May 28, 1903] 



NA TURE 



75 



iier as if the author had for the time being forgotten 

 primary object of his book, and had become so 

 I K'd away by the intrinsic interest of his subject as 

 ir oblivious to the fact that most of his readers must 

 .ntirely ignorant of the rudiments of preventive 

 (Heine. With this slight criticism we may pass on 

 I numerate some of the contents of this section. 

 r chapters on anthrax and tubercle comes a very 

 ^ one on diphtheria, in which an almost unneces- 

 ily full list of statistics is given. In the chapter on 

 AS we have an admirable description of Pasteur's 

 Dvery and method of preparation of rabies virus. 

 1 iif cholera chapter is no less interesting. The plague 

 chapter gives a detailed and most instructive account 

 of the report of the Indian Plague Commission. 

 Judging from the evidence adduced, this report seems 

 unduly pessimistic, and one would have thought the 

 commissioners entitled to go beyond their finding 

 that " the method of serum-therapy is in plague, as in 

 iitT infectious diseases, the only method which holds 

 h a prospect of ultimate success." In the typhoid 

 [)ter we are interested to learn that of the 12,234 

 rcrs and men forming the military garrison in the 

 f^e of Ladysmith, 1705 were inoculated against 

 typhoid fever, and that amongst these the proportion 

 of typhoid cases was only i in 48-7, whilst amongst 

 the uninoculated it was i in 7.07. Still, there is 

 nothing to indicate whether the inoculated were a fair 

 sample of both men and officers, or were chiefly com- 

 posed of the latter. The intensely interesting chapter 

 on malaria and yellow fever gives an admirable 

 epitome of the most important work done and results 

 achieved in the elucidation of the cause and prevention 

 of these diseases, and should be read by everyone who 

 is compelled by circumstance to live near fever-haunted 

 spots. Still other chapters deal with myxoedema, the 

 action of drugs, and snake-venom, whilst the book 

 closes with an account of the Vivisection Act and in- 

 spectors' reports. H. M. V. 



CHEMICAL TESTS AND THEIR DISCOVERERS. 

 Tests and Reagents, Chemical and Microscopical, 

 known by their Authors' Names. Compiled by 

 Alfred I. Cohn. Pp. iii + 383. (New York: John 

 Wiley and Sons; London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 

 1903.) Price 3 dollars. 



THE appearance of this volume reminds one of two 

 opposite tendencies that are developing in the 

 terminology of modern chemistry. On the one hand, 

 and more particularly in the " organic " division of 

 '^e science, the chemist nowadays eschews all trivial or 

 kopular terms for his compounds, and strives to find 

 Ippellations for them which shall be not merely names 

 remember the substances by, but titles which, at 

 st to the initiated, are more or less self-expl&natory. 

 is is very meet and proper, and indeed some such 

 stem is probably unavoidable. But the union of the 

 tular with the descriptive, mariage de convenance as 

 is, often produces some very ungainly offspring, 

 nder the writer's eye there lies a recent volume of the 

 iirnal of the Chemical Society, several pages of 

 *|»rhich are plentifully besprinkled with such " names " 

 I NO. 1752, VOL. 68J 



as Ethylbromoketohydro.\ydihydropentanthrenedicarb- 

 oxylate, and this is by no means the worst example 

 that could be cited. Mark Twain once remarked of 

 certain German polysyllabic achievements that they 

 were " not words, but alphabetical processions." Simi- 

 larly one may say of productions like the one above 

 quoted that they are not names, but descriptive sen- 

 tences with the verbs left out. 



On the other hand, the instinct for brevity — combined 

 sometimes, perhaps, with a suggestion of hero-worship 

 or a tinge of Chauvinism — has simultaneously asserted 

 itself in the upgrowth of a kind of personal nomen- 

 clature for numerous things chemical and matters 

 microscopical. We have A's test and B's process; C's 

 reagent and D's reaction; E's "number" and F's. 

 " value "; G's theory and H's " law "; every month 

 sees additions to the list; and o' the making of these 

 minor immortals there seems no end. Time was when 

 the cognominal designation was a distinct convenience. 

 Perhaps it is so still, but in proportion as the number 

 of such titles increases their utility diminishes, and if 

 the hyphenless monstrosities of organic chemistry are 

 sometimes almost undecipherable from their length, the 

 proper names have become confusing by their 

 multiplicity. 



These now need, in fact, a dictionary to themselves. 

 So far as tests and reagents are concerned, such an aid 

 is furnished by the present volume. It gives in alpha- 

 betical order many hundreds of proper names by which 

 various chemicals and operations are more or less gener- 

 ally known, and after each name describes, usually in 

 a few words, the essential features of the test or re- 

 agent with which the name is associated. Most of the 

 matter has already been published serially by the com- 

 piler in Merck's Report, and the amplified instalments 

 are now collected in a single volume, where they will 

 be found very convenient for reference. 



What chiefly strikes one on looking through the 

 book is that its value would have been much enhanced 

 by the inclusion of more references to original descrip- 

 tions, of which, indeed, only a very few are actually 

 given. The increased space required would, surely, 

 have been amply compensated by the greater utility 

 secured. On account of the condensed style in which 

 the descriptions are generally written, they are apt to^ 

 be sometimes obscure; indeed, their chief value in 

 many cases is that of a reminder to one who is already 

 more or less familiar with the operation described. A 

 person who had never previously performed the experi- 

 ments would often want more detail, but as to where 

 he could obtain it the author gives him no inkling. 

 Nevertheless, the book will be of service to the busy 

 chemist or microscopist. It does not claim to be a com- 

 plete record, but there is a good deal of information 

 I given, and it appears to be generally accurate in sub- 

 stance if sometimes awkward in expression. 



An index of subjects closes the volume, and is rather 

 a curiosity in its way, since the body of it is made up 

 almost entirely of proper names. The book may well 

 find a place with the compiler's " Indicators " on the 

 shelves of the chemical laboratory, and will be found 

 useful in the microscopist 's workroom. 



C. SiMMONDS. 



