CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
Actinomycetes 
The last decade has witnessed the publication of a considerable number of 
ook, in 
considerable information obtained from the very extensive bibliography, of 
which nearly 400 titles, Suihiggehe only a part of the total, are cited. The 
largest section of the volume is devoted to a treatment of the physiological 
properties of the Actinomycetes, including their reactions to nutrient an 
tonic compounds, their production of odors and pigments, their enzymatic 
activities, as well as a discussion of variations of different strains of Actinomyces 
arising in response to changed conditions, or quite spontaneously under uni- 
form conditions. The spontaneous variations with respect to chromogenesis, 
sporulation, oxygen requirements, thermal relations, and production of odors, 
the author regards as being in the nature of mutations. The two final sections 
of the book deal with the relation of the group of organisms to animal and 
human diseases, and to the diseases of higher plants. In connection with the 
latter, the galls of alder roots are discussed, and a certain amount of evidence, 
unfortunately not altogether conclusive, is adduced to show that the causative 
organism is a species of Actinomyces. 
In the Preface, the author expresses the justifiable hope that the book 
may have been made to embrace both the botanical and the medical provinces 
of bacteriology. He sees in the methods of medical bacteriology a more highly 
developed technique, from the use of which botanical investigations might 
profit. Accordingly it is not surprising that the research reported in the book, 
not excluding the section on morphology, is the product of the established type 
of medical bacteriological technique, although the latter thus far can hardly 
method. The author concludes that septa are absent from the aerial sporu- 
lating filaments, which in view of the fact that the stains used fail to show the 
walls of fungi, even when these are clearly visible in unstained preparations, 
need occasion no astonishment. It is to be regretted that some stain known 
t LieskE, RupoLF, Morphologie und Biologie der Strahlenpilze (Actinomyceten). 
8 vo. pp. ix+292. pls. 4 (colored). figs. 112. Leipzig: Gebriider Borntraeger. 1921- 
