Febeuabt 3, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



187 



In volume III. we find Hesperia malvw 

 Linn, designated as the " Siebender sechsfiis- 

 siger Tagfalter mit schiefen Fliigeln," etc. 



" Verily, there is nothing new under the 

 sun ! " 



For my part, I sympathize with all attempts 

 to secure a fixed and simple system of nomen- 

 clature, but to revert to what were the meth- 

 ods of good old Dr. Jacob Christian Schaeffer 

 in this twentieth century is not, in my opin- 

 ion, the correct solution of our difficulties. 



The troubles of the student of nomenclature 

 are not, I suspect, as great as they appear to 

 be to those who do not possess the necessary 

 apparatus of books and who have devoted 

 more time to questions of morphology than 

 to questions of taxonomy. I have not at 

 present the leisure to take up the questions 

 involved in this discussion as I should like to 

 do, but simply wish to remind the readers of 

 Science that the method of numerical desig- 

 nations was employed nearly a century and a 

 half ago for an extensive fauna, and that the 

 numbers for a good many species in various 

 genera are therefore already " preoccupied." 

 W. J. Holland 



SCIENTIFIC P00E8 

 Respiratory Calorimeters for Studying the 

 Respiratory Exchange and Energy Trans- 

 formations of Man. By Francis G. Bene- 

 dict and Thorne M. Carpenter. Published 

 by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 

 1910. Pp. 210. 



This contains a full description of the latest 

 models of respiratory calorimeters. Two are 

 mentioned, the " chair calorimeter " designed 

 for individuals for six- to eight-hour periods 

 during which they can remain comfortably 

 seated in a chair, and the " bed calorimeter " 

 for use at night or for the sick or bed-ridden. 

 The measurements of heat eliminated by 

 man as made by this apparatus are based upon 

 the fact that the subject is enclosed in a heat- 

 proof chamber through which a current of 

 cold water is constantly passing. The amount 

 of water is carefully weighed. The tempera- 

 tures of the water entering and leaving the 

 chamber are accurately recorded at frequent 



intervals. The walls of the chamber are held 

 adiabatic, thus preventing a gain or loss of 

 heat. Thermo-electric couples connected with 

 a galvanometer notify an observer of tempera- 

 ture changes of the walls. The observer then 

 corrects this by arbitrarily cooling or heating 

 the outer metal walls, a second cold water cur- 

 rent accomplishing the former and electric 

 wiring the latter, both systems being outside 

 the inner chamber. The heat given to the 

 first described water current circulating within 

 the inner chamber, is exactly equal to the heat 

 eliminated by radiation and conduction by the 

 subject. To determine the total heat elimina- 

 tion, the latent heat of water vapor evaporated 

 from the skin and lungs must also be added. 

 The sensitiveness of this apparatus is very 

 great. Foreigners as well as fellow country- 

 men have pronounced it a wonderful ma- 

 chine. In addition to the determination of 

 heat elimination, the carbonic acid outgo and 

 oxygen ingo are determined through an ac- 

 cessory apparatus which provides for the 

 analysis of the circulating air. 



The apparatus is costly in the first instance 

 and requires many workers to control. In the 

 hands of Dr. Benedict it has received notable 

 improvements, and it is both wise and fortu- 

 nate that he has had the splendid generosity 

 of the Carnegie Institution to support his 

 undertaking. Graham Lusk 



The Metabolism and Energy Transformations 

 of Healthy Man during Rest. By Francis 

 G. Benedict and Thorne M. Carpenter. 

 Published by the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington. 1910. Pp. 255. 

 This work contains a very valuable com- 

 pilation of statistics obtained from observa- 

 tion on many normal men who had been oc- 

 cupants of the respiration-calorimeter of 

 Atwater, Rosa and Benedict. As a rule rec- 

 ords of the protein metabolism are not re- 

 corded, which leaves an important gap 

 unfilled. The authors state that the work of 

 Zuntz and others who used respiration appa- 

 ratus of the Zuntz type is " as accurate as can 

 be expected with apparatus of this type." 

 The recently published work of Durig, how- 



