5S6 Scientific Intelligence. 



ters of tissues in all of our dicotyledonous plants. By an ingeni- 

 ous method of arrangement this was made not only clear but 

 also useful. The well-ordered results are now accessible to histo- 

 logical students and to practical investigators of economic pro- 

 ducts, so that the treatise is useful, as the title-page says, for 

 laboratories of pure and applied botany. The large treatise not 

 only shows what has been done, but it also points out with morti- 

 tifying sharpness the vast gaps in our knowledge of the histo- 

 logical morphology of plants. 



Such a treatise is helpful by its stimulating character. It 

 happens to be more than this. It indicates not only what has 

 been done, and what there is to do, but it shows forcibly the 

 worth of it all. In the concluding pages the author has given 

 most valuable hints as to some speculative features of the subject, 

 and although these are merely hints, they are likely to prove of 

 profit to everyone who seriously studies the work. It is question- 

 able whether the scientific world in general is aware of the deep 

 obligation under which the English botanists are placing their 

 fellow students by the publication of the recent important series 

 of translations of German works in an attractive form. The 

 present number of that series is one of the most valuable. 



G. L. G. 



2. A Text-book of Botany and Pharmacognosy ; by Henry 

 Kraemee, Ph.D. 3d Edition. Pp. viii, 850. Philadelphia, 1908 

 (Lippincott Co"). — Prof. Kraemer's duties in connection with the 

 Philadelphia College of Pharmacy have shown. him the desirabil- 

 ity of providing, for students of pharmacy and for pharmacists, a 

 reference book which can answer the more important questions 

 in regard to the structure of medicinal plants and the principal 

 characters of their useful products. The morphology of plants 

 in general and the special morphology of the higher plants are 

 treated in part first in considerable detail, and this is followed 

 by comprehensive studies of the different families of plants 

 yielding drugs. The sequence of families is that generally 

 adopted, namely proceeding from the lower to the higher, closing 

 with Composite. It is well known to our readers that nowa- 

 days, the practical study of Botany is no longer insisted upon as 

 an introduction to medical training, largely because the prepar- 

 ation of medicinal agents from the vegetable kingdom has fallen 

 properly into the hands of specialists known as pharmacists. It 

 was plausibly asserted that medical students did not have time 

 which could be given to a subject like Botany, so remote from 

 their daily needs as practitioners, and although regrets were 

 expressed that a study so well fitted for preparatory discipline 

 must be given up, it disappeared quietly from the list of obliga- 

 tory subjects. Even in those European universities which still 

 retain it in the medical curriculum, its tenure is most precarious. 

 However, practical Botany is safe in the charge of the excellent 

 pharmacists now conducting our best schools of pharmacy. 

 From the first part of Professor Kraemer's book, the student can 





