Feb. 



1865.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



177 



Unhappily, the detestable weather wholly prevented the 

 o'jservation of this interesting phenomenon in the south of 

 England. 



From a Sussex newt=paper, which some one has been 

 good enough to send me, I learn that three mad dogs have 

 recently appeared in various parts of that county. One in 

 Lewes, the county town, which bit several cliildreu ; one at 

 Crawley, a station on the Brighton line, which confined its 

 attentions to its own species ; and a third at a place called 

 Kutley (which appears from the map to be a village on the 

 high road from London to Lewes through East Grinstead), 

 and which bit two children and several dogs. This last 

 brute seems to have bo n shot, the two former ones to be 

 still at large. I mention this here as showing the baseless- 

 ness of the old superstition, that hydrophobia only apjjoars 

 during the so-called " Dog-day.a," which la-t from July .'{rd 

 to August 11th. 



Jlfbi'etDSf* 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



Louis Pasteur : His Zi/e and Labours. By his Soxin- 

 Law. Translated from the French by Lady Claud 

 Hjoiilton. (London : Longmans, Green, & Co., 188-5.) — 

 Were the question asked, Who during the present genera- 

 tion has made the most valuable contributions to the 

 science of pathology, and to whom are we most indebted 

 for our knowledge of the source of divers fell diseases, con- 

 cerning which we were, prior to his researches, in the most 

 profound ignorance 1 there could be but one answer. 

 Louis Pastenr, the subject of the memoir before us. For, 

 as says Professor Tyndall in the introduction which he has 

 written to this English edition of M. Radot's volume, " In 

 the investigation of microscopic organisms . . . . M. 

 Pasteur has found his true vocation. In this broad field it 

 has been his good fortune to alight upon a crowd of con- 

 nected problems of the highest public and scientific interest, 

 ripe for solution, and requiring for their successful treat- 

 ment the precise culture and capacities which he has 

 brought to bear upon them." More than forty years ago, 

 it was noticed that tartaric acid and paratartaric acid acted 

 differently on polarised light, and, as these substances had 

 the same chemical composition, the same specific weight, the 

 same double refraction, and as no difference in their crystal- 

 line form had been detected, the fact that, while one caused 

 the plane of polarisation to rotate, the other was inert, 

 was a profound puzzle. It was solved by Pasteur (then a 

 young man in the Ecole Normale), showing that while the 

 crystalline form of tartaric acid was asymmetrical, pai-a- 

 tartaric acid in the form of crystals presented perfect 

 symmetry. As a generalisation from numerous beautiful 

 experiments which followed this discovery he enunciated 

 the broad principle that dissymmetry is the characteristic 

 of organic nature ; symmetry, that of the inorganic world. 

 Wide, and probably fruitful though, as was the field of 

 research in molecular optics thus opened, it was in a very 

 diflferent one that Pasteur was to win a name that is now 

 honoured in every part of the world in which the mystery 

 of contagion has been studied. In liis investigation of the 

 phenomena presented by the two salts of which we have 

 spoken, he discovered the star! ling fact that a ferment had 

 the power of caui-ing left-banded polarisation in the pre- 

 viously inert paratartrate of ammonia, and from this to 

 the study of ferments in general was not a very difficult or 

 unnatural step. How he showed that fermentation has 

 its origin in the rapid growth of microscopic organisms ; 



how he explained the manner in which vinegar is produced 

 from wine, and whence the " diseases " to which wine and 

 beer are subject arise, tl>e reader must go to the book itself 

 to learn ; as he must for the details of the exhaustive experi- 

 ments by the aid of which Pasteur demolished the doctrine 

 of spontaneous generation. Subsequently, wo find this in- 

 defatigable inquirer successively and successfully searching 

 for the causes of the silk-woriir disease, splenic fever, septi- 

 cfemia, chicken cholera, kc, and showing how the special 

 virus (a microscopic organism peculiar to each dircase) 

 could be cultivated for the purpose of vaccination, so as to 

 afibrd the vaccinated creature immunity from future attacks. 

 As we write, Pasteur is still engaged in the investigation 

 of hydrophobia and its cause. Should he discover the 

 means of cultivating the active princii)le in this most awful 

 of all disorders, he will crown an imperishable scries of 

 labours in the cause of humanity. A word as to the 

 English form in which the record of his labours appears. 

 There is not one dry page in it from beginning to end. The 

 charm of the colloquial French in which the original is 

 written has not evaporated in Lady Claud IlamiltonV 

 spirited and faithful translation. Professor Tyndall has 

 furnished an introduction which is, like everything he ever 

 writes, eminently readable ; and, in short, while the book is 

 as interesting as the best novel of the season, it differs from 

 the most cleverly-written tale in possessing an interest that 

 is not merely e]ihemeral, but perennial. 



T/ie Collector's Manual of British Land and Fresh-irai'^r 

 Shells. By Lionel Ernest Adam.s, B.A. (London : George 

 Bell & Sons, 1884). — The incipient conchologist luay be 

 grateful to Mr. Adams for having furnished him with one 

 of the best and most intelligible manuals in a moderate 

 compass onour British land and freshwater shells that have, 

 so far, appeared. One distinguishing excellence of the 

 work before us lies in the plainness and intelligibility of 

 the author's descriptions; all technical terms being ex- 

 plained by reference to capitally-executed engravings. In 

 fact, the very numerous illustrations themselves should 

 enable the beginner to identify every common shell found 

 in these islands. In these days of species-making, the 

 student but too often gets horribly puzzled in vain efforts 

 to detect what are (to him) but obscure distinctions, indeed, 

 between the specimens he collects ; and here he will find 

 Mr. Adams's plainly- worded descriptions most helpful. In 

 an equally good introduction the methods of collecting, 

 preserving, and arranging shells are fully treated of. 



The Journal of Jficroscopi/ mid Natural Science. Pub- 

 lished quarterly. January 1885. (London : Bailliere, 

 Tindall, ife Cox.) Studies in Microscopical Science. (Lon- 

 don : Watson & Sons). — We class these works together, indi- 

 cating as they do, eacli in its way, a happily growing popular 

 interest in microscopical study. What the ".Journal of the 

 Royal Microscopical Society" (crowded as it is with matter 

 and bristling with technicalities) does for the advanced 

 micro3coj)ist, the " Journal of Microscopy " essays to do — 

 and we may say at once succeeds well in doing — for the 

 less pretentious student. It is the organ of the Postal 

 Microscopical Society ; as the more pretentious volume is 

 of the R.M.S. As indicating the variety it affords its 

 readers, we may mention that it contains the presidential 

 address of the P. M.S., a paper on " The Inhabitants and 

 Guests of a Piece of Hornwrack," " Rambles of a Natura- 

 list near Amberley," "The Jlicroscope and How to Use 

 It " (capital for beginners) ; a profusely illustrated essay, 

 " Half an Hour with the Microscope," by Mr. Tuffen 

 West; Selected Notes from the Society's Note-book, 

 Report of the P.M.S. Annual Meeting, reviews, i'c. The 

 very book for the man who employs his microscope as a 

 means of recreation. 



