338: 



NATURE 



[August 7, 1890 



for 130 years. In speaking of the period of barrenness 

 which followed this brilliant beginning, the author is 

 especially severe on our own country. " In England," he 

 says (p. 246), " the new light was extinguished with Hooke 

 and Grew, and has so remained, we may almost say, to 

 the present day." We may hope that, if this passage 

 had been written fifteen years later. Prof. Sachs would have 

 found some reason to modify his judgment. 



The following chapters deal with the revival of vege- 

 table anatomy and histology in the present century. 

 Due justice is done alike to the patient investigations of 

 von Mohl and to the brilliant method of the erratic 

 Schleiden, while, as will be gathered from what has been 

 said above, the many-sided activity of Nageli receives in 

 the text fully adequate recognition. 



The third book is on the history of vegetable 

 physiology, and this is of special interest from the 

 fact that the author is himself the leading physio- 

 logical botanist of our time. The first chapter is con- 

 cerned with the history of the sexual theory. The 

 chief credit for the discovery of sexuality in plants is 

 given to Camerarius of Tiibingen, who in 1694 published 

 the first experimental researches on the necessity of 

 fertilization for the ripening of the seed ; though in special 

 cases, as those of the fig and the date-palm, the fact of 

 sexuality had been known even to Theophrastus and 

 Pliny. The author justly points out that Linnaeus, 

 though his system called general attention to the ex- 

 istence of male and female organs in the flower, had 

 little or nothing to do with the discovery of their 

 functions. 



The following passage discusses the relation of Kaspar 

 Friedrich Wolff to the old theory of " evolution," ac- 

 cording to which all the parts of the mature organism 

 pre-exist in little in the embryo. 



" Wolff conceived of the act of fertilization as simply 

 another form of nutrition. Relying on the observation, 

 which is only partly true, that starved plants are the first 

 to bloom, he regards the formation of flowers generally 

 as the expression of feeble nutrition {vegetatio langues- 

 cens). On the other hand, the formation of fruit in the 

 flower was due to the fact that the pistil found more per- 

 fect nourishment in the pollen. In this, Wolff was going 

 back to an idea which had received some support from 

 Aristotle, and is the most barren that can be imagined, 

 for it appears to be utterly incapable of giving any ex- 

 planation of the phenomena connected with sexuality, 

 and especially of accounting for the results of hybridiza- 

 tion. Wolff may have rejected the theory of evolution 

 on such grounds as these, but he failed to perceive what 

 it is which is essential and peculiar in the sexual act " 

 (p. 405). 



This passage appears of special importance, for theories 

 akin to those of Wolff have reappeared even in our own 

 day. 



The investigations of Koelreuter on hybridization, and 

 those of Sprengel on cross-fertilization, the full signifi- 

 cance of which was first shown by Darwin 60 or 70 years 

 later, mark the closing years of the eighteenth century. 

 But, in spite of all that had been done, there were still 

 some botanists who, on more or less feeble grounds, ex- 

 pressed doubts as to the sexuality even of the Phanero- 

 gams, and it was the work of Gartner, towards the 

 middle of the present century, which "once more con- 

 NO. 1084, VOL. 42] 



firmed the existence of sexuality in plants, and in such a 

 manner that it could never again be disputed." 



The concluding sections of this chapter give the re- 

 markable history of the discovery of the details of fer- 

 tilization in the flowering plants, and sketch the rise and 

 progress of our knowledge of corresponding processes 

 among the Cryptogams. These are subjects on which 

 an immense amount of good work has been done in more 

 recent years, and some future historian will have much to 

 add to Prof. Sachs's brilliant summary. 



The nutrition of plants forms the subject of the next 

 chapter of the " History." The ideas of the ancients are 

 first considered, and then the gradual rise of the modern 

 doctrine of assimilation is traced from its first beginnings 

 in the discoveries of Malpighi and Hales, of whom the 

 former showed that the green leaves are the organs which 

 prepare the food, while Hales proved that a large part of 

 this food is taken up in a gaseous form. It would be 

 useless to attempt to summarize this interesting story. 

 Probably no piece of scientific history has ever been 

 better told, and few, if any, are better worth the telling. 

 Prof. Sachs is here, above all, on his own ground, and 

 we are conscious that we are reading the words of a great 

 master. It is scarcely necessary to add that here, also, 

 more recent research has been extremely active, and 

 modern investigations on such questions as the source of 

 the nitrogen in plants, and the course of the ascending 

 sap, will probably do much to modify the views expressed 

 in this work. 



The concluding chapter is on the movements of 

 plants, and here, once more, the historian is treating 

 of phenomena of which he is himself among the greatest 

 investigators. 



The translators and the Clarendon Press deserve the 

 warmest thanks of English readers, whether botanical or 

 not, for bringing before them a scientific history distin 

 guished at once by its clearness, its fairness, and the 

 author's unrivalled mastery of his subject. 



D. H. S. 



A TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSIOLOGICAL AND 

 PA THOL OGICAL C HEM IS TR Y. 

 Text-book of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry, in 

 Twenty-one Lectures for Physicians and Students. By 

 Dr. G. Bunge, Professor of Physiological Chemistry at 

 Bale. Translated from the second German edition by 

 the late L. C. Wooldridge, M.D., and completed for 

 the press by his Wife. (London : Kegan Paul, 1890.) 



THE appearance of Bunge's text-book in its English 

 dress reminds us keenly of the loss which physio- 

 logy has sustained by the death of the translator. It is 

 some consolation to be able to temper this regret with 

 the satisfaction that so interesting and instructive a work 

 was made available to English students by one so 

 capable as the late Dr. Wooldridge. He wisely con- 

 tented himself with translating the original without those 

 annotations or additions which are often supplied, and 

 which, while they may be of intrinsic merit, frequently 

 destroy the individuality of the original. Criticism of 

 Dr. Wooldridge's share in the English version thus 

 resolves itself into asking how he has done his work as- 

 a translator, and the answer is : " Admirably." While 



