Mabch 11, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



387 



cause of its higli values for the purposes for 

 which it was declaredly written. It is not, 

 and does not pretend to be, a student's manual, 

 a cyclopedia of its subject, a manual of the 

 physiology nor of the technology of food. It 

 is rather a compilation of the facts and meth- 

 ods that one of America's most experienced 

 food analysts has found useful in his work 

 and which he has thought might be helpful to 

 others charged with similar responsibilities 

 and encountering like problems. The merit 

 of the work lies particularly in the fact that 

 the compiler is recognized as a man of fair 

 judgment and a critical analyst, who, from 

 long experience, has come fully to realize, on 

 the one hand, the facts that must be ascer- 

 tained by analysis and the importance of the 

 issues involved, and, on the other hand, the 

 imperative need for the choice of methods 

 capable of yielding safe results within a rea- 

 sonable time and at such a cost as will make 

 possible the performance of many similar 

 analyses at moderate cost. 



Since the publication of the first edition, 

 many changes have arisen in the field covered 

 by the book. The national food and drugs 

 bill and the meat inspection bill of 1906 have 

 become laws, and a large number of the states 

 have established food controls. The number 

 of chemists engaged in the work of food in- 

 spection has greatly increased. Under the 

 leadership of the Association of Official Agri- 

 cultural Chemists, new and improved methods 

 have been devised. From 1903 to 1906, under 

 authorization of congress, the Secretary of 

 Agriculture has proclaimed standards for a 

 large number of the staple foods, and, since 

 the expiration of the specific authorization 

 under which these standards were proclaimed, 

 the Association of Official Agricultural Chem- 

 ists and the Association of State and Na- 

 tional Food and Dairy Departments, compris- 

 ing in their membership all who are officially 

 charged with the execution of the food laws 

 of America and Canada, have formulated for 

 the guidance of these officials and for public 

 information, additional standards for other 

 staple foods not represented in the proclama- 

 tions of the Secretary of Agriculture. In the 

 enforcement of the national law, many im- 



portant regulations have been published. 

 Meanwhile, investigations at home and abroad 

 have developed many facts of importance in 

 their bearing upon the subject, and those 

 manufacturers of foods who have been in- 

 duced by hope of gain or from sheer joy in 

 the exercise of skill, to attempt to evade the 

 meshes of the law, have resorted to new de- 

 vices that have required detection and sup- 

 pression where they were against the public 

 interest. 



After all these changes, any book published 

 five years ago upon the subject of food in- 

 spection and analysis, is old. The food ana- 

 lysts of America have reason, therefore, for 

 pleasure in the fact that Mr. Leach has under- 

 taken the heavy labor of revising his book and 

 of critically selecting the new matter required 

 to bring it up to date; and also in the fact 

 that, his own strength proving insufficient at 

 present for the task, he has associated with 

 him in the revision. Dr. Winton, formerly 

 chemist of the Connecticut Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station and now chief of the Chi- 

 cago Laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry, 

 a man of like skill and experience with him- 

 self, in whose judgment the food chemists of 

 America have with reason come to trust. 



The new edition is one fifth larger than the 

 old. In its illustrations the changes are not 

 numerous, but the condensation of old cuts 

 has left room for the addition of a number of 

 new figures of value, and several of the less 

 representative cuts illustrating the histology 

 of the cereals have been replaced by others 

 based upon Dr. Winton's own excellent draw- 

 ings. The increase in the size of the book is 

 not due to the insertion of new chapters, al- 

 though two new chapters upon the refrac- 

 tometer and upon flavoring extracts have been 

 formed, in part from matter scattered through 

 the body of the first edition and in part from 

 new material. Nearly every page shows some 

 paragraph improved by change of form or by 

 addition of new matter. These changes are 

 so numerous that space will permit the men- 

 tion of no more than a few typical examples, 

 such as the modern classification of nitrog- 

 enous constituents prepared for the book by 

 Dr. Osborne, the more recent adaptations of 



