1897 | CURRENT LITERATURE 439 
Lectures on Bacteria.’ 
The multiplication of text books of bacteriology written from the stand- 
point of pure science rather than from that of medicine or technical industry 
is a hopeful sign. It means, let us trust, the ultimate correction of the asym- 
metrical development of the subject observable in the last few years, and may 
perhaps presage a certain reaction from the feverish search after all manner 
of ‘‘curative sera.” In fact, continued advance along practical lines is pos- 
sible only if the broader field is sedulously cultivated. The significance to 
agriculture, for example, of Winogradsky’s work upon the nitrifying organism 
cannot perhaps be overestimated, but it is increasingly apparent that more 
research into the purely scientific aspects of nitrification must be forthcoming 
before we can hope to apply practically the results already obtained. T 
rescue of the subject of bacteriology from too exclusive devotion to test tube 
and guinea pig, and the return to the more wholesome if less sensational biologi- 
cal methods, will be forwarded by books like these “lectures” of Fischer. 
The lectures contain a full disquisition upon the morphology and system- 
atic position of bacteria, the structure of the cell being viewed, so to speak, 
from the standpoint of a plasmolysist. Biitschli’s conception of the “central 
body”’ is, of course, stoutly opposed. Nearly one-third of the book is wisely 
given up to a description of the part played by bacteria in the transformation 
of nitrogen and carbon compounds; and the fundamental questions of putre- 
faction, nitrification, nitrogen-assimilation, fermentation, etc., are lucidly, if 
omewhat didactically, treated. Thirty pages (out of 160) are given to a con- 
sideration of bacteria in the réle of excitants of disease, but in this brief space 
the author endeavors to set forth the true inwardness of serum therapy, devotes 
a word and a picture to the phagocyte theory, and has a paragraph even for 
. the new tuberculin preparations “TO” and “TR!” A series of 164 notes 
at the end of the book, with references to pages of the text, contains some 
very useful bibliographical material, and serves to bring the lectures quite 
abreast of our knowledge. Fischer finds himself wholly unable to accept the 
‘remarkable observations of Stutzer and Hartleb? on the nitrifying organisms 
(mote 72), and completely rejects the notion of extreme polymorphism 
advanced by these authors, whose investigations he characterizes as “full of 
Raps and entirely inadequate.”— E. O. J. 
MINOR NOTICES. 
In Mercx’s Report for August 15 and September 1, Mr. Frederick 
, toy Sargent has a paper on the Rununculacex, giving a general account 
of the morphology of the family.— C. R. B. 
* FISCHER, Dr. ALFRED.— Vorlesungen iiber Bakterien. 8vo. pp. 186. Jena: 
