616 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 746 



lie was dealing. "I don't believe you will 

 have any trouble in finding use for a little 

 more. Here is a trifle for you to apply, on 

 just one condition. Put it in your pocket and 

 expend it as you choose. Make no note of it 

 in your accounting." He left, with a rough 

 yellow envelope sealed in my hands. This 

 contained seven bills of $100 each. The total 

 contributions raised outside of this did not 

 amount to $200, as I recall. 



And the school grew. The work of Brooks 

 was prophetic of his future career. Collec- 

 tions and excursions and dissections were 

 made possible. Dr. John S. Newberry gave 

 uSi two lectures on geology which were beyond 

 and above any I ever heard for concise com- 

 pleteness. If from this poor little effort there 

 came forth no other good than the launching 

 of Brooks upon his most worthy career, it is 

 honor indeed to have shared in the cost thereof. 

 Theo. B. Comstock 



Los Angeles, Cal. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Hisiologisches Practicum der Tiere. By De. 

 Karl Oamillo Schneider, A. O. Professor 

 in the University of Vienna. With 434 

 text-figures. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 1908. 

 In view of the excellence of the first edition 

 of K. C. Schneider's histology, which appeared 

 about six years ago, students of the subject 

 will welcome this new edition recently pub- 

 lished by Fischer in Jena. The wide circula- 

 tion of the first edition, together with the im- 

 portance attached to it by all scientists, will 

 enable the writer to more easily review the last 

 edition by some slight reference to the first. 



In general, it may be said that the author 

 has endeavored, by shortening his " Lehrbuch 

 der vergleichenden Histologie," and by slightly 

 rearranging it, to make it more practical and 

 to adapt it to the use of university students 

 taking a "course" in the subject. While 

 doing this, some of the subject-matter has 

 been rewritten to accord with the results of 

 recent research, and some entirely new work 

 has been added. 



The first or general part of the work opens, 

 after the preface, with an introduction, in 



which the subject is defined and the view-point 

 and method of treatment outlined. This dis- 

 cussion is concluded (p. 5) with two ideas 

 which give the author's conception of histol- 

 ogy and, of necessity, fix the form of arrange- 

 ment of the whole book. The first idea is that 

 histology should concern itseK only with 

 structure or form and should be studied and 

 treated without regard to function. Sec- 

 ondly, that being a fundamental morpholog- 

 ical study, it underlies any natural scheme of 

 classification. The reviewer presumes that 

 by " natural classification " is meant the 

 classification founded upon blood relationship 

 through evolution. 



The reviewer does not wish to criticize this 

 conception as the guiding principle in a his- 

 tological course, being fully impressed with its 

 educational value in a book so well executed 

 as that under review. He does, however, wish 

 to call attention to another view, held by some 

 workers including himself, which looks upon 

 histological structure as the important ma- 

 chinery through which the varied functions of 

 organisms are performed and life is main- 

 tained. Such a view, which lays special stress 

 on the cytological and chemical side of his- 

 tology without making it altogether a study of 

 physiology, has prompted the writing of such 

 text-books as Prenant's " Traite D'Histologie " 

 and Martin Heidenhain's " Plasma und Zelle." 

 The introduction concludes with a discussion 

 of some of the principal features of animal 

 morphology or " Architektonik," followed by a 

 systematic arrangement of the animal king- 

 dom on this basis. 



The remainder of the " general part " is 

 taken up with an account of the structure of 

 the cell, of cell division, and of the working 

 substances of the cell; also a special account 

 of the various groups of cells (under eleven 

 types) and a very short account of some gen- 

 eral principles of tissue and organ building, 

 this latter being the last of the " general part " 

 of the work which occupies 75 pages out of 

 the entire 518 in the volume. When we notice 

 that this " general part " occupied 240 pages 

 in the former edition instead of 75, it can be 

 seen how greatly this portion of the present 

 edition has been reduced. This reduction has 



