July 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



Ill 



argument, especially that of the significance 

 among mammals of the large intestine.* 



But on the whole the work bears the stamp 

 of a production of an erudite scientist and a 

 deep thinker. 



Ales Hrdlicka. 



U. S. Nationax Museum. 



Die Chemie der Zucherarien. Von Professor 

 Dr. Edmund 0. von Lippmann, Director der 

 Zuckerraffinerie Halle zu Halle a. S. Dritte 

 vollig umgearbeitete Auflage. 1904. Braun- 

 schweig, Friedr. Vieweg und Sohn. Gr: 

 8vo. Pp. si + 2003. In two volumes. 

 Price, M. 30 ; hound, M. 34. 

 This work, the third edition of the prize 

 essay 'Die Zuckerarten und ihre Derivate,' 

 which first appeared in 1878, embodies the 

 sum total of our present-day knowledge of 

 the sugars. 



So great has been the progress made and 

 the wealth of material accumulated in this 

 field of research within the past decade that 

 the contents of this work fill fully two thou- 

 sand pages; for the sake of convenience the 

 publication is issued in two volumes. 



The first of these volumes contains the in- 

 troductory remarks, a copious table of con- 

 tents and a full discussion of the monosac- 

 charides. The second treats of the di-, tri- 

 and tetrasaccharides, the constitution, config- 

 uration and synthesis of the sugars, the rela- 

 tions between the optical, caloric and other 

 physical constants, the origin of the sugars in 

 plants, and of the physiological importance of 

 the sugars. In addition to this there are the 

 addenda, bringing the discussion of the sub- 

 ject matters up to the close of February, 1904; 

 an author's and a subject index — the latter 

 alone covering about fifty pages. 



When one recalls the various domains of 

 knowledge with which the chemistry of sugar 

 is necessarily in touch and contact, for in- 

 stance general, organic, analytic, physical, 

 physiological, medical, pathological chemistry, 



* Metehnikoff considers that, in the active mam- 

 malian life, ' the need to stop in order to empty the 

 intestines would be a serious disadvantage ' and 

 implies that this factor may have had influence 

 in the evolution of the organ. 



the chemistry of foods, of fermentation, bac- 

 teriologji, agricultural chemistry, physics, etc., 

 a faint conception may be formed of the 

 gigantic task which confronted the author in 

 his endeavor to deal adequately with his sub- 

 ject. 



Of course, certain limits had to be set, the 

 lines of demarcation had to be drawn some- 

 where, and of this no one could have been 

 more clearly conscious than the author. "With 

 a modesty as charming as it is rare, he states 

 in his preface : ' Completeness could not be 

 attained in any direction,' and yet this work 

 is the most thorough of all works ever pub- 

 lished on the chemistry of the sugars. 



The fundamental idea governing its whole 

 scope and plan is the giving of a detailed de- 

 scription of the various kinds of sugars and 

 their more immediate derivatives, while less 

 closely allied bodies receive attention only to 

 an extent necessary to define and establish 

 their characteristics. 



Instead of entering into a detailed account 

 of the well-nigh innumerable methods of an- 

 alysis and technology, the author has sought 

 to give their essence and spirit, to sketch in 

 clear outlines their underlying principles. 

 Data relating to the construction and manipu- 

 lation of polariscopes, to the specific gravity 

 of sugar solutions, etc., data which can readily 

 be found in manuals and text -books, have been 

 omitted. 



Scheibler's naming of the sugars has been 

 retained,' the author deeming the time not yet 

 come for the adoption of Emil Fischer's ra- 

 tional system of nomenclature. A noteworthy 

 feature of the book is the manner in which 

 the table of contents and the index comple- 

 ment each other, the former referring to the 

 general topics, while the index lists the indi- 

 vidual chemical terms and expressions. 



Space, of course, forbids here entering upon 

 a detailed review of these volumes; all that 

 may be done is to sum up in a few words the 

 impression left by a careful, critical examina- 

 tion of their pages. The style in which the 

 book is written is attractive — concise, clear, 

 forceful. There is no question but that von 

 Lippmann in his ' Chemie der Zuckerarten ' 

 has given to chemical science a monograph 



