August 8, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



197 



Herbals and Eelated Botanical Works Pub- 

 lished between 1470 and 1670 (14 pages), and 

 II., containing A List in Alphabetical Order 

 of the Principal Critical and Historical Works 

 dealing with the Subjects Discussed in this 

 Book (6 pages). A good index completes the 

 volume. 



In the first chapter we find some suggestive 

 sentences. " From the very beginning of its 

 existence, the study of plants has been ap- 

 proached from two widely separated stand- 

 points — the philosophical and the utilitarian. 

 Regarded from the first point of view, botany 

 stands on its own merits as an integral branch 

 of natural philosophy, whereas from the sec- 

 ond it is merely a by-product of medicine or 

 agriculture. This distinction, however, is a 

 somewhat arbitrary one; the more philosoph- 

 ical botanists have not disdained at times to 

 consider the uses of herbs, and those who en- 

 tered upon the subject with a purely medical 

 intention have often become students of plant 

 life for its own sake. At different periods in 

 the evolution of the science one or other aspect 

 has predominated, but from classical times 

 onwards it is possible to trace the development 

 of these two distinct lines of inquiry, which 

 have sometimes converged, but more often 

 pursued parallel and unconnected paths." 

 From which it will be seen that the advocates 

 of " practical " botany to-day are but the mod- 

 ern representatives of the utilitarian school- 

 men of the past. 



The earliest printed book containing 

 " strictly botanical information," we are told, 

 was a work by Bartholomew, " Liber de 

 Proprietatibus Rerum," which appeared about 

 1470. Quotations of text or figures are given 

 from the " Ortus Sanitatus " (1491), "The 

 Grete Herball" (1526), Brunfels's " Her- 

 barum vivae Eicones " (1530), Turner's sev- 

 eral works (1538-1551), Gerard's "Herball" 

 (1597), the works of Bauhin, Dodoens, Lobe- 

 lius and many others. The illustrations are 

 most interesting, as showing the development 

 of scientific drawing. Some of the earlier 

 representations of plants were little more than 

 suggestions of their appearance (and often of 

 habitat, also), while others, though crude, actu- 



ally gave a good idea of the characteristic ap- 

 pearance of the plants. The early artists ap- 

 pear to have conventionalized many of their 

 drawings after fashions of their own, then 

 perhaps familiar to the reader, but now not 

 understood. 



The chapter on the Doctrine of Signatures 

 (VIII.) will repay reading, especially by the 

 younger school of botanists of to-day. Will 

 the time ever come when the botanists of some 

 later century will look back to our beliefs with 

 feeling similar to those we have when we read 

 about the doctrine of signatures? 



Charles E. Besset 



The Univebsity op Nebraska 



Vergleichende Physiologie Wirlelloser Tiere. 



Von Professor Dr. H. Jordan. Erster Band, 



Die Ernahrung. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 



1913. 8vo. Pp. xxii + 738, 277 text-figures. 



There is no telling to what extent our li- 

 braries will need enlargement if Professor 

 Jordan carries to completion his encyclopedic 

 " Physiology of Invertebrates," for the 738 

 pages on Nutrition are to be followed by sec- 

 tions on Respiration, Metabolism, Excretion, 

 Movement, the Nervous System, the Sense 

 Organs and "Psychology." 



Excluding the vertebrates, except for the 

 necessary comparisons, and omitting entirely 

 the physiology of reproduction, the plan, as 

 outlined, is to present, with " the greatest 

 unity attainable, a 'biological' treatment of 

 the sum total of the phenomena that make up 

 the life of the individual." 



The first installment of this full-grown 

 undertaking begins with a definition of life 

 to which we can not subscribe, and a scene of 

 some comic value in which teleology is shown 

 the door, but asked to leave behind her ex- 

 tremely useful vocabulary. After this follows 

 a systematic treatment of the phenomena of 

 nutrition in all the usual groups of inverte- 

 brates, the material under each type or sub- 

 type being conveniently divided so that a dis- 

 cussion of the food, together with its modes 

 of capture, always precedes an analysis of the 

 various digestive processes and a discussion 

 of the origin and nature of the involved se- 



