Februabt 4, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



173 



fested in biochemical processes one can not re- 

 frain from contrasting, witli Arrhenius, the 

 explanation of the Ehrlich phenomenon on 

 the basis of the law of mass action and that 

 based on the assumption of multitudinous 

 " partial poisons," toxins and toxoids, forming 

 a characteristic if somewhat unintelligible 

 " poison spectrum." 



The book should operate as a stimulus and 

 a spur. From personal contact the writer has 

 reaped no small benefit and much inspiration 

 in other branches of the scientific field. 

 Could this volume attract the attention of 

 some young student in the field of biochemical 

 labors and induce in him the determination to 

 go to the source and obtain personally the 

 fruits of ripened thought and mature judg- 

 ment progress would surely result. In the 

 present pages there is manifest the character- 

 istic genius of the author with his clarity of 

 presentation of the particular thesis in hand. 

 A few infelicities of English occasionally mar 

 the text and suggest that perhaps the assist- 

 ance of the English editor might have been a 

 little more generously given. Words such as 

 " inanimated " and " stomachical " might 

 readily have been replaced. 



Hugh S. Taylor 



Pbinceton, N. J. 



The Physiology of the Amino Acids. By 

 Frank P. Underhill, Ph.D. Tale Univer- 

 sity Press. 1915. Pp. 169. Price $1.35. 

 It is truly symptomatic of modern scientific 

 development that books should be written 

 which divide physiology into physical and 

 chemical portions, and that following this 

 classification still finer divisions are intro- 

 duced. One of these latter subdivisions is 

 treated for the first time as an entity in 

 Underbill's delightful little book, "The 

 Physiology of the Amino Acids." Each 

 known amino acid is enujnerated and its dis- 

 coverer given. Then follow those details 

 which have thus far been unravelled regard- 

 ing the intimate life history within the or- 

 ganism of the behavior of the structural units 

 which compose the protein molecule. From 

 the descriptions given in this book the reader 



may readily grasp the processes of synthesis 

 and analysis, of oxidation and of reduction 

 through the interplay of which protein under 

 given conditions may be resolved into carbonic 

 acid and urea, and under other conditions, 

 into the texture of the living cells. For 

 emphasis of the latter destiny Osborne and 

 Mendel's experiments on the growth of rats 

 form a fitting descriptive material. The book 

 will be of interest and value to biologists in 

 general and to physicians who have not for- 

 gotten their chemistry. 



Graham Lusk 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHESTNUT-BLIGHT 



PARASITE (ENDOTHIA PARASITICA) AND 



OTHER CHESTNUT FUNGI IN JAPAN 



To Mr. Frank N". Meyer, agricultural ex- 

 plorer of the office of foreign seed and plant 

 introduction of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, belongs the distinction of having dis- 

 covered the chestnut-blight fungus {Endothia 

 parasitica) in Japan as well as in China.-^' - 



Meyer's discovery of the fungus in China 

 has been accepted as proof of the oriental 

 origin of this parasite which has proven so de- 

 structive to the chestnut in the northeastern 

 United States and is rapidly spreading south- 

 ward. Its discovery in Japan furnishes addi- 

 tional evidence as to the correctness of Met- 

 calf's^ hypothesis that the parasite was intro- 

 duced into this country from Japan. 



Meyer's discovery of Endothia parasitica in 

 China made the presence of the same fungus 

 in Japan seem extremely probable. And later, 

 during her visit to this country in the fall of 

 1914, Dr. Johanna Westerdijk informed the 

 writers that while in Japan she had seen at 



1 Pairehild, David, ' ' The Discovery of the 

 Chestmit-bark Disease in China," Science, N. S., 

 Vol. 38, No. 974, pp. 297-299, August 29, 1913. 



2 Shear, C. L., and Stevens, Neil E., "The 

 Chestnut-blight Parasite {Endothia parasitica) 

 from China," Science, N. S., Vol. 38, No. 974, 

 pp. 295-297, August 29, 1913. 



3 Metcalf , Haven, ' ' The Immunity of the 

 Japanese Chestnut to the Bark Disease," Bur. 

 Plant Ind., U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 121, Pt. 6, 

 1908. 



