January 15, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



113 



good are so intermingled that the uninitiated 

 reader cannot know what is reliable and what 

 is false. 



While Wilson's book leaves little to be 

 desired in respect to careful statement, there 

 is one ground for. serious regret, namely, the 

 omission of reference to certain important 

 American papers. We may excuse this in a 

 foreigner, but not in an author in Prof. Wilson's 

 position. Thus, Kofoid's papers upon cleavage 

 in Limax are not referred to in the whole book, 

 yet he first called attention to the failure of 

 Balfour's law referred to on page 273. Also 

 his contributions to the laws of spiral cleavage 

 are of the first importance. 



A comparison of the press work of the two 

 books reveals as great a difference as the mat- 

 ter. For in the translation of Hertwig the type 

 is small and worn and the numerous half- 

 tone reproductions are frequently muddy — like 

 the translation. On the other hand, the type 

 in Wilson's book is beautifully clear and the 

 figures, which are nearly all new to text-books, 

 are all that could be desired. The work is in- 

 deed a model in the beauty of its illustrations. 



While it is impossible to summarize such a 

 book as Wilson's, yet a few of its salient fea- 

 tures and conclusions on debated questions may 

 be mentioned. Especially noteworthy are the 

 Table showing the number of chromosomes in 

 germ and somatic nuclei of various animals, 

 and the Glossary, which gives the authors and 

 dates of introduction of each term. Although 

 treating fully Biitschli's view of the honey- 

 comb structure of protoplasm, the author be- 

 lieves (page 19) that the fibrillar structure is the 

 more typical. All the organs of cell-division — 

 centrosome, spindle and chromosomes — are to 

 be regarded as differentiations of the primitive 

 nuclear structure (page 67). His conclusions 

 concerning the factors determining develop- 

 ment are clearly stated on page 323 as follows : 

 " Development may thus be conceived as a pro- 

 gressive transformation of the egg-substance 

 primarily incited by the nucleus, first manifest- 

 ing itself by specific changes in the cytoplasm, 

 but sooner or later involving in some measure 

 the nuclear substance itself. * * * Cell-divi- 

 sion is an accompaniment, but not a direct 

 cause of differentiation. The cell is no more 



than a particular area of the germinal substance 

 comprising a certain quantity of cytoplasm and 

 a mass of idioplasm in its nucleus." These 

 quotations may serve to show that the book is 

 written on broad lines. It certainly takes rank 

 at once among the most important biological 

 works of the period, and it is a book of which 

 its publishers and all Americans may well be 

 proud. C. B. Davenport. 



Habvaed University. 



Physiological Papers. By H. Newell Martin. 

 Dr. Sci., University of London ; A. M., 

 University of Cambridge ; M. B. , London 

 University ; M. D. (Hon.), University of 

 Georgia ; late Fellow and Lecturer in Christ 

 College, Cambridge ; Fellow of University 

 College, London ; Fellow of the Eoyal 

 Society ; Professor of Biology, Director of 

 the Biological Laboratory and Editor of the 

 Studies from the Biological Laboratory, 

 Johns Hopkins University, 1876-1894, and 

 Professor of Physiology in the Medical Fac- 

 ulty of the same. Memoirs from the Biolog- 

 ical Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity III. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins 

 Press. 1895. 



The book before us is intended to commem- 

 orate the connection of Prof. Newell Martin 

 with the Johns Hopkins University. In it 

 are reprinted his physiological papers pub- 

 lished from the Biological Laboratory created 

 by him there, and some of the public addresses 

 delivered by him on various occasions in this 

 country. The whole forms a handsome quarto 

 volume, valuable not only from its commemora- 

 tive significance, but also as uniting conven- 

 iently for study and reference a series of im- 

 poi'tant and interesting contributions to medical 

 and biological science. 



From the physiological point of view, espe- 

 cially at the present time when the investiga- 

 tion of the isolated mammalian heart is being 

 actively renewed, most interest attaches to 

 the papers in which Prof. Martin described 

 the evolution of what he himself termed the 

 Baltimore method for the isolation of the 

 mammalian heart, and many of the most im- 

 portant results obtained with it. The mutual 

 influence exercised on one another by the dif- 



