20 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 809 



THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION 



To THE Editor of Science: Will you per- 

 mit me, through the columns of Science, to 

 call the attention of American scientists to the 

 meeting of the International Scientific As- 

 sociation (Jnternacia Scienca Asocio), which 

 will occur in conjunction with the Sixth In- 

 ternational Esperanto Congress, in "Washing- 

 ton, D. C, next August. It is requested that 

 all scientists who are interested in Esperanto, 

 but not yet members of the Internacia Scienca 

 Asocio, and also all scientists who wish to in- 

 vestigate for themselves the practicability of 

 Esperanto as an international language for 

 scientists, attend these meetings. The Es- 

 peranto Congress opens August 14, and closes 

 August 20. The Internacia Scienca Asocio 

 will convene not later than August lY. For 

 information concerning tickets, program, 

 hotel accommodation, reduced railway rates, 

 etc., address the Secretary of the Sixth Inter- 

 national Esperanto Congress, Washington, 

 D. C. Edwin C. Eeed, 



Secretary 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 History of the Human Body. By Harris 

 Hawthorne Wilder, Professor of Zoology 

 in Smith College. New York, Henry Holt 

 and Company. 1909. Pp. 573, 150 figs., 

 8 pis. 



The author states in the preface that 

 This book has a twofold purpose: first, to pre- 

 sent the results of modern anatomical and embry- 

 ological research relative to the human structure 

 in a form accessible to the general student, and, 

 secondly, to furnish students of technical human 

 anatomy with a basis upon which to rest their 

 knowledge of details. 



The volume can be read with interest and 

 profit by persons who have no special training 

 in biology and consequently it meets most 

 excellently the requirements of the first part 

 of the author's purpose. It is perhaps not so 

 well adapted to the needs of the human anat- 

 omist. The plan of the book is somewhat 

 unique. The first three and last chapters are 

 of a very general nature and contain an ex- 

 position of the general principles of evolution, 

 phylogenesis and embryology. Its main part. 



consisting of eight chapters, contains a de- 

 tailed discussion of the several organ systems 

 from the standpoint of the comparative anat- 

 omist. 



After discussing the continuity of life and 

 distinguishing between ontogeny and phylo- 

 geny, the author presents, in the first chapter, 

 a series of twelve " laws," six of which describe 

 " the characteristics of the phylogenetic rec- 

 ord," the remainder being devoted to " an 

 exposition of developmental history or onto- 

 genesis." These so-called laws are merely 

 short statements of certain biological facts or 

 deductions, as will be seen from one ex- 

 ample (p. 24). 



In studying an embryological record one must 

 constantly distinguish between palingenetic char- 

 acters, or those which are true repetitions of the 

 past history, and ccenogenetic characters, or those 

 which have been more recently acquired as the 

 result of some special adaptation. One of the 

 most universal among these latter is the presence 

 of yolk, a food supply for the embryo, which lies 

 l>etween or within the cells and, when excessive, 

 causes misleading distortions in the proportion of 

 parts and effects the obliteration of many impor- 

 tant features. 



These statements, owing to their brevity, 

 are necessarily inaccurate and incomplete, but, 

 as a whole,' they give the reader a general 

 conception of evolution. 



In the second chapter, The Phylogenesis of 

 Vertebrates, the author traces the ancestry of 

 man from Amphioxus upward through the 

 vertebrates and mammals. The last chapter, 

 which really belongs with the second, contains 

 a discussion of various theories of the origin 

 of vertebrates. These chapters probably form, 

 for the general reader, the most interesting 

 part of the book, but, owing to the indefinite- 

 ness of our knowledge of animal descent, are 

 of less value to the student of anatomy. 



The third chapter is entitled The Onto- 

 genesis of Vertebrates. It gives as accurate 

 an account of so large a subject as can well be 

 condensed into so short a space, but it may be 

 questioned whether the limitation of the treat- 

 ment to human development would not have 

 given a better knowledge of the history of the 

 human body. 



