148 



NA TURE 



[December 14, 1905 



self devised — gas analysis, mineral water analysis, 

 flame reactions. It is not easy to describe Bunsen's 

 relation to chemical science. He was a perfect 

 type of " Naturforscher," a word for which there is 

 hardly an English equivalent. He lived in his labor- 

 atory, ever absorbed, he seemed, in finding his way 

 through natural problems, like a navigator always on 

 the bridge sailing in an unknown archipelago. 

 His writings are hardly more than his log, and his 

 lectures were the narratives of his own particular 

 voyage in the region called chemistry. To a listener 

 who had a fair knowledge of chemistry and its litera- 

 ture it seemed as if there were no part of inorganic 

 chemistry which Bunsen had not made in some way 

 his own. In the laboratory it was the same; from 

 the making of a borax bead to the execution of the 

 most complicated analysis there was the Bunsen 

 method of doing things. Spectroscopy, gas analysis, 

 and electrolytic chemistry for long seemed wholly 

 his. No chemist had a broader or more philosophical 

 outlook than he ; on the one hand he had a profound 

 distrust of theory that went in advance of experiment, 

 and on the other hand he despised all kinds of aim- 

 less or recipe work. Of the periodic classification 

 of the elements he said at one time, " Ja, solche 

 Regelmassigkeiten findet man in den Borsen- 

 blattern "; of a well known standard work on analysis 

 he said " Koch-buch ! " and indignantly ordered its 

 removal. What a memorable experience it was for 

 a student to work with Bunsen through the Russian 

 Mint residues! The innumerable devices of his own, 

 the " nursing " operations at different stages, the 

 tales of his earlier efforts and disasters, the eager 

 hope " vielleicht steckt etwas neues darin," the dry 

 assurance " ja, alle Wocrien werden ein Paar neue 

 Platinmetalle entdeckt "■ all these things come to 

 mind to recall the image of a man in whom the art 

 of a past master was combined with the artlessness 

 of a child. 



It is impossible to estimate the influence of such a 

 man; but in the volumes which it is the object of 

 this notice to commend, it is possible to read the 

 record of his work and to catch something of the 

 spirit which animated the worker. 



The collected works are published under the auspices 

 of the German Bunsen Society for Applied Physical 

 Chemistry, and are edited by Prof. Ostwald and Dr. 

 Bodenstein. We are therefore assured that the task 

 has been performed with pious care and with fulness 

 of knowledge. The original intention of publishing 

 a biography of Bunsen had to be abandoned owing 

 to his express order, so characteristic, that his literary 

 remains should be destroyed. He also desired that 

 from his own letters in the possession of others 

 nothing of a personal character should be published. 

 The gap thus left is probably not so great as might 

 be imagined, and one feels, after reading the pre- 

 fatory memoirs by Sir Henry Roscoe, Dr. Rathke, 

 and Prof. Ostwald himself, that we have probably all 

 we really need to know. " Bunsen stories " wen- 

 doubtless good to those who knew him, but to those 

 who did not they were apt to be like most tales of 

 university dons, and the collection which has been 

 NO. 1885, VOL 73] 



privately published seems rather trivial, and jars some- 

 what on the ears of the faithful. But the collection 

 cl his writings makes a noble monument, and the 

 thanks of all chemists are due to the Bunsen Society 

 and to the two editors who have undertaken the 

 laborious task and have executed it so well. 



Arthur Smitiiells. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Practical Study of Malaria and other Blood 

 Parasites. By Dr. J. VV. W. Stephens and S. R. 

 Christophers. 2nd Revised Edition. Pp. iii + 396 

 and xliv. (London : Published for the University 

 Press of Liverpool by Williams and Norgate, 1904.) 

 Price 12s. 6d. net. 

 Tins volume gives a very full and complete account 

 of the practical methods employed in the study of 

 malaria and kindred protozoan diseases of man and 

 animals. The book being intended primarily for the 

 use of medical men in the tropics, who may be far 

 from any laboratory, abounds in practical hints and 

 suggestions which will enable good work to be accom- 

 plished with a minimum of apparatus, &c. 



The methods of making and staining blood-films 

 are given very fully, and the appearances of normal 

 blood and of the various malaria parasites carefully 

 described. In connection with malaria, the methods of 

 catching, breeding, keeping, and feeding mosquitoes 

 for purposes of malaria study receive considerable 

 attention, and the life-history of the mosquito and the 

 1 harai ters of a number of the more important species 

 have no less than 200 pages devoted to them. 

 Chapters then follow- on the clinical and epidemi- 

 ological studv of malaria, and finally the haemamce- 

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 sidered. This entails descriptions of the anatomy and 

 classification of the chief species of ticks, fleas, tsetse 

 and other biting flies, and a mass of detail is thus 

 brought together in a form required by the investi- 

 gator for which he otherwise would have to search in 

 many scattered papers and works of natural history. 

 In this respect the book will be of great value in 

 laboratories of medical protozoology and the like. 

 There are few points to which exception can be taken, 

 for the book is the outcome of the authors' own 

 experience on the subjects of which they write. It 

 may be doubted, however, if methylated spirit can 

 take the place of methyl alcohol for making up the 

 Leishman blood-stain, and the authors' view that 

 blackwater fever is malaria plus haemoglobinuria 

 excited by chill, quinine, or other simple cause is open 

 to question. 



'I he book can be recommended as a most valuable 

 guide, and the numerous illustrations, diagrammatic 

 though many of them are, enhance its usefulness. 

 R. T. Hewlett. 



Pictures from Nature. By Richard and Cherry Kear- 



ton. Portfolio of fifteen Rembrandt photogravures. 



Size 15'm. xnin. (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd.) 



Price 10s. 6d. net. 

 The remarkable photographs taken by the Brothers 

 Kearton of animal life in many aspects have often 

 been described in these columns in terms of the 

 highesl praise. The fifteen pictures of birds and othe 

 animals, among their natural surroundings, repro- 

 duced for the present portfolio, represent the high- 

 water mark of faithful portraiture in natural history. 



The plates include the following subjects :— Black 

 throated diver, kittiwakes at home, leverets in their 

 form, kingfisher waiting for its prey, squirrel, purlins 



