NATURE 



553 



THURSDAY, APRIL i6, ic 



THE CHEMISTRY OF THE HIGHER 

 FUNGI. 



Chcmie der hoheren Pilzc, eine Monographic. By 

 Dr. Julius Zellner. Pp. vi + 257. (Leipzig: W. 

 Engelmann, 1907.) Price 9 marks. 



THE detection, isolation, and characterisation of 

 tlie definite compounds resulting from the vital 

 processes of living organisms is a branch of organic 

 chemistry which is slowly developing and of which 

 I he progress is necessarily dependent upon the develop- 

 ment of pure chemistry. In fact, it may be said that 

 in some respects this department of biochemistry is 

 in advance of the pure science, because the living 

 organism has already furnished chemists with im- 

 imnse numbers of compounds which are quite definite, 

 but of which the cliemical constitution is at present 

 unknown. Indeed, it may be stated in much wider 

 terms that there is probably no such thing as an 

 " indefinite " chemical compound in the whole animal 

 or vegetable world. There is no doubt that many, 

 perhaps the majority, of the organic compounds 

 present in animals or plants are of very high molecular 

 weights and of great atomic complexity, and there 

 is also no doubt that many of the products which have 

 been isolated and studied are complex mixtures or 

 combinations of such complexes. But to speak of 

 sucli products as "' indefinite " is simply tantamount 

 to the admission that our modern methods of research 

 are inadequate, and that our knowledge of bio- 

 chemistry must develop concurrently with the develop- 

 ment of new methods for dealing with these highly 

 complex molecules. 



The ultimate aim and object of scientific chemical 

 work in this field is presumably to follow the develop- 

 ment of the various compounds in the living organism 

 — to detect the genetic relationships between the mole- 

 cules for the purpose of learning how nature works 

 111 the vital laboratory. .As a prelude to this know- 

 ledge it is necessary to get, in the first place, an 

 inventory, as complete as possible, of the compounds 

 actually known to exist in, or to be produced by, the 

 animal or plant. With respect to plant chemistry it 

 may be said that practically all the works dealing 

 with this subject have hitherto been of the nature of 

 such catalogues or inventories. Here and there, as 

 the result of these studies, genetic relationships have 

 been detected, but this field of research is urgently 

 in need of systematic cultivation. As a subject it 

 bristles with practical difficulties, and for the achieve- 

 ment of successful results the investigator should 

 combine the qualifications of an expert chemist with 

 those of the e.xpert botanist. It is not surprising that, 

 in the circumstances, the biostatical aspect of plant 

 chemistry should have progressed so much more 

 rapidly than the biodynamical aspect. 



Dr. Zellner's monograph may be regarded as 

 another contribution to plant chemistry from the bio- 

 statical side. It deals with a particularly interesting 

 NO. 2007, vol,. 77] 



group, and will be found invaluable to students and 

 workers in this field. By the " higher fungi " the 

 author means all those orders generally classed as 

 fungi with the exclusion of bacteria, moulds, and 

 yeasts. The line of demarcation, as Dr. Zellner 

 points out, is perhaps not, strictly speaking, a scientific 

 one, but for practical purposes it is both justifiable and 

 convenient, as bacteriology and fermentation have 

 been developed into large and important branches of 

 science, and their literature is amply provided for. 



In treatment the present work follows the chemical 

 rather than the botanical classification, the chapters, 

 of which there are twenty-two, bearing the titles of 

 the chemical families, beginning with the mineral 

 constituents, and passing on to the hydrocarbons, 

 fats, lecithins, alcohols, acids, amino-acids, purine 

 group, bases, carbohydrates, tanning and colouring 

 matters, resins and terpenes, proteins, &c. The 

 chapters on the ferments and toxins of fungi will be 

 of particular interest to many readers. One chapter 

 is devoted to the consideration of the nutritive value 

 of fungi, which the author does not consider to be 

 very high. In this chapter there are many valuable 

 tables giving the quantitative results of the analysis 

 of the proximate constituents of large numbers of 

 species. In the case of certain chemical families of 

 very wide occurrence, such as the carbohydrates, the 

 author has been obliged to interpolate tables based 

 on the botanical classification. Thus in chapter xii, 

 there is a tabulated list of no fewer than 233 species, 

 giving the distribution of mannitol, mycose (trehalose) 

 and glucose, or other reducing sugar, together with 

 the name of the observer and the year of the dis- 

 covery of the carbohydrates. In giving the details 

 of the various compounds, the author has wisely 

 thought it unnecessary to enlarge upon the chemistry 

 of well-known and widely distributed substances which 

 are of general occurrence in the vegetable kingdom. 

 On the other hand, compounds of special interest in 

 mycological chemistry, such, for example, as muscarin, 

 ergotin, choline, &c., which are essentially, if not 

 exclusively, products of fungi, are dealt with ex- 

 haustively. As is so generally the case with German 

 writers of monographs on scientific subjects, the refer- 

 ences to authorities are fully given. 



As a contribution to scientific literature there is 

 nothing in this work calling for criticism. The 

 author, unlike many specialists, takes a remarkably 

 fair view of the "perspective " of his subject, and the 

 result is a work which may be described as concisely 

 complete. It may savour of impertinence for a 

 "foreigner" to complain of the spelling of his own 

 language by a German writer, but those who are in 

 the habit of following German work in our own sub- 

 jects — i.e. the working men of science of this country 

 generally — have become accustomed to certain estab- 

 lished modes of spelling in such scientific publications 

 as the Bcrichte of the German Chemical and Botanical 

 Societies, and so forth. We in this country have 

 become " hardened " (literally) into seeing K for C 

 (hard) ; we have got over the first shock of seeing 

 such words as Glukose, Fruktose, Mykose, &c., and 



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