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CURRENT LITERATURE. 



BOOK REVIEWS. 



Bacteria. 



The first edition of Fischer^s lectures appeared in 1897, and was 

 described by its author as an introduction to general bacteriology, "an 

 endeavor to survey and group into a whole the salient features of the science 

 from the larger biological standpoint/' The second edition.^ just from the 

 press» retains the plan of the earlier volume, although the book has swelled 

 to double its original size, with many additional details and illustrations. 

 The earlier chapters, those on morphology, are among the most valuable, 

 although the author is inclined to believe that the majority of cell variations 

 are the result of degenerative processes, /. ^., are involution-forms. In this 

 view he differs from many students who have given special names to the 

 branching forms seen in B. tuberculosis and B.' diphtheriae. In his chapter 

 on "Die Bakterienzelle als osmotisches System," Fischer calls attention to 

 several points in which he departs from his earlier views published in 1900, 

 particularly his explanation of ''plasmoptyse"; these changes are based upon 

 new experiments, to be more fully discussed by him in a future publication. 

 It is interesting to note that, in striking contrast to the " immunity"-burdened 

 bacteriological literature of the past two years, this volume devotes nine 

 chapters, or 117 pages, to the carbon and nitrogen cycles, while immunity, 

 vaccination, and serum therapy are disposed of in one chapter of 11 pages. 

 Toward this subject the author seems unsympathetic, and even suspicious ; 

 but for a student of morphological, systematic, or agricultural bacteriology 

 the book has much to offer. — Mary Hefferan. 



Principles of variation. 



In this book Dr. Vernon has assembled with no little skill many important 

 data on the subject of variation and thus supplied a compendium^ that 

 admirably supplements Darwin^s work on The variation of animals and 

 plants under domestication. 



The subject-matter is arranged under three main parts, viz.: I, The facts 

 of variation; II, The causes of variation; and III, Variation in relation to 

 evolution. In the first part we naturally expect a summary of the results of 



*" Fischer, Alfred, Vorlesungen Uber Bakterien. 2d edition, pp. x + 374. 

 ^gs,6g. Jena; Gustav Fischer. 1903. 



* Vernon, H. M., Variation in animals and plants. 8vo. pp. 4I5- 1^'ew York: 

 Henry liolt & Co., 1903. 

 1903] 437 



