244 



NATURE 



[July i6, 1903 



perseverance, hope, and clods endeavoured to stop 

 their roarings. , This was in 1833. 



Long lists and descriptions are given of various 

 plants having an economic value, amongst which we 

 note indigo and other dye plants, fibre plants, paper 

 plants, oil plants, tobacco, coffee, &c., together with 

 some account of forest trees. 



The description of the savages is derived from the 

 work of Mr. Y. Ino, who devoted several years to 

 their study. Eight groups are referred to, and for 

 each of these an account is given of their dwellings, 

 dress, ornaments, food, diseases, head-hunting, 

 language, and generally on subjects of anthropological 

 interest. All we have bearing upon zoology is a list 

 of land birds by J. D. de la Touche, and a list of 

 mammalia by the late Mr. Robert Swinoe, the latter, 

 unfortunately, only bringing us up to 1872. Meteor- 

 ology and seismology are referred tQ in a short 

 appendix, but about geology Mr. Davidson is 

 practically silent. 



With this and a few other exceptions the work is 

 encyclopaedic in its character, and it may well be re- 

 commended to commercial and scientific men who 

 search for information about the island of Formosa. 



THE BASIS OF PLANT-SURGERY. 

 Pathologische Pflanzenanatomie. By Dr. Ernst Kiister, 

 Pp. 300, and index. (Jena : G. Fischer, 1903.) 

 Price 8 marks. 



THAT plants have their diseases is a truth that has 

 forced itself more and more on this colonial em- 

 pire of ours, and that the signs of disease frequently 

 express themselves in abnormal structures and out- 

 growths is well known to those few experts who have 

 to deal with the galls, cankers, pustules, tumours, and 

 other " malignant " tissue-formations, the very names 

 of which remind us of the ills to which flesh is heir. 



Moreover, there is a surgery of plants, as well as 

 of animals, and the true basis of this growing art is 

 in both cases a thorough understanding of the path- 

 ological, or diseased, as well as of the normal or 

 healthy anatomy of the patient. 



This scientific basis of a refined art is the subject of 

 the work before us. 



The author of this treatise had already distinguished 

 himself in Munich by his work on the anatomy of galls, 

 and it is with the greatest satisfaction that we find 

 him inaugurating his career at Halle by a thorough 

 •exploration of what is to a large extent a practically 

 new theme, and one, moreover, so worthy of the tradi- 

 tions of his present post, for it is remarkable that, while 

 we have several modern books on physiological 

 anatomy and on the pathology of plants, no competent 

 botanist has given us a detailed and comprehensive 

 treatise on this now important and rapidly extending 

 subject. 



Kiister 's book consists of 300 pp. of excellent and 

 clearly- written matter, illustrated by 121 figures not 

 always worthy of his text, though never obscure or 

 irrelevant. . 

 • He divides his subject into six chapters, of which 



NO. 1759, VOL. 68] 



five are devoted to technical and special descriptive 

 anatomy as modified from the normal by pathological 

 changes in the life-work of the tissues and cells, while 

 the sixth is told off to do duty as a general account of 

 the pathological processes themselves, and of what 

 little theory we as yet possess on the subject. 



Much as we admire the collection of anatomical 

 facts, and the descriptions of morbid anatomy in 

 special cases, comprised in these first five chapters, it 

 must be evident that the subdivisions are somewhat un- 

 fortunate. The author himself apparently sees this, 

 as is evinced by the uncertainty as to which heading 

 certain cases shall be placed under, and we believe that 

 the shortcomings are partly due to a somewhat slavish 

 following of the terminology of the animal path- 

 ologists. 



These headings are : — I. Restitution, under which 

 are placed cases in which changes in growth, induced 

 by sections and wounds, lead to the new formation of 

 the cut-off parts, or to proliferations of various kinds. 



H. Hypoplasie, or arrested development of organs 

 or parts due to various inhibiting reactions, which 

 bring about diminutions in the number or sizes of cells, 

 or otherwise change the tissues so that they stop short 

 of a stage of development which would normally be 

 regarded as complete. 



HL Metaplasie, or progressive changes due to over- 

 stimulations which result in the cells and tissues under- 

 going structural changes in excess of the normal, 

 though not suffering the enlargements or increase in 

 numbers dealt with under the next and the fifth 

 heading. 



IV. Hypertrophic, where the cells attain dimensions 

 more or less inordinate, and due to excessive growth 

 while young and turgid. Most galls — in the widest 

 sense — afford examples of these cases, which are ex- 

 tremely common. 



V. Hyperplasie, or those abnormalities — usually en- 

 largements and distortions — which owe their origin to 

 inordinate increase in the average numbers of cells. 



It is, of course, impossible to discuss examples of 

 these various cases of abnormal anatomy here, and we 

 have already expressed our satisfaction with the 

 general subject-matter. We may note in passing that 

 while Miss Dale's beautiful work on " Intumescences " 

 is properly acknowledged, and one of her excellent 

 illustrations suitably used on p. 86, the best results of 

 her ingenious experiments on the kind of light which 

 induces these abnormalities are not adequately given 

 or apparently apprehended in the summary on p. 87. 



To most readers, however, it will be the subject- 

 matter of chapter vi. which will prove most attractive, 

 though there is disappointment in store for anyone 

 who expects anything beyond the most sketchy survey 

 of the factors concerned in aetiology and development 

 and their bearing on pathology. The sections on 

 stimuli and reactions seem to us particularly weak, and 

 the conclusion that any tissue can give rise to any 

 tissue element—'' aus jeden Gewebe kann alles wer- 

 den "—may appear too lightly arrived at unless the 

 reader is acquainted with the somewhat voluminous 

 j literature. The same, perhaps, applies to Kuster's con- 

 I elusion that tissue-elements quite foreign to the 



