802 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



1905. In that year the death-rate for the city 

 of Panama was 65.82 per 1,000; its popula- 

 tion had risen from 21,984 in 1905 to 40,801 in 

 1909, but the death-rate had fallen to 25.44 

 per 1,000. In the Canal Zone, including the 

 cities of Colon and Panama, the population 

 has risen from 66,624 in 1905 to 135,180 in 

 1909, but the death-rate has fallen from 49.94 

 to 18.19 per 1,000. Among the employees, 

 who numbered 16,511 in 1905 and 4Y,167 in 

 1909, the death-rate has fallen from 25.86 to 

 10.64 per 1,000. In 1905 the number of pa- 

 tients admitted to the hospitals for malaria 

 alone was 514 for every 1,000 employees, and 

 in 1906 it rose to 821 ; but in 1909 it had fallen 

 to 215 for each thousand employees. These 

 astonishing results reflect infinite credit on the 

 sanitary department of the Isthmian Canal 

 Commission, and they also point to the almost 

 incalculable benefits, . actual and potential, de- 

 rived by mankind from sustained bacteriolog- 

 ical research. It is true that they have in- 

 volved the extirpation, not perhaps always by 

 painless methods, of countless myriads of mos- 

 quitoes and other small deer — some of them 

 possibly vertebrate; and for all we know this 

 may be, as it logically ought to be, a source of 

 infinite pain to the more extreme of the anti- 

 vivisectionists. But after all we may ask 

 them with the distinguished American quoted 

 by Lord Cromer, " At how many rabbits or 

 guinea pigs do you value your wife, your hus- 

 band or your child?" That, as Lord Cromer 

 said, puts the case in a nutshell. For without 

 experiments on living animals there can be 

 very little advance in bacteriology. — The Lon- 

 don Times. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Experiments on the Generation of Insects. 

 By Francesco Eedi. Translated from the 

 Italian edition of 1688 by Mab Bigelow. 

 8vo, pp. 160, illustrated. Chicago, The 

 Open Court Publishing Co. 1909. 

 The appearance in 1668 of Eedi's " Esperi- 

 enze Intorno alia Generazione Degl' Insetti " 

 was a notable scientific event. This book em- 

 braced the first published results of experi- 

 ments to determine the truth or falsity of an 



old scientific dogma, and it remains as a mile- 

 stone on the highway of biological progress. 

 By supplying an attractive edition of this bio- 

 logical classic the translator (Mab Bigelow) 

 has rendered a service to biologists and to 

 others with intellectual interests in the 

 progress of human thought. The translation 

 is from the fifth Italian edition of 1688 and 

 contains photographic reproductions, of the 

 title page and of all the illustrations. These 

 consist of twenty-nine plates, and twelve 

 other cuts in the form of text-figures and full- 

 page illustrations, in some cases, with several 

 figures to one cut. The pictures are fac- 

 simile except as to size— most of them having 

 undergone some reduction to fit the dimen- 

 sions of the volume — and it is a satisfaction 

 to have the entire work so well reproduced. 



In Eedi's time the belief that living forms 

 arise spontaneously from lifeless matter 

 through the action of natural forces was of 

 long standing. This was according to the 

 teachings of Aristotle and it had scarcely 

 been questioned before the experimental tests 

 of Eedi. At the time of the publication of the 

 first edition of his book the microscopic organ- 

 isms were unknown and the doctrine of spon- 

 taneous generation of life was held for rela- 

 tively large animals as frogs, mice, insects, 

 etc. As one of the writers of the period said, 

 " To question this is to question reason, sense 

 and experience." The great service of Eedi 

 was to replace this belief in abiogenesis by 

 that of biogenesis, or life only from previously 

 existing life. 



Eedi's book is a long letter addressed to 

 Carlo Dati, in which he pleads for the experi- 

 mental method, and, after a review of the 

 opinion of earlier writers, with many modest 

 protestations, he" describes his experiments 

 and conclusions. He says (p. 33) : 



Belief would be vain without the confirmation 

 of experiment; hence in the middle of July I put 

 a snake, some fish, some eels of the Amo and a 

 slice of milk-fed veal in four large, wide-mouthed 

 flasks; having well closed and sealed them [con 

 carte e spagi, as another edition says], I then 

 filled the same number of flasks in the same way, 

 only leaving these open. . . . 



Maggots appeared in the open flasks to 



