CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Experimental physiology. 
THE study of plant physiology is becoming more common, and is destined 
to occupy an important place in instruction both in colleges and secondary 
schools. One of the factors in the increasing attention given to this subject, 
was the publication a little more than ten years ago of the first edition of 
Detmer’s Pflanzenphysiologisches Praktikum. Many teachers have relied 
upon this as the basis of a course of experiments. Darwin and Acton’s book 
followed and gave many useful suggestions. When, a few years ago, 
MacDougal translated Oels’s little book and later published a similar one as 
an independent guide for the simpler laboratory experiments, the secondary 
schools began to feel the impetus to this sort of instruction. 
In 1895 a second edition of Detmer’s Praktikum appeared, almost com- 
pletely rewritten and much improved. This second edition has now been 
translated into English by Principal S. A. Moor, of Girasia College, India, 
formerly lecturer on botany in the University College of Wales... The book 
in its German form is so well known to teachers that there is nothing to say 
of it in its new form, except that the translation is unusually faithful and 
smooth, and that the publishers have given it a worthy dress but for the 
flimsy binding. To announce the appearance of the English edition will be 
enough to put it into the hands of every teacher of plant physiology who is 
conducting laboratory courses. The chief regret is that the translation has 
been so slow in making its appearance that it is somewhat out of date. Never- 
theless, it will be very useful for students in those classes which make a 
serious study of the subject as a preparation for research. Of course it must 
be used with judicious omissions, and it will need to be supplemented by such 
new light as has been obtained since the middle of 1894. The book is con- 
Spicuously weak in the section on the molecular forces in plants, which was 
y ho means up to date at the time of the revision. But this and other 
weaknesses belong to the original, which has been before the public long 
enough to be thoroughly judged. It would have been, therefore, an accepta- 
ble service had the translator improved it, instead of giving us an exact 
reéproduction.—C. R, B. 
*DETMER, W.— Practical gare physiology: an introduction to original research 
for students 2H teachers of natural science, medicine, agriculture, and forestry. 
Translated from the second beceus edition by S. A. Moor. 8vo. pp. aye ma 
184. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. New York : The Macmillan C 
1898] 215 
