Januaky 7, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



29 



flowers and exudation products, while Pro- 

 fessor Karstens has considered the woods, 

 barks, leaves, herbs, fruits and seeds. The 

 order of treatment of each drug is somewhat 

 as follows: (1) The botanical origin together 

 with a few words on the distribution of the 

 plant; (2) an historical note on the use of the 

 drug in medicine or in the arts; (3) the ex- 

 ternal morphology of the drug; (4) the anat- 

 omy of the drug; (5) a brief description of the 

 drug in the powdered form, and (6) an 

 enumeration of the important constituents. 



The strongest feature of the work is the 

 comprehensive treatment of the macroscopic 

 and microscopic structure, the illustrations 

 being numerous and in part colored. The 

 German point of view of treating a selected 

 number of subjects in a thorough manner is 

 to be commended in a Lehrbuch, and looked at 

 pedagogically Karsten and Oltmanns's " Phar- 

 macognosy " is an excellent work. 



Henry Keaemee 



Philadeuphia College of Pharmacy 



The Periodic Law. By A. E. Garrett, B.Sc, 

 F.E.A.S. New York, D. Appleton & Co. 

 This is one of the volumes in the Interna- 

 tional Scientific Series. The first part of the 

 work is historical, after an introduction giv- 

 ing the methods of determining the atomic 

 weights. Beginning with Prout's hypothesis, 

 the early attempts at classifying the elements 

 are reviewed. It may well be questioned 

 whether undue space and prominence are not 

 given to some of these. In discussing the 

 periodic system itself, the author assigns more 

 credit to Lothar Meyer than Mendeleeff was 

 willing to give him and than I am inclined to 

 think is justly his due. Much prominence is 

 given the important work of Cornelley. The 

 pendulum swing of Professor Spring, of 

 Liege, is attributed to Reynolds and Crookes, 

 and the idea of the spiral, first worked out by 

 Baumhauer, is credited to Johnstone Stoney. 

 A considerable portion of the book is given 

 to the applications of the periodic law and a 

 chapter is devoted to the efforts at stating the 

 relationship between the atomic weights in the 

 terms of a mathematical formula. In the last 

 chapter there is a discussion of the more 



recent theories as to the nature and structure 

 of the atom and their bearing on the periodic 

 law. 



The book is well written and should prove 

 a useful handbook to a student of this im- 

 portant subject. F. P. Venable 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The first number of the Journal of Pharma- 

 cology and Experimental Therapeutics, edited 

 by Dr. J. J. Abel of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity, appeared in June. It contains the 

 following articles, with these results in brief: 



1. " The Comparative Toxicity of the Chlo- 

 rides of Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium and 

 Sodium," by D. E. Joseph and S. J. Meltzer. 

 The order of toxicity of the four chlorides 

 when tested on dogs is magnesium, Ca, K and 

 Na. It is thought that the effect of these 

 chemical substances depends in large part 

 upon the particular substance upon which they 

 act, that is, the effect upon simple tissues is 

 not applicable to complex organs, and the 

 effect upon organs is not applicable to entire 

 animals. The toxicity of alkalies and alkali 

 earths existing as constituents of the animal 

 body is in inverse proportion to the quantities 

 in which they are present in the serum of that 

 animal. 



2. " Studies in Tolerance — I., Nicotine and 

 Lobeline," by C. W. Edwards. Tolerance to 

 nicotine or tobacco can be obtained in ani- 

 mals only with great difficulty when the drug 

 is given in small doses. Dogs develop resist- 

 ance quickly to large toxic doses of nicotine, 

 but to lobeline they gain only a limited toler- 

 ance. 



3. " Studies in Tolerance — Strychnine," by 

 Worth Hale. Dogs may develop a tolerance 

 to strychnine very slowly and at best in a very 

 imperfect form. Guinea-pigs, owing to their 

 varying degree of sensitiveness, yield results 

 that are somewhat uncertain, though acquired 

 tolerance is suggested. 



4. " Mechanism of HESmolysis, with special 

 reference to the Relation of Electrolytes to 

 Cells," by G. N. Stewart. Evidence, both his- 

 tological and physico-chemical, is brought 

 forward to support the idea that the super- 



