214 



NA TURE 



[December 23, 1909 



6000 yards, and i7'5 inches at 24,000 yards. Readers 

 interested in the subject will find in the book many 

 equally instructive comparisons, illustrating the great 

 strides made during recent years in the engineering of 

 ordnance. W. H. W. 



VEGETABLE PROTEINS. 

 The Vegetable Proteins. By Dr. Thomas B. Osborne. 

 Pp. xiii + 121;. With Bibliography. [Monographs 

 on Biochemistry. Edited by Dr. Aders Plimmer 

 and Dr. F. G. Hopkins.] (London : Longmans, 

 Green and Co., 1909.) Price 35. 6d. net. 



THE extent to which the knowledge of the proteins 

 has increased during the last decade is abund- 

 antly witnessed by the fact that this is the fourth in 

 this series of biochemical monographs which is devoted 

 to them. Dr. Osborne is undoubtedly the leading 

 authority on the chemistry of the vegetable proteins, 

 and much of the matter considered in this essay was 

 originally made known by his researches. The vege- 

 table proteins are of importance, not only on their own 

 account, but also because of their analogy to the 

 animal proteins, which are being so closely studied 

 at the present time. For this reason, this monograph 

 will be welcomed by animal physiologists. 



The author has chosen to treat the subject broadly, 

 and to give a general discussion of the chemical and 

 physical properties of vegetable proteins rather than 

 to describe the individual proteins. Whilst this 

 method of treatment will commend itself to many, it 

 must not be forgotten that there is nothing funda- 

 mental to distinguish vegetable from animal proteins 

 as a whole, and there is a danger of setting up some 

 artificial distinction between the two classes. 



A clear distinction is made between the proteins of 

 the plant embryo and the reserve proteins of seeds, 

 which so far have been the materials chiefly examined. 

 The reserve proteins are all very characteristic and 

 yield large proportions of some particular amino-acid 

 when hydrolysed. As Pfeffer has pointed out, they 

 are to be regarded as excretory products, for they can 

 take no further part in metabolism, and are lost to 

 the plant. The reserve proteins are far more stable 

 towards chemical reagents than are the living tissue 

 proteins; this property has enabled them to be more 

 drastically purified than most of the proteins of animal 

 origin. 



Perusal of the monograph will very rapidly con- 

 vince the reader of the great experimental difficulties 

 attending work in this field, partly on account of the 

 great tendency to form colloidal precipitates which 

 are difficult to manipulate, and partly because no abso- 

 lute methods are at present known which enable one 

 protein to be separated from another. 



Although, on the whole, it must be admitted we 

 are only just beginning to gain some insight into 

 the chemical nature of proteins, yet a work of this 

 kind, like the other monographs which have preceded 

 it in the series, is so stimulating, and suggests so 

 many possibilities of research, that it requires no other 

 justification for its issue, and it should be in the 

 hands of every earnest student of biochemistry. 



We could have wished the author to have been more 

 NO. 2095, VOL. 82] 



exhaustive in his treatment, and to have included, for 

 example, some discussion of Dr. H. T. Brown's re- 

 cent work. The inter-relationship of the proteins of 

 wheat likewise deserves much fuller discussion. 



In conformity with the editors' plan, a bibliography 

 of no fewer than 608 papers, arranged alphabetically 

 according to the authors' names, has been added. 

 The publishers may be congratulated on the improved 

 cover. A further advantage in the style of the series 

 is the possession of the wide margins, which enable 

 the reader to amplify the text by his own notes. 



E. F. A. 



MORPHOLOGY AND MEDICINE. 

 Clinical Commentaries deduced from the Morphology 

 of the Human Body. By Prof. Achille De-Giovanni. 

 Translated from the second Italian edition by John 

 Joseph Eyre. Pp. xii + 436. (London : Rebman, 

 Limited, 1909.) Price 155. net. 



THE object of the author of this work is to lay 

 anew the foundations on which the principle* 

 and practice of the physician's art are based. The 

 new foundations are the principles of morphology — 

 morphology as expounded by Haeckel, Gegenbaur, 

 and other great anatomists. Like all enthusiastic 

 reformers, as cne may infer from the following' 

 passage (p. 206), he has evidently suffered considerably 

 at the hand of his Italian confreres : — 



" The academicians (I call them academicians 

 because, according to their way, they have made 

 known that the epithet of colleague is not suitable) — 

 the academicians will not demean themselves by 

 accepting these stupid things. Then there are those 

 who, posing as reforming geniuses, let fly a smile of 

 compassion, and others who, from the Olympus of 

 the hypercritical criticism of which they seem 

 specialists, qualify these things in the presence of 

 the credulous public as works of magic, because they 

 do not seek to comprehend them." 



By way of apology for Prof. De-Giovanni's medical 

 confreres, the reviewer must confess that a full com- 

 prehension of these new doctrines is not an easy 

 matter. x'\s in some of the more recent novels of 

 Henry James, one is puzzled to know whether the 

 obscurities are due to a lack of sense on the part of 

 the reader or of the writer. At least, from the fol- 

 lowing passage in the preface, in which Prof. De- 

 Giovanni explains his purpose — and there are passages 

 equally obscure on every page of the book — it is 

 evident that the translator has found an equal diffi- 

 culty, and, apparently, has abandoned as hopeless the 

 task of making the meaning of the original clear : — 



" Therefore I think that every clinical investigation 

 should be conducted on the basis of the individuality 

 morphologically verified, for every other verification 

 of the facts and phenomena in relation to doctrine and 

 practice in their turn in every concrete case in- 

 dividualise theinselves, or, to speak better, present 

 themselves, not such as they may be according to the 

 data of general biological experience, but such as they 

 must be in the morphological type of the individual 

 under examination;" 



Instead of speculating on the exact meaning of the 

 passage just cited, it will be more profitable to follow 

 Prof. De-Giovanni into his clinic, attached to the Uni- 



