226 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 267. 



also named ' bleeding bread ' because it is a 

 pigment bearing bacillus of red color, and forms 

 spots when growing on bread, potatoes and 

 onion that resemble blood. It is an egg-shaped 

 germ about 1/25000 of an inch in diameter, 

 which is very small * * *. This organism is 

 very common * * *. The drawing here repre- 

 sented was taken from life * * *. [It] is also 

 a germ causing unsoundness in bread and bakers 

 have to guard their dough against this action 

 to prevent souring * * *." The plate which 

 occupies the page opposite this remarkable de- 

 scription is something wonderful to behold. 

 Within a large ten-sided polygon indicated 

 by a thin blue line we have a dozen or 

 more of what appear to be long, stout bacilli 

 or hyphsB, also blue, but showing a reticulum, 

 or chromatin-like substance, of a bright red 

 color. The main background of the field is 

 nearly filled with small, oval, red-colored dots 

 or circles, and besides these there are present 

 n large numbers thin and almost invisible bluei 

 lines which seem to be intended for delicate and 

 very slender bacilli. The legend beneath 

 reads : ' ' Figure 13 Magnified X 1000. One part 

 bouillon, 99 parts water. Rank putrefaction. 

 Bouillon, prodigiosi." The whole effect of this 

 plate must be seen to be appreciated. 



Woodhead's excellent book on ' Bacteria and 

 their Products' seems to have been the author's 

 principal source of information, and if he had 

 only quoted correctly, and copied Woodhead's 

 figures with accuracy, there would have been 

 little occasion for the present criticism. One of 

 his worst blunders — to call it by no stronger 

 term— is that iu which the author gives as his 

 ' Figure 19. Magnified X 1000. Kleles Loeffler 

 Bacilli, X 1000,' a figure which so far as a care- 

 ful comparison can determine is a copy of 

 Woodhead's figure not of diphtheria, but of 

 anthrax bacilli, and this, too, turned upside 

 down. After discoveries of this sort the intel- 

 ligent reader may be pardoned for regarding, 

 with a certain cynicism, a rhapsody like the fol- 

 lowing (p. 31) : " What a study it is, then, this 

 science of bacteriology. It opens up a new 

 world to us {sic) and we are permitted to gaze 

 upon it and behold the scheme of Nature giv- 

 ing us object lessons day by day in the tearing 

 down and building up process. Life begetting 



new life and new life flourishes on the dead ; 

 seed developing into form, form producing 

 seed, decay of form, and development of seed. 

 This is true of the germ and also of every liv- 

 ing thing." As we peruse this strange deliver- 

 ance we are compelled to agree with the author 

 that form, here at least, readily goes to seed 

 and even to rot. 



It would be easy to extend the present review, 

 but the whole work comes dangerously near to 

 a burlesque of bacteriology and extended com- 

 ment is unnecessary. Only one point more 

 need be made. The author evidently quotes 

 extensively from various writers and investiga- 

 tors without giving them credit. For the most 

 part these statements have long since become 

 the common property of bacteriologists, but to- 

 ward the end of the book he apparently uses 

 freely the recent and important monographs of 

 Messrs. Prescott and Underwood, of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology, on the his- 

 tory of the canning industry and on bacterio- 

 logical investigations of canned foods, especially 

 of sour corn, of which a preliminary account 

 was published in Science, Nov. 26, 1897, and 

 yet never once mentions these authors. 



We are tempted to close with the familiar 

 warning that a little knowledge is a dangerous 

 thing, and a reminder to those into whose 

 hands the book may fall that blind leaders of 

 the blind are apt to be untrustworthy. The 

 author himself, in discussing the vacuum which 

 exists in most well prepared and hermetically 

 sealed food-cans, has, however, given utterance 

 to a similar warning, in quite original metaphor: 

 "We thus see that packers who are pinning 

 their faith to a vacuum are depending upon a 

 broken reed." Those who pin their faith to 

 the author's kind of bacteriology will, we fear, 

 discover to their cost that they are leaning not 

 even upon a broken reed, but only upon a 

 vacuum. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Lehrbuch der Botanik fiir Hoclischulen. Eduarb- 

 Srasbuegee, Fritz Noll, Heinrich Schbnck, 

 A. F. W. SCHIMPER. Jena, Fischer, 1900. Fourth 

 revised edition. Pp. viii + 588. 7 Mark, 50 Pf. 



The Nature and Work of Plants. DANIEL TREMBLY 

 MaoDougal. New York and London, The Mac- 

 millan Company. 1900. Pp. xvii + 218. 80 cts. 



