686 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1062 



Eerp in their mother's heart the young marsu- 

 pials are nourished for some time, when they 

 are expelled from the mother fully developed 

 and ready to hegin life." 



C. 0. Nutting 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Infection and Resistance. By Professor B!ans 

 Zinsser, Professor of Bacteriology at the 

 College of Physicians and Surgeons, Colum- 

 bia University, New York City. The Mac- 

 miUan Company. 1914. Pp. 546. Illus- 

 trated. $3.50. 



This work is conspicuously the most thor- 

 ough and modem original treatment of the 

 subject of infection and immunity that we 

 have in the English language. The author's 

 own work in the field of immunology, citations 

 to which are frequently made in the text, 

 makes the book authoritative. 



"We find in the book an exhaustive and im- 

 partial analysis of the enormous accumula- 

 tion of recent work in this field with a wealth 

 of references to original sources given at the 

 bottom of the pages. The survey of the sub- 

 ject is complete, and yet each chapter is a unit 

 in itself, making the book a convenient refer- 

 ence in which to gain a knowledge of any one 

 phase of immimity. This unit arrangement of 

 the chapters has necessitated some repetition, 

 but not to an extent to become boresome. 



The text is not intended to be elementary or 

 summary and can not be recommended for the 

 average reader or undergraduate student. It 

 can be most cordially recommended to practi- 

 tioners, teachers, laboratory workers and espe- 

 cially as a text for medical students for whom 

 it is primarily intended. 



Starting with the general problem of Viru- 

 lence, the author discusses successively the 

 Bacterial Poisons, Natural and Acquired 

 Immunity, Antitoxins, Cytolysis, Complement 

 and Diagnosis, Agglutination, Precipitation, 

 Phagocytosis (four chapters). Anaphylaxis 

 (three chapters), Therapeutic Immunization, 

 and a chapter on Abderhalden's Work on 

 Protective Ferments. Dr. Stewart W. Young 

 has been invited to write a concluding chapter 

 on Colloids, which gives a comprehensive idea 



of the nature of this state of matter, and the 

 relation of colloids to biological problems. 



The chapter on Therapeutic Immunization 

 in Man might be criticized on account of its 

 brevity in contrast to the rest of the book. It 

 seems to the reviewer as though it could be 

 made more effective even in the space allotted 

 by the introduction of more data to show the 

 efficacy of our marvelous advances in immu- 

 nology. C. M. HiLLIARD 



The Differentiation and Specificity of Starches 

 in relation to Genera, Species, etc. Stereo- 

 chemistry applied to Protoplasmic Processes 

 and Products, and as a Strictly Scientific 

 Basis for the Classification of Plants and 

 Animals. By Edward Tyson Eeiohekt, 

 M.D., Professor of Physiology in the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, Research Associate 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 

 In two parts. Published by the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, Washington, 

 D. C. 1913. . Pp. 900, plates 102. 

 The author intends that the present memoir 

 on starches shall have a relation to the memoir 

 on hemoglobins worked out by Eeichert and 

 BrovsTi and reviewed in Science (January 2Y, 

 1911). If there is a relationship between these 

 two memoirs it is rather in what Dr. Eeichert 

 has attempted to perform than in what he has 

 succeeded in accomplishing. The two memoirs 

 are so different that a comparison of them is 

 well-nigh impossible. In the one, we almost 

 see the master and in the other the novice. 

 The memoir on hemoglobins represents a 

 painstaking research and is an important con- 

 tribution to biology. The memoir on starches, 

 in its present form, is hardly worthy to be 

 classed as research, particularly in view of the 

 splendid monograph of Naegeli which has been 

 reputed to be among the greatest investiga- 

 tions of the last century. In the work on 

 hemoglobins, through the cooperation of Dr. 

 Brovim, the exact methods of physical crystal- 

 lography have been employed and it is to be 

 expected that in the hands of different inves- 

 tigators confirmatory results will be obtained 

 in the examination of the crystals of the vari- 

 ous hemoglobins. In the present memoir on 



