1887.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 139 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. — 
Elements of Botany. By Edson L. Bastin, A. M., F.R. M.S. (pp. 282, figs. 459). 
Chicago. 1887. 
We hardly know what to say in reviewing a college text-book. Standards are so 
multifarious that we cannot make sure that our words will convey the ideas to others 
which they mean to ourself. Upon the whole our opinion of the book is favorable. 
Our chief objection is that the matter is so condensed that the book can hardly be 
successfully used as a text-book for any but educated readers. It contains the e/ements, 
that is, the essezdéals, of a botanical education, and one who has already read science 
in other lines, and studied not botany, but other sciences, could, by faithfully using 
this work, very satisfactorily inform himself upon all but the most special points in 
the science of botany. Having thus pointed out this limitation, as it seems to us, in 
the use of the book to the needs of only students of some attainment, we can most 
heartily commend the treatise to teachers or general readers. ‘The arrangement is 
admirable, taking up first phanerogamous plants after the lead of Gray’s structural 
botany, following this with a part on vegetable histology, then vegetable physiology, 
and finally vegetable taxonomy, a survey of the leading forms of Protophytes, Zygo- 
phytes, Oophytes, Carpophytes, mosses, and ferns, and finally flowering plants. 
There is much to be said in favor of this plan in spite of the course pursued very 
widely at the present day in teaching the science of botany. The plan is, in its first 
step, that of Dr. Asa Gray, and is well exemplified in his ‘ First Lessons,’ or ‘ Struc- 
tural Botany.’ A student should not stop at Gray’s ‘ First Lessons’ or the analysis of 
a few plants; he will gain thereby some knowledge of the principles of the science. 
While microscopic study of histology, both of vascular and the lower plants, is neces- 
sary to a competent knowledge of botany to-day and must not be passed over, we 
doubt the advisability of introducing the beginners in the science to that instrument 
with its intricacies, and believe that an interest in plant study should be aroused by 
study first of the more easily apprehended facts, followed by a completer study of the 
same, and later a complete study along comparative lines. 
Mr. Bastin’s work follows such a course as this, and deserves commendation for its 
execution of the plan. It is so condensed and concise that it would be very ‘hard’ 
as a text-book. It is, however, an excellent guide to a course in botany if supplemented 
by other fuller works, or in the hands of a teacher, supplemented by well-chosen sub- 
jects for practical study and explanatory remarks. The illustrations are very numer- 
ous and are all from drawings by the author, some of them original and others copied 
from several well-known sources. These are not in all cases as fine as those which 
come from the hands of professional draughtsmen, but in most cases are very satis- 
factory indeed. They are drawn for a purpose and illustrate well the point. They 
will serve as admirable models to suggest to students the proper way to illustrate his 
work. 
New Treatment of the Affections of the Respiratory Organs and of Blood-forson. | 
By Dr. V. Morel. ‘Translated from the French by L. E. Holman. (pp. 21). 
Philadelphia, ’87. 
Messrs. J. W. Queen & Co., of Philadelphia, have gotten out this translation of the 
papers of Dr. Morel to better inform the public upon the theory and practical applica- 
tion of the gaseous treatment for tuberculosis and other pulmonary troubles now com- 
ing into common use in this country. We have space for only a brief account of this 
interesting pamphlet. It is to be regretted that the discovery of the microbe of tuber- 
culosis has for a long time remained sterile, so far as the development of a cure for 
tuberculosis based on a knowledge of the microbe is concerned. M. Debove, in ’83, 
says that the cure for phthisis is in the discovery of a germicide unfortunately not yet 
successful. Having settled that phthisis is due to a parasitic organism, Dr. Bergeon 
sought a means of destroying the microbe without injury to the system of the human 
host. He thought of two ways—administration of doses through the respiration pro- 
cess ; introduction of dose through digestive tube. The former is open to greater diffi- 
culties thanthe latter process. Thus sulphuretted hydrogen will kill quickly if inhaled, 
but may be injected into the veins directly or into the rectum without fatal results. 
Upon this principle, and to avoid the unpleasant taste if taken into the alimentary 
canal, Dr. Bergeon devised his treatment of phthisis by rectal injections of carbonic 
acid and hydrogen sulphide gas. The pamphlet before us is a clear and readable ac- 
