, after 

 several unsuccessful endeavours had led him to express the 

 opinion that immunity against snake-venom could not be pro- 

 duced, afterwards succeeded in obtaining evidence of its produc- 

 tion, and of the power of the blood-serum to counteract the 

 effects of venom." 



The medical journals of Great Britain have represented Prof. 

 P'raser as the discoverer of the anti-toxin of snake-poison. Two 

 distinguished Edinburgh biologists — Prof. Geddes and Dr. 

 Arthur Thomson— writing^ on Pasteur in the Contemporary 

 Review, have put for wardT^of.. Fraser as one who has made an 

 important life-saving discovery which is the latest nTuit of 

 Pasteur's fertile conceptions. 



NO. 1363, VOL. 53] 



