Te oN eat ee 
ei ps ee GN AG ee 
1909] CURRENT LITERATURE — 231 
receive adequate treatment. Bacteriology will never attain its true position as a 
member of the sisterhood of biological sciences until some one of its devotees will 
sacrifice his time to prepare a comprehensive text that presents the bacteria in 
their relations as living things, rather than as capable of affecting prejudicially 
or otherwise man and beast. Special fields may well receive special treatment, 
with such summary of general matter as may be absolutely necessary to enable the 
special class of students to handle the subject. 
While the volume fails somewhat to meet our anticipations and is hardly 
adequate from the biologic point of view, the admirable presentation of the 
medical part of the volume shows careful work.. The addition of chapters on 
the pathogenic Trichomycetes, Blastomycetes, and Hyphomycetes, as well as 
the disease-producing protozoa and diseases of unknown etiology, will be helpful 
to the medical student in correlating many of the recent advances in microbiology. 
With the rapid widening of the scope of study relating to the microparasites, we 
shall soon be driven to the adoption of the French term “microbiology,” rather 
than the more restricted German title of bacteriology.—H. L. RUSSELL. 
The eight years which have elasped since the publication of the first edition 
of Conn’s Agricultural bacteriology have been years of rapid advancement in 
all lines of bacteriological activity. A second edition? finds much new material 
to be incorporated. 
he author in his preface admits that the limitations of the term agr cultural 
bacteriology are puzzling. The farmer has most of the city problems of sanitation 
in miniature and many more in economic bacteriology. The prevention of infec- 
tious disease in man and animals; farm engineering with its problems of sanita- 
tion, water supply, and sewage disposal; the function of bacteria in the produc- 
tion of butter and cheese; the conservation of the soil by encouraging the growth 
of beneficial bacteria; the part which bacteria play in the curing and prepara- 
tion of food for man and animal—these problems range over practically the whole 
domain of bacteriology. A text which attempts to cover such a field in a little 
more than three hundred pages must of necessity be an outline merely and not an 
exhaustive treatment of the subject. Each chapter could be easily elaborated 
Into a volume. 
In make-up the volume has improved. The pages have been reduced from 
412 to 331 in number. The illustrations have been numbered and many old — 
replaced by better. Part, at least, of the decrease in size is due to the elimination 
of the references to literature found at the end of each chapter in the first edition. 
The text has been entirely rewritten, though the main divisions have remained 
as before. The revision has resulted in increased conciseness and clearness of 
expression. The discussion of bacteria and the nitrogen problem is excellent for 
use in an agricultural high school, but seems rather inadequate as a presenta ore 
Of the subject to college students with two or more years of training In chemistry 
areaner . , it . x+331- figs. 64. 
“ep ONN, H. W., Agricultural bacteriology. Second edition. pp 
hiladelphia: P. Blakiston’s Son and Co. 1909. $2.00. 
