CURRENT LITERATURE, 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Plant response. 
No suBJECT is more fascinating than the responses of plants to stimuli; and. 
though the mechanisms involved are often much simpler than in the case of 
animals, no subject is more difficult. Papers dealing with limited topics in this 
field are constantly appearing; one feels some surprise at seeing a large volume 
of new researches dealing with the matter in the most fundamental fashion. 
The surprise is increased when it is seen that the author is one whose name 1s 
new in the literature of plant physiology and whose nation is fond rather of 
speculative philosophy than of scientific observation. Professor JAGADIS CHUN- 
DER Bose of Presidency College, Calcutta, published in 1902 a volume on Response 
in the living and non-living, in which he pointed out many parallels between the 
“irritability” of organisms and of other bodies. But this volume seems not 10 
have attracted general attention among physiologists; and some of those who 
read it were inclined to discount the parallelism as one suggested rather by 
philosophic bias than scientific induction. ; 
On opening this new work? the plant physiologist will be inclined to think 
it some volume on muscle-response in animals, the numerous graphs being quite 
muscle, 
animal physiology and in the methods of research in vogue for pulse and edi 
L ep wh Py Se fea corde 
detecting before unsuspected (or at least unre 
responses in plants. d 
But he has done much more than merely apply the existing apparatus 4" 
methods. He has employed new methods and has devised new and ingenious 
apparatus for automatically recording responses. For example, there ae 
described many clever minor adaptations of the optic lever and various electri¢ 
evices; and among the major ones may be enumerated the kuochangee 
io 
‘ ‘ : wee §yo- 
« Bose, J. G., Plant response as a means of physiological investigation- Co. 
pp. 781. figs. 278. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, 
1906. 
148 
