316 
NATURE 
[JuLy 31, 1902 
be said that they are all classics, and we ask the student | in this book, when it is a question merely to illustrate 
to decide in favour of reading them in preference to some 
brief text-book summary. He will find no great mathe- 
matical difficulty in any of them which would make it 
impossible for him to understand them thoroughly 
without being otherwise helped. 
PURE AND APPLIED BACTERIOLOGY. * 
Traité de Bactériologie pure et appliquée a (a Médicine et 
a Hygiene. Par MM. P, Miquel et R. Cambier. 
Pp. xv + 1059. (Paris: C. Naud, 1902.) Price fr. 45. 
HIS work, comprising more than one thousand 
pages and a comprehensive index, is a valu- 
able addition to the already extensive literature of the 
subject of bacteriology. As the title of the work 
indicates, it deals with bacteriology, not only from the 
purely scientific point of view, but also from the 
technical and applied, inasmuch as its application 
to industry and to sanitation forms an important part 
of the work. The book is divided into four principal 
divisions. The first division treats of the morphology, 
the chemical, physical and other conditions concerning 
the composition, growth and reproduction of bacteria, 
and capable of affecting them favourably or unfavourably. 
It deals, further, with the methods used in cultivation, the 
culture media, their preparation and their physiological 
action in the human and animal body. In the same 
division is found an account of the methods of staining 
bacteria, their spores and cilia, both from cultures and 
from animal tissues. And lastly, the optical instruments 
used in the study of bacteria (microscopes, photomicro- 
graphs, magnifying glasses, &c.) are treated in chapter ix. 
All these subjects are treated in a clear and compre- 
hensive manner, very useful and sufficient for the student 
of bacteriology, and in many instances brought up to the 
most recent times, so that both student and original 
worker have the advantage of the most recent improve- 
ments in the methods of the study of bacteria. While, 
therefore, the reader has in the 236 pages constituting 
this first part all that it is of real importance to know 
concerning the most modern methods in bacteriology, 
he misses a good deal concerning some modern views of 
the morphology and classification (Migula, Meyer). 
The second part, comprising in five chapters about 325 
pages, is the one which for the student of medicine and 
hygiene is the most important, since it describes the 
different species of pathogenic bacteria of diseases of 
man and animals. 
This part of the book will be found less satisfactory 
than the first, because in our opinion it is in several 
respects somewhat imperfect ; the descriptions of the 
different species, their characters and actions might 
be more detailed; it is deficient in the theories of 
immunity, and notably in regard to suitable and 
representative illustrations. The absence of proper 
and accurate illustrations, not only in this, but. in 
other portions of the book, seems inexplicable. The 
authors devote time and trouble to teaching photo- 
micrography, yet there is not in the whole book a 
single photomicrograph to illustrate a single species of 
the many hundreds described. We have no fault to 
find with the use of schematic drawings, such as occur 
NO. 1709, VOL. 66] 
general characters as to the aspect and morphology of 
the bacteria, but we fail to understand the value of such 
illustrations as occur in this second portion of the work 
(“Pathogenic Bacteria”), where, in total disregard of all 
natural conditions, a few tinted dots or a few tinted lines 
are here produced to represent cocci or bacilli. Another 
subject in this section seems to us deserving of explana- 
tion. It is this. All text-books, all writers and all those 
who have contributed to their discovery have recognised 
and described as “ bacilli” the various species that cause 
“hemorrhagic septiceemia” in different animals, yet here 
in this book we are suddenly brought to a full stop, and 
for no adequate reason, by having all these different 
bacilli (fowl cholera, swine plague, swine fever, 
wildseuche, duck cholera, grouse disease, &c.) grouped 
amongst “ Microcoques Pathogénes.” 
The third and fourth portions of the work (pp. 
368-888 and 888-1038 respectively) in our opinion are 
excellent, both as regards treatment and arrangement, 
and denote the hand of the master, and considering the 
known works and reputation of M. Miquel, this is quite 
what was to be expected. The third part deals with the 
important processes of fermentations caused by bacteria, 
as lactic, acetic, butyric, pectic, &c. ; with the production 
of pigment ; with the bacteria of air, water and soil ; 
with putrefaction ; with the bacteria occurring in the 
different parts of human and animal bodies, and with 
phosphorescent bacteria. 
The fourth and last part deals with the principal 
methods of analysis of air, water and soil as practised 
and applied by the authors and others in their own 
systematic work ; further, with the purification of potable 
waters ; and last, but not leist, with the most efficient 
means of disinfection. 
As stated already, these two sections of the book 
form, by their clear and concise descriptions and by 
their complete treatment, an advance over all existing 
books, and we venture to say that the book on this 
account alone deserves to be, and will doubtless become, 
of universal use. 
There is one further merit in this book not to be taken 
lightly, and that is the copious references to the original 
works of other authors, notably French and German. 
There are references also to English and American 
workers, but, as is usual with most German and French 
writers, to which we in England have become by 
this time well accustomed, references to English and 
American literature occur rather sparingly and are 
treated in a somewhat stepmotherly fashion. 
E. KLEIN. 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
General Investigations of Curved Surfaces of 1827 and 
1825. By Karl Friedrich Gauss. Translated with 
Notes and a Bibliography by James Caddall Morehead, 
A.M., M.S., and Adam Miller Hiltebeitel, A.M. Pp. 
vill + 127. (Princeton, N.J., U.S.A.: The Princeton 
Library Publishing Association, 1902.) Price 1°75 
dollars. 
THIs is an English translation of the classic memoirs of 
Gauss on the theory of surfaces. The first paper is that 
which was presented to the Royal Society of Gottingen in 
