410 Scientific Intelligence. 



tributions from this side of the water are no discredit to a journal 

 which starts out so fairly. g. l. g. 



2. Dermatitis venenata ; by James C. White, M.D., Boston, 

 1887, 8vo, 216 pp. — Professor White has brought together in this 

 treatise a great amount of interesting information of an important 

 character. Restricting this notice to the botanical portion of the 

 work, we may say that the results here presented are altogether 

 surprising. Everyone knows that we have, for instance in the 

 New England States, a few plants which are either poisonous or 

 merely irritant to the skin, such as the two dreaded species of 

 Rhus, one or two nettles and the like. But we confess to a feel- 

 ing of insecurity when we are informed that the following plants 

 are justly regarded as poisonous to the human skin : Water- 

 plantain, May-apple, Fleabane, Ox-eye Daisy, Mayweed, Golden- 

 rod, Arbor vitae, House-leek, Sundew, Prince's Pine, Asparagus, 

 Flax, Ladies' Slipper, Blood-root, Garget, Monkshood, Baneberry, 

 Wind-flower, Clematis, Larkspur, Buttercups, Mullein, Moose- 

 wood, and even Balm of Gilead. Concerning these common 

 plants and many others, Professor White has brought a formida- 

 ble indictment sustained by evidence. The whole work is 

 marked by great patience in collecting and sifting testimony from 

 all quarters, and affords a mass of facts for the use of the biolo- 

 gist, as well as the practitioner of medicines. g. l. g. 



3. Lectures on the Physiology of Plants; by Julius vox 

 Sachs, Translated by H. Marshall Ward, M.A., F.L.S. Ox- 

 ford, at the Clarendon Press, 1887, 8vo, 836 pp. — The German 

 edition of these lectures has been already noticed in this Journal ; 

 attention was then called to the wide range of subjects treated, to 

 the interesting manner of stating important points, and to the 

 desirability of having the work soon placed before English 

 readers. The translation before us is exceptionally successful. 

 The ideas have been carried over into the English language and 

 not merely into English words. To accomplish this the trans- 

 lator has taken the course which was followed in the preparation 

 of two French translations of previous works by Sachs ; whole 

 sentences have been reconstructed, leaving scarcely a trace of the 

 original phrase but never with any sacrifice of the author's mean- 

 ing. To those who read this work it must be frankly said, that 

 they are presented with certain physiological questions as Sachs 

 sees them, and frequently without any distinct reference to the 

 fact that many of them have two sides. If this treatise is read in 

 conjunction with Vines's Physiology, the student will be placed 

 in possession of the most trustworthy statements of the principles 

 of vegetable physiology. And every reader will rise from his 

 perusal of the two works with the feeling that the two writers 

 have been discriminating in the selection of material, and that 

 both have kept steadily in mind the accepted aphorism, cited by 

 Sachs in his preface, — "the secret of being tedious lies in trying 

 to say all one knows." These two writers have said just about 

 enough in their treatises, and have completely escaped the charge 

 of being tedious. G. l. g. 



