882 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 310. 



in the hands of a beginner. To any one who 

 has mastered the elements of physical chemis- 

 try this book is indispensable, and it should bo 

 read by all who desire to keep abreast with the 

 newest and best which has appeared in the field 

 of general chemistry. 



H. C. J. 



Determination of Radicles in Carbon Compounds. 

 By Dk. H. Meter, Decent and Adjunct of 

 the Imperial and Royal German University, 

 Prague. Authorized translation by J. Bishop 

 Tingle, Ph.D., F.C.S., Instructor of Chem- 

 istry at the Lewis Institute, Chicago, 111. 

 New York, John Wiley & Sons ; London, 

 Chapman and Hall. 1899. 

 This English edition of Dr. H. Meyer's 

 ' Anleitung zur quantitativen Bestimmung der 

 organischen Atomgruppen ' will be heartily 

 welcomed by all teachers and advanced stu- 

 dents in organic chemistry. As the translator 

 well says in his preface : ' The quantitative 

 side of organic chemistry, apart from elemen- 

 tary analysis, is almost always neglected in the 

 ordinary courses of instruction, and when the 

 need for it arises, in the prosecution of research 

 work, for instance, it is difficult to obtain a com- 

 prehensive view of the methods which are 

 available without undue expenditure of time.' 

 The present work supplies a systematic treat- 

 ment of the various methods in use for deter- 

 mining quantitatively most of the groups ordi- 

 narily found in carbon compounds in a very 

 convenient and compact form. It is to be 

 hoped that it will bring about the introduction 

 of some quantitative work into the regular col- 

 lege course of organic preparations. Some idea 

 of the character of the book may be given by 

 the following brief synopsis of its contents. 

 The book is divided into five chapters. Chap- 

 ter I., which is introductory, treats of the de- 

 termination of hydroxyl ( — OH) ; Chapter II. of 

 methoxyl (CH3O— ), ethoxyl (C^H^O — ), and 

 carboxyl ( — COOH) ; Chapter III. of carbonyl ; 

 Chapter IV. of the amino and related groups and 

 Chapter Y. of the diazo-, hydrazide-, nitro-, 

 iodoso- and iodoxy-, and the peroxide-groups. 

 The author has made various corrections and 

 additions to the English edition, so that it is an 

 improvement on the German one. The book 



is well printed and bound in convenient form 

 for laboratory use. It has a good index of both 

 subjects and authors' names, and an appendix 

 containing some useful tables. The book can 

 be most heartily recommended to all organic 

 chemists. 



W. R. Orndoeff. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 



In The American Journal of Physiology for 

 November, J. C. Herrick reports an investiga- 

 tion of the influence of temperature on nervous 

 conductivity. He found that a strong or moder- 

 ate action current produced by an induction cur- 

 rent or condenser discharge was not changed in 

 intensity when the nerve impulse passed through 

 areas varying in temperature from 8° C. to 40° 

 C. Usually a decrease in current followed the 

 application of temperature beyond these limits. 

 An increase in the strength of action current in 

 passing the impulse through a warmer area oc- 

 curs, however, under two conditions — when 

 the action current is only a small fraction of the 

 maximum, and when the entire nerve except 

 the warmed part is below 10° C. From his 

 observations he concludes that the action cur- 

 rent ordinarily observed and studied probably 

 lies far beyond those accompanying maximal 

 functional impulses. 



Porter and Muhlberg present an experi- 

 mental criticism of the theory that injury pro- 

 duces prolonged inhibition of the activities of 

 the spinal cord. Believers in automatism of 

 the cord have explained the failure of the cord 

 to continue orderly functioning after separation 

 from the brain, by assuming that the conditions 

 of experimentation inhibit the spinal centers 

 for a long period. To settle the question, the 

 cell bodies of the respiratory nerve of the dia- 

 phragm were separated on one side of the 

 spinal cord from the respiratory center in the 

 brain. After this was done, these cells were 

 still able to discharge motor impulses, but their 

 apparently automatic rhj^thmic respiratory 

 power was gone. Animals kept for a long 

 period after this operation proved that the loss 

 was permanent, and that it could not, therefore, 

 be ascribed to inhibition. 



Artificial division of egg cells, now attracting 

 so much attention, has been further investi- 



