July 29, 1S98.] 



SCIENGE. 



139 



more properly used in Die natilrlichen Pflan- 

 zenfamilien, but here have become unneces- 

 sarily complicated. 



Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien has been es- 

 ceedingly unfortunate in the preparation of its 

 cryptogamic portions, not only in the loss of 

 its cryptogamic editor, but, before the comple- 

 tion of their work, of a collaborator in each of 

 the series algfe and fungi, who were removed 

 by untimely death. This has made the treat- 

 ment of these groups very unsatisfactory, par- 

 ticularly the fungi, which are more varied and 

 complicated and hence more diflficult in treat- 

 ment, and their Uebersicht in the present woi'k 

 is surely no improvement over the patch-work 

 of the former treatise. While the Syllabus can 

 probably be regarded as the expression of the 

 clearest generalizations with reference to the 

 relations of the higher plants, as a systematic 

 arrangement of the cryptogams it is in many of 

 its features unfortunate and in a few a lament- 

 able failure. ^ ^ Underwood. 



A Text-Book of Special Pathological Anatomy. 



By Eenst Ziegler. Translated and edited 



from the eighth German edition by Donald 



MacAlister, M.A., M.D. and Henry W. 



Cattell, M.A., M.D. New York, The Mac- 



millan Company. 1896, '97. 



Pathology in its modern sense is one of the 

 youngest of the biological sciences, although its 

 subject-matter ranks with anatomy in antiquity. 

 No more rapid strides have been made by any 

 department of biology ttian have marked the 

 progress of pathology, and none has suffered 

 greater transformation since the promulgation 

 of the cell doctrine. It is to be remembered 

 that it was a pathologist who formulated the 

 doctrine omnia cellula e cellula. At the present 

 time pathology embraces several fields more or 

 less distinct, invading, in its persistent search 

 for the prime causes of disease, the domains of 

 botany, on the one hand, and zoology, on the 

 other. 



It seems to us natural to regard bacteriology 

 as essentially a medical subject, although the 

 number of species of bacteria of interest and 

 known to the pathologist is but a fraction of 

 those of which the botanist must take account. 

 However, it is to the constant endeavors of the 



physician that the present relatively extensive 

 knowledge of bacterial species and activities is 

 to be ascribed. Without his quest for the cause 

 of the contagious and Infectious diseases, bac- 

 teriology as a science would scarcely exist 

 to-day. In the same way the lowest animal 

 forms will receive a new interest and meaning, 

 and there will arise a new impetus to their 

 study, so soon as more diseases are traced to 

 them and improved technical means make it 

 possible to control their investigation, as can 

 now be done with the bacteria. 



A fair idea of the progress of pathology can 

 be gained by comparing the two English edi- 

 tions of the text-book under consideration, the 

 first — that which appeared in 1884 — with the 

 present one. The main difference is not found 

 in the greatly increased volume of the latter, 

 but in the altered points of view and the defl- 

 niteness of the one as compared with the other. 

 Pathology, like other natural sciences, has been 

 characterized, in its growth, by two stages — 

 one the acquisition of data, and the other the 

 orderly arrangement and classification of the 

 accumulated facts. Workers all over the world 

 are still busy collecting data and verifying, 

 where possible, their observations and concep- 

 tions by experimentation under known condi- 

 tions. The animal organism is exposed to so 

 many influences of injurious nature — some gen- 

 erated within and others applied from without 

 the organism — that there seems no end to the 

 variety and complexity of the phenomena met 

 with. Notwithstanding this fact, the complex 

 problems of inflammation, new tissue forma- 

 tion, the causes of destructive lesions in liver, 

 kidney and brain, are beginning to be under- 

 stood no less than the diseases, such as tubercu- 

 losis, glanders and malaria, which are due to 

 the invasion of microparasites into the body. 



A text-book will of necessity be in the rear, 

 never in advance, of a rapidly-growing subject. 

 It fulfills its purpose, if it is a trustworthy rec- 

 ord, in a convenient form, of the more impor- 

 tant facts, and if it reflects the spirit of progress 

 of the subject. This Ziegler's text-book has 

 continued to do, improving with each successive 

 edition, until now it has become one of the 

 most useful books in any language. The rapid- 

 ity with which it goes through editions is testi- 



