1908] CURRENT LITERATURE 59 
ance with the researches of others; while the naiveté with which some of the 
t lite problems ttacked and dismissed as solved awakened amused 
incredulity. At the same time the author’s ingenuity in devising and adapting 
self-registering methods to the mechanical and electrical responses of plants, as 
well as the suggestiveness of some of his results, made the book possibly an epochal 
one, since it struck out a rather new path for most important investigations. 
So far, however, nothing has come of it. Its reception has been apathetic, 
not to say cold, and to all appearances it has fallen dead because of its faults and 
_ in spite of its manifest virtues. No researches have followed it up; no investi- 
gator has used its methods. That volume on Plant response was the second of a 
series of three (the first on Response in the living and non-living), of which the 
third has just made its appearance under the title Comparative electro- 
physiology.s 
The author herein shows the same peculiarities as in the preceding volume. 
There is the same naive interest in well-known phenomena, as though they were 
quite novel; there is the same lack of effort to connect his work with that of 
others, so far, at least, as citing their researches or results is concerned. It is 
doubtful if in this book of over 800 pages, dealing with a very special topic on 
which there must be a legion of workers, there are a dozen citations of original 
Sources. There is much repetition of the earlier volume; the same tilting at 
windmills—vigorous attacks on vitalism and on the contrast between animals 
and plants, and between “sensitive plants” and others, till one is tempted to inquire 
with Sairey Gamp, “‘Who denyges of it, Betsey, who denyges of it?” 
This volume maintains the same simple thesis as its predecessor—as simple 
as the faith of Islam, ‘Allah is great and Muhamed is his prophet” —contraction 
is universal and negativity is its sign, The direct response to every stimulus is 
_ Contraction,” the indirect one (at a little distance) is “expansion.” The former 
Is said to be accompanied by reduction and the latter by increase of turgidity, with 
corresponding electric variations. The expression of contraction in movement, 
Suction” (ascent of sap), growth, “‘torsion” (in climbing plants), death, and 
electric variation, constitutes the theme of the two volumes. This much needs 
to be said: There are reasons for expecting Some universal fundamental reaction 
in all responses; it may be that Bosk has hit upon it in what he miscalls “‘con- 
ion” (for this is really nothing but a reduction in turgidity); but his work is not 
g 
convincing. 
This book shares with its predecessor, also, the confusion between energy 
and stimulus, a confusion that is possible because we know so little of plant — 
®nergetics. This reaches its absurd climax in the conception of the author as to 
si function of plant nerve. He gravely tells us that the ramification of the 
nerves” in a leaf provides a “virtual catchment basin for the reception of stimu- 
lus,” whence it is transmitted to the body of the plant, there to be stored and 
Wise 
8 * Bose, J. C., Comparative electro-physiology, a physico-physiological study. 
Yo. pp. xliv+760. jigs. 406. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1908. $5.75. 
