March it,, 191 6] 



NATURE 



79 



rate chemist to study them, we might spoil the 

 Egyptians indeed. England's contempt for 

 science, against which all who know have been 

 protesting for a generation, will, if not amended, 

 bring her down in sorrow to the ground, whatever 

 the issue of the present war, which will be fol- 

 lowed by one of much greater intensity, for which 

 the weapons will be forged, not by hands, or 

 machines, but by brains. G. B. M. 



PHARMACOLOGY. 

 A Manual of Pharmacology. By Prof. W. E. 

 Dixon. Fourth edition. Completely revised. 

 Pp. xii + 467. (London: Edward Arnold, 1915.) 

 Price 155. net. 



PROF DIXON'S well-known and popular 

 manual needs no recommendation at this 

 stage of its career. It shows on every page the 

 methods of an experienced and enthusiastic 

 teacher and skilled demonstrator, and it has 

 played no small part in the change, which is trans- 

 forming the teaching of pharmacology in this 

 country, from a rather profitless recital of materia 

 medica, doses, preparations, and conventionally 

 defined actions, into the reasoned presentation of 

 a progressive, experimental science. The new 

 edition retains the good qualities of its prede- 

 cessors, and gains by additions to the admirable 

 series of charts and mechanical records which 

 illustrate the argument. 



It must be confessed, however, that in some 

 •directions the new edition scarcely seems to 

 justify its prefatory claim to have been so largely 

 rewritten "that it almost constitutes a new 

 volume." The last sentence of the preface, in- 

 deed, suggests that Prof. Dixon's intended re- 

 vision may have suffered some forced interruption 

 — as well might happen at a time when all 

 I scientific enterprise is liable to curtailment by 

 j more urgent national duties. The introduction of 

 I certain new sections has not improved the scheme 

 •of classification — always a difficulty to the writer 

 ' a pharmacological text-book. For example, 

 I short section on "Drugs increasing the excre- 

 tion of uric acid," now finds itself stranded, as it 

 I were by accident, in the midst of a chapter deal- 

 I ing with action on nerve-endings. This and 

 similar anomalies convey the suggestion of a 

 I somewhat hurried shuffling of the sections. 



But the arrangement of the material is a minor 

 matter, and we attach more importance, as 

 I evidence that the writer's intentions have not 

 j been fully carried out, to the apparent absence of 

 j_any addition to, or revision of, the sections deal- 

 ing with some of the remedial agents, in regard 

 ' which knowledge has most conspicuously ad- 

 _anced since the previous edition was published. 

 The use of salvarsan, for example, had scarcely 

 passed beyond the experimental stage in 1912 ; 

 and the statement that " arsenobenzol is certainly 

 not free from danger, and a considerable number 

 of deaths have followed its injection," was then a 

 justifiable caution. But this same statement does 

 not adequately summarise the experience avail- 

 able m 1915. The discovery of the significance 

 NO 2421, VOL. 97] 



of emetine, in the treatment of amoebic dysentery 

 by ipecacuanha, was probably too late for in- 

 clusion in the 1912 issue; but it might reason- 

 ably be expected, under normal conditions, that 

 an extensively rewritten edition, appearing in 

 191 5, would make some reference to this very 

 important advance. Yet the statement of the 

 third edition, that ipecacuanha "has also a great 

 reputation in the treatment of tropical dysentery, 

 but its mode of action is unknown," appears in 

 the fourth edition, without modification or addi- 

 tion ; and we scarcely suppose that the author in- 

 tended to leave it so. 



In the section on serum therapy, again, we 

 had expected to find some reference to antimen- 

 ingococcus serum, and to the immune serum 

 against the dysentery bacilli. Both can now show 

 practical results second only to those of the anti- 

 toxic sera, and, if want of space were the trouble, 

 we would willingly have forgone in their favour 

 the section on the doubtful antistreptococcic 

 serum, or even what seems to us a not very 

 illuminating attempt to explain antitoxin-forma- 

 tion by an analogy drawn from ferment action. 



We take comfort from the conviction that a fifth 

 edition will soon be on the way, and we may be 

 allowed to hope that a calmer state of the general 

 atmosphere will give the author unhampered 

 opportunity for dealing with those sections of his 

 volume, which he has apparently been obliged to 

 pass over in the edition under review. Mean- 

 while we wish the text-book a continuance of its 

 well-deserved popularity, with student and teacher 

 alike. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 

 The Wheat Industry for Use in Schools. By 



N. A. Bengtson and D. Griffith. Pp. xiin- 



341. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; 



London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1915) 



Price 3s. net. 

 This book is the first of a new series called the 

 Industrial Series, which is designed to make use 

 of industrial studies in education. The justifica- 

 tion urged for such a course is that these subjects 

 afford useful information, come into line with 

 vocational training, and stimulate interest and 

 clear thinking. 



Beginning with an account of the wheat plant 

 and the types in common cultivation, the authors 

 pass on to the methods by which man has suc- 

 ceeded in growing wheat in enormous areas all 

 over the globe. Old and new ways are both 

 described, and the development from the early 

 primitive forms to the present elaborate machinery 

 is carefully traced out. After harvesting and 

 threshing come transportation and storage, and 

 the reader is taken behind the scenes and shown 

 the workings both of small and large elevators in 

 their various ramifications ; as, for example, how 

 country roads, wheat crops, and farm and elevator 

 storage are all intimately linked with business 

 operations and social questions generally. Next 

 comes an interesting chapter on the factors in 

 wheat production and the interaction of climate. 



