412 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 769 



der Speziellen Eiweisschemie " first appeared 

 as a chapter in the " Handbuch der Bio- 

 chemie " edited by Karl Oppenheim. The en- 

 tire subject of proteins was treated in that 

 " Handbuch " by several authors, and it was 

 the part of Professor Abderhalden to present 

 that phase of the progress in protein-chemis- 

 try which was made possible through the new 

 analytical and synthetical methods, intro- 

 duced by Emil Fischer. 



Professor Abderhalden was a close associate 

 of Emil Fischer during the time when the 

 work was in progress and that makes the 

 chapter more vivid and authoritative than any 

 other on the subject of protein chemistry, 

 written' for the Oppenheimer Handbuch. 



The work on protein chemistry of Fischer 

 and his school falls into two large groups : one 

 which brought to light the elementary com- 

 ponents of the protein molecule, and the sec- 

 ond, which elucidated the character of their 

 linkage in the protein molecule. The first was 

 in its nature principally analytical, the second 

 synthetical. The work in either direction was 

 preceded by a careful study of the properties 

 of some derivatives of aminoaeids. In course 

 of this study Fischer introduced an improve- 

 ment into the method of Curtius for prepar- 

 ing the ethylesters of the aminoaeids from 

 their hydrochlorides. This made possible the 

 distillation of the esters and their separation 

 one from another in a convenient, neat and 

 comparatively rapid manner. The part as- 

 signed by Fischer to Abderhalden and his co- 

 workers was to apply this process to the sepa- 

 ration of the aminoaeids obtained on the 

 cleavage of nearly every protein known in na- 

 ture. A part of the book contains a complete 

 and concise account of all this work. 



The property of the esters of the aminoaeids 

 to form anhydrides of the acids was the basis 

 for the synthetic formation of peptides. It is 

 safe to say that this discovery was the most 

 important phase in the development of pro- 

 tein chemistry, since it contained the key to 

 our knowledge of the manner in which indi- 

 vidual aminoaeids are linked in the protein 

 molecule. 



The original method of peptid synthesis was 



later improved through the introduction of the 

 halogenacyl synthesis which led to the forma- 

 tion of optically active peptides. This new 

 achievement in its turn opened the way to the 

 study of the configuration of peptides and of 

 the relation of configuration to the action of 

 proteolytic enzymes. The book of Abderhalden 

 gives a complete account of all these achieve- 

 ments in a very concise form. The properties 

 of all known aminoaeids and their deriva- 

 tives are described in a manner which makes 

 the work serve as a valuable reference book. 

 The analytical methods are also described, 

 though not always in minute detail. All this 

 makes the book very serviceable to the investi- 

 gator, and at the same time it gives a good 

 survey of the development of our knowledge 

 of the chemical structure of the protein mole- 

 cule. The physical properties of the proteins 

 and the character of their primary cleavage 

 products are not discussed by Abderhalden. 

 P. A. Levene 

 The Rockefeller Institute 

 FOB Medical Research 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The opening (October) number of volume 

 16 of the Bulletin of the American Mathe- 

 matical Society contains the following papers: 

 " Note on Fermat's Numbers," by J. C. 

 Morehead and A. E. Western ; " An Extension 

 of Certain Integrability Conditions," by J. 

 E. Wright ; " Necessary Conditions that Three 

 or More Partial Differential Equations of the 

 Second Order shall have Common Solu- 

 tions," by C. A. Noble ; " Note on Determi- 

 nants Whose Terms are Certain Integrals," 

 by R. G. D. Richardson and W. A. Hurwitz; 

 " On the Tactical Problem of Steiner," by W. 

 H. Bussey ; " On the So-called Gyrostatic Ef- 

 fect," by A. S. Chessin; "A Continuous 

 Group related to Von Seidel's Optical 

 Theory," by A. C. Lunn ; " Shorter Notices " : 

 Runge's Analytische Geometrie der Ebene, by 

 M. Bocher; Netto's Gruppen- und Substitu- 

 tionentheorie, by W. B. Fite; Czuber's Ein- 

 fiihrung in die hohere Mathematik, by C. L. 

 E. Moore; Ball-FitzPatrick's Recreations 

 mathematiques, by D. E. Smith; Pockel's 



