964 
important contribution to our knowledge of the 
anatomy and physiology of septal nectaries and 
of nectaries in general. Especial mention 
should be made of the twelve excellent litho- 
graphic plates which illustrate nectaries in 
position in the flower, cross and longitudinal 
sections of ovaries and nectaries and the details 
of cell-structure in the secreting cells. 
W. J. V. OSTERHOUT. 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
The Living Substance as Such, and as Organism. 
By GWENDOLEN FoOULKE ANDREWS (Mrs. 
ETHAN ALLEN ANDREWS). Supplement to 
Journal of Morphology, Vol. XII., No. 2. 
Boston, Ginn & Company. The Athenzum 
Press. 1897. 
This work is devoted principally to discussing 
the more general questions of biology in the 
light of the very interesting facts ascertained 
by the examination of living protoplasm under 
the highest powers of the microscope—a method 
that of late has fallen into undeserved disrepute, 
especially so far as metazoa are concerned. 
Bitchli’s theory of the foam-like structure of 
protoplasm is adopted and a number of addi- 
tional observations tending to putit on a firmer 
foundation are recorded. The term ‘ Bitchli’s 
structure,’ however, is used in a sense that 
would probably not be subscribed to by this in- 
vestigator, as designating not the foamy struc- 
ture of protoplasm in general, but merely the 
foam whose alveoli are from 4 to 1 micron in 
diameter, excluding the coarser vacuolations on 
the one hand and on the other the ‘ finer foam’ 
discovered within the substance of the partitions 
between the alveoli. It is to this finer foam 
that the principal réle in the activities of the 
living substance is ascribed. Thesimpler move- 
ments, such as amceboid flowing seem to have 
for their especial organ the ‘structure of 
Bitchli,’ but the modifications of these pro- 
cesses, such as those taking place in the minute 
filose pseudopodia of many protozoa and the 
more complex activities of protoplasm in gen- 
eral, depend upon the finer foam. By thismeans 
the way is pointed out for a reconciliation of 
the alveolar and fibrillar theories of the struc- 
ture of protoplasm. ‘True fibres are actually 
found in the cell in mitosis, and at other times, 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Vou. VI. No. 156. 
but from their activities these are considered to 
be made up of the finer foam and to be fre- 
quently comparable to filose pseudopodia, ex- 
cept that they are formed on the inside of the 
cell. 
With this structure as a basis the more gen- 
eral questions are considered and an interest- 
ing point of view arrived at. The important 
thing everywhere is the ‘ continuous substance’ 
separating the alveoli. The cell is but a differ- 
entiation of this, presided over by a metabolic 
organ, the nucleus. In the living metazoan 
cells are constantly seen to be connected by a 
most changeable host of filose pseudopodia along 
which visible exchange of material may take 
place. Metabolism is merely a means for furnish- 
ing the ‘continuous substance’ with the proper 
internal environment, and the organism an ac- 
cidental organization of it for the purpose of 
acting upon the external environment and thus 
furnishing the proper internal surroundings. 
Heredity is a provision of the substance for the 
future essentially similar to, though more com- 
plex than, the provision for a future internal en- 
vironment made in injecting food. Thus the 
necessity for complex theories of transmission 
vanishes and the study of the structure and 
activities of the ‘continuous substance’ becomes 
of paramount importance. 
Unfortunately, the poor style makes the read- 
ing much more difficult than the subject war- 
rapts. Facts and theories are mixed, unusual 
constructions are frequent, and in the purely de- 
scriptive parts even ambiguous expressions are 
encountered. That this lack of clearness is ap- 
parently due to careless composition seems to 
be shown by occasional sentences like the fol- 
lowing from page115: ‘‘If by coalescence, the 
substance as such showed respect to that posi- 
tion in the mass in which it newly found itself, 
exactly as in each individual it had through all 
its ceaseless flux respected its relative position ; 
for it must not be forgotten that in these pro- 
toplasts the substance as such is ever changing 
its position in the mass or organism.’ 
System der Bakterien, Handbuch der Morphologie, 
Entwickelungsgeschichte und Systematik der 
Bakterien, Band I., Allgemeiner Theil. Von 
Dr. WM. MiGuLA, a. 0. Professor an der 
