Apkil 30j 1915] 



SCIENCE 



649 



curing the copies wHch had the article in, sent the 

 same to a New York paper thinking he had ac- 

 complished a great joke. This is practically all 

 the information I can obtain in regard to the 

 matter but can state that there is no truth or 

 foundation in the report whatever. 



Very truly yours, 

 (Signed) M. B. Tatlek 



It is clear from this reply that the case of 

 Mrs. Bradlee, so far as the number of children 

 is concerned, is spurious and ought to be 

 dropped from the list of authenticated mul- 

 tiple human births. 



G. H. Parker 



Harvard XJniversitt 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Some American Medical Botanists commem- 

 orated in our Botanical Nomenclature. By 

 Howard A. Kelly. Troy, N. T., The South- 

 worth Company. 1914. 8vo. 215 pp., 42 pi. 

 In this attractive and beautifully printed 

 volume, which is at once a contribution to 

 medical history and the history of botany, 

 Professor Kelly has conceived the genial 

 thought of giving some memorial records of 

 American physician-botanists whose names 

 have been commemorated in plants, some of 

 which were discovered or first described by 

 them. This eponymic practise was introduced 

 by Linnseus, who, when he found some guest 

 or disciple to be heartily interested in botany, 

 would often dedicate a new genus or species 

 to him. Before Linnaeus, plants were called 

 after the names of the saints, e. g., St. John's 

 wort, St. Ignatius beans, etc. ; and Pliny gives 

 Eupatorium as the cognomen of Mithridates, 

 King of Pontus, who discovered its virtues. 

 Some of the eponyms formed from proper 

 names were very inharmonious or barbarous, 

 e. g., Andrezejofshya, Eschscholtzia (Cha- 

 misso), Sirhoohera and Pechifungus (Kuntze). 

 Some of these names were even misspelled, 

 e. g., Wisteria for Wistar, but on the whole, 

 what Kelly calls " amical floral nomenclature " 

 was a pleasant practise, particularly in the 

 eighteenth century, when friendly relations 

 between European and American physicians 

 were very close indeed. It is worth while to 



list Dr. Kelly's remarkable series of botanist- 

 physicians with the plants attached to their 

 names. They are: 



Michel S. Sarrazin (1659-1734) — Sarraoenia pur- 

 purea (Tournefort). 

 John Mitchell (1680-1768)— MitcZieZto repens 



(Linnffius). 

 Cadwalader Golden (1688-1776) — Coldenia pro- 



curnbens (LinnaBus) . 

 John Clayton (1693-1773) — Claytonia Virginica 



(Gronovius). 

 John Baitram (1699-1777) — Lantana Sartramii 



(Baldwin) . 

 Alexander Garden (1728-1792) — Gardenia jasmin- 



oides (Ellis). 

 Adam Kuhn (1741-1817) — Kuhnia Eupatorioides 



(Linnseus) . 

 Moses Marshall (1758-1813) — MarshalUa trinerva 



(Schreber). 

 Caspar Wistar (1761-1818) — Wistaria speoiosa 



(Nuttall). 

 Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815)— JSartoma 



decapetala (Muhlenburg). 

 David Hosack (1769-1835) — Sosackia licolor 



(Douglas). 

 William Baldwin (1779-1819) — Baldvnnia wniflora 



(Nuttall). 

 William Darlington (1782-1863) — Varlingtonia 



Calif arnica (Torrey). 

 James Maebride (1784-1817) — Maciridea puleJira 



(Elliott). 

 Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879) — Bigelowia Menziesii 



(De Candolle). 

 Charles Wilkins Short (1794-1863)— SAortio 



galacifolia (Gray). 

 John Torrey (1796-1873) — Torreya taxifolia (Ar- 



nott). 

 Zina Pitcher (1797-1872)— Carduus Pitcheri 



(Torrey). 

 Charles Pickering (1805-1878) — Biokeringia Mon- 

 tana (Nuttall). 

 John Leonard Riddell (1807-1865)— ^i(?deZ?ia 



tagetina (Nuttall). 

 George Engelmann (1809-1884) — Engelmannia 



pinnatifida (Torrey). 

 Alvan Wentworth Chapman (1809-1899) — Chap- 



raannia Floridana (Torrey & Gray). 

 Asa Gray (1810-1888) — Lilium Grayii (Hooker & 



Arnott) . 

 Arthur Wellesley Saxe (1820-1891)— iJamea; Saxei 



(Kellogg). 

 Charles Christopher Parry (1823-1890)— XiZmm 



Parryi (Watson) . 



