684 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1059 



to be regretted that the limits of the book 

 did not allow a somewhat more expanded treat- 

 ment, especially of the Eeptilia and Primates. 



On pages 403 to 406 one finds a brief bibli- 

 ography of some of the more important books 

 on subjects treated in the volume, and then 

 follow three pages giving in tabular form the 

 geological time scale and the geological ranges 

 of the principal classes of plants and animals. 

 The remaining 39 pages are devoted to an 

 unusually full index and glossary. 



The illustrations in the book deserve special 

 mention. They are very numerous, and an un- 

 usually large number are original or redrawn 

 for this work, and all are remarkably clear, 

 well executed, and well reproduced. The 

 figures of the echinoid, pages 167 and 168, may 

 be particularly noted for their delicacy and 

 clearness. Altogether the illustrations are 

 better than those usually found in an elemen- 

 tary text-book. 



A very useful feature is the practise through- 

 out the book of giving the derivation of the 

 generic and other group names. The ques- 

 tions, designed to direct laboratory work in 

 connection with the text, will be of more or 

 less value, according to the individual teacher. 

 They serve as a review for the reader and 

 draw attention to the important points in the 

 descriptions. The book is of convenient size, 

 the type good, and though certain paragraphs 

 and the questions are set in another font from 

 the main part of the text, the differences are 

 not so great as to mar the appearance of the 

 page, and are by no means comparable to the 

 " fine print " of a generation ago. 



As a text for an introductory course in 

 paleontology the book strikes one as especially 

 well balanced and well done. It will also be 

 found extremely useful to the students of 

 zoology and historical geology, and furnishes 

 us with an answer to the question put so often 

 to a geologist or paleontologist: "Where can 

 I find a book about fossils which I can read 

 without first studying paleontology ? " 



This review is not meant either as a eulogy 

 or as a criticism of the book in hand, but the 

 writer is aware that the text does contain some 

 small slips, of the kind so peculiarly annoying 

 to the author, but so difficult to detect in proof- 



reading. Most of these are small things 

 which are either so obvious as to be without 

 danger to the student, or things which would 

 be apparent only to the specialist, and may 

 easily be corrected in a later edition. One 

 which might perplex the beginner is on page 

 352, where the TJrodela are called Lizards. 

 The others are almost all in the explanations 

 of the figures. 



Percy E. Eatmond 

 Harvard University 



SPECIAL ABTICLES 



ON THE LIFE OF ANIMALS WITH SUPPRESSED 

 KIDNEY FUNCTION 



Both clinical and laboratory observations 

 agree in demonstrating that many of the so- 

 called consequences of kidney disease are really 

 nothing of the kind, but must be interpreted 

 in some other fashion. Thus, the assumption 

 that the edema sometimes found in patients 

 suffering from kidney disease is the conse- 

 quence of the disturbed kidney function lacks 

 all support, for patients with complete sup- 

 pression, or animals from which both kidneys 

 are removed, do not show any consequent 

 edema. In fact, such patients and animals 

 steadily lose in weight unless special efforts 

 are made to keep this up. Large, nephrectom- 

 ized rabbits, for example, will lose some 50 

 grams per day before they succumb some four 

 to eight days later. 



In the same way that clinical experience 

 and experiment have shown that the edema 

 accompanying certain kidney disturbances is 

 not to be regarded as a consequence of the 

 loss of kidney function, they prove also that 

 high blood pressure, cardiac hypertrophy, and 

 the clinical manifestations of headache, stupor, 

 coma, etc., so commonly regarded as " uremic " 

 are not secondary to such loss of kidney func- 

 tion as so widely believed. The fact remains, 

 however, that even though much revision is 

 necessary in our interpretation of the signs 

 and symptoms evidenced by victims of kidney 

 disease, loss of kidney function is commonly 

 regarded as incompatible with any prolonged 

 continuance of life. 



Why does man or an animal deprived of his 



