98 



NATURE 



[May 30, 1907 



Naturally amid much agreement is some conflict of 

 opinion, a fact wliich has its humorous aspect. 

 Thus, at the close of his essay on " The Criminology 

 of Alcoholism," Dr. Sullivan, who believes that 

 parental alcoholism " has a very high degree of 

 importance ... in the genesis of those conditions 

 of arrested or perverted development which charac- 

 terise the moral imbecile and instinctive criminal," 

 refers the reader to the essay on heredity. When, 

 however, we turn to that essay, we find no reference 

 to the alleged effects of parental intemperance on the 

 morals of offspring, but a statement that " we should 

 expect those communities which for the greatest 

 number of consecutive generations have had oppor- 

 tunities for chronic drunkenness — or what comes to 

 the same thing, those possessing the most ancient 

 civilisations — to be the most disposed to temperance." 



BERNTHSEN'S ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

 A Text-book of Organic Chemistry. By A. 

 Bernthsen. Edited and revised up to date by Dr. 

 J. J. Sudborough. Pp. xvi + 6s8. (London : 

 Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1906.) 



THE new issue of Bernthsen's text-book, which 

 has been edited and revised by Prof. Sud- 

 borough, is a great advance on former editions. 

 Although the general arrangement of the contents 

 has been preserved, the amount of additional material 

 has so much extended the scope of the original work 

 that, in its present form, it is practically a new book. 

 Some of the more prominent alterations and addi- 

 tions may be briefly noticed. In the first place, there 

 are frequent references to physical chemistry and its 

 application to problems of organic chemistry which 

 are interesting and suggestive. Secondly, more than 

 100 additional pages at the end of the book are de- 

 voted to topics which have undef'gone recent develop- 

 ment, such as the alkaloids, the terpenes, resins, 

 glucosides, and proteins ; there is a section on re- 

 agents, a section on stereochemistry, and one on 

 physical constants in relation to structure. Though 

 highlv condensed, they are clear and explicit, and are 

 furnished with full and useful references (which, by 

 the way, would be more convenient and less disturb- 

 ing to the reader at the foot of the page than 

 embodied in the text). Finally, the systjm of nomen- 

 clature has been modernised The term "atomic," 

 applied to alcohols, phenols, Sec, has been replaced by 

 '■■ hydric "; " ether," used in connection with organic 

 salts, becomes " ester " ; " alcohol radical " is changed 

 to " alkyl," and the word " radical " is properly spelt. 

 The editor seems to have been in doubt about isomer 

 and isomcride. and oxy and hydroxy, which are used 

 indiscriminately. The writer entirely sympathises with 

 this uncertainty in the use of certain terms, for 

 the chemist often finds himself awkwardly placed. 

 Not only does he feel obliqfed to respect the nomen- 

 clature adopted by foreign chemists, which is not 

 always happily chosen, but he must conform in some 

 measure to the system laid down by the Chemical 

 Society. The purine derivatives offer a case in point. 

 NO. 1961, VOL. 76] 



E. Fischer derives uric acid from purine and calls it 

 a " trioxy " purine, though the usual formula is 

 innocent of hydroxyl groups. The English equi- 

 valent, " trihydroxypurine," is consequently mislead- 

 ing. He is therefore confronted with the alternative 

 of either using German nomenclature which is not 

 ofificial or confusing the reader with its English 

 equivalent. 



.Another example is that of the carbohydrates, to 

 which the term " saccharide " is applied in Germany 

 by analogy with "glucoside." This analogy is lost 

 in the case of the hexose group of sugars, which are 

 not anhydrides in the ordinary sense. The editor in 

 this case has wisely employed the termination "-ose," 

 and divided the group into mono-, di-, tri-, and poly- 

 saccharoses. Incidentally, it should be pointed out 

 that the terms monose, biose, triose, &c., which he 

 employs as synonymous with the above are also used 

 to distinguish the sugars by the number of their 

 carbon atoms, with the result that triose is applied 

 equally to raffinose, with eighteen carbon atoms, and 

 glycerose, with three. It is a little unfortunate that 

 the Chemical Society does not tackle these questions 

 of terminology as soon as they arise, and, by a 

 sensible and authoritative revision, remove a real 

 difficulty in the way of writers on organic chemistry. 

 One cannot but think that a generic terminal syllable 

 denoting a particular class of compounds has much 

 to recommend it, and had this been recognised such 

 a word as " proteose " could not have crept into the 

 new protein nomenclature. 



The defects of the volume before us seem to be- 

 few in comparison with its many excellences, and 

 where so much information has been collected and 

 arranged it may appear hypercritical to find any 

 fault. 



The following omissions and corrections, however, 

 seem important, and may perhaps be rectified in a 

 future edition. The modern methods used in the 

 manufacture of potassium cyanide, potassium ferro- 

 cyanide, and cyanamide are omitted; so are Piloty's 

 synthesis of glycerin, Lawrence's synthesis of citric 

 acid, Bertrand's method for obtaining dihydroxy- 

 acetone and other ketonic alcohols, and the citric acid 

 fermentation of glucose. The following errors should 

 also be corrected. The product obtained by Fischer 

 from glycerin by oxidation is mainly dihydroxy- 

 acetone, and not glyceric aldehyde (p. 306) ; in the con- 

 version of pseudouric acid into uric acid, hydrochloric 

 acid, and not oxalic acid, is now used (p. 291); it is 

 not true that all the chlorinated products of benzene 

 up to CjClj can be obtained by chlorinating benzene 

 (p. 253), for some of the isomers are not formed in 

 this way ; in preparing" the esters of the amino acid.' 

 from the hydrolytic products of protein substances. 

 Fischer and Speicr's method is not employed, but the 

 alcoholic liquid is saturated with hydrogen chloride 

 (p. 576). 



It only remains to add that, in the writer's opinion 

 the new edition of Bernthsen may claim to be one ol 

 the best, if not the best, text-books of organic 

 chemistry for advanced students in the Englisl- 

 language. J. B. C . 



