ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
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Sphagnum from Bog to Bandage. — J. W. Hotson ( Publications 
Puget Sound Biological Station , 1919, 2, 211-47, 18 figs.). Detailed 
instructions for the collection, storing, baling, sorting and drying of 
Sphagnum. Description of the equipment of a Sphagnum workroom, 
and of the most approved method of apportioning the work, Minute 
and precise instructions for making Sphagnum dressings and packing 
them for hospital use. The dressings were sterilized at the military 
hospitals by steam heat prior to surgical employment. A bibliography 
is appended. A. G. 
Sphagnum used as a Surgical Dressing in Germany during the 
World War. — J. W. Hotson ( Bryologist , 1921, 24, 74-8, pi. and figs. ; 
89-96, fig.)* The value of the Sphagnum dressing is mainly due to its 
power of absorbing great quantities of fluid. The text-figures supplied 
show the remarkable porous structure of the plant. The differences of 
preparation of the dressings for the British and the American armies 
have already been described by the author ; and now he gives an 
account of the German methods. As long ago as 1882 Neuber, of 
Kiel, reported on the remarkable and rapid cure of a severe lacerated 
wound which had been roughly bound up with peat. The value of 
peat-dressing was at once investigated. During the war, when deprived 
of cotton by the blockade, the Germans made great use of Sphagnum 
for dressings — and also employed other mosses, sawdust, wood pulp, 
hay, straw and even dried algae. They took less trouble than the 
British and Americans to clean the Sphagnum, being content to remove 
hard and sharp particles, ■ twigs, pine needles, etc. They then washed 
and dried the material. Dressings or pads are composed either of loose 
material or of heavily compressed cakes, and are made up into such 
sizes as are required. In Germany the commonest dressing was a pad 
of loose moss in a muslin bag ; another kind of pad was more firmly 
packed and was moulded in a frame. Very large pads were quilted. 
For the hard pasteboard compresses, carefully picked and pulverized 
material was solidified under hydraulic pressure ; after being cut to 
required sizes, the pieces were wrapped in muslin and sterilized with 
steam heat. They were either damped and used as outer dressings, or, 
if specially hardened, were used as splints. An account is added of the 
method employed at Edinburgh for making compressed dressings. 
There the material was all passed through a bath of corrosive sublimate 
and dried in trays in a hot room. It was then weighed out and care- 
fully packed into muslin in wooden moulds, the packets being placed 
in piles of ten under hydraulic pressure of 160 tons. The cakes were cut 
down and trimmed to size and sewn up in loose muslin covers. Among 
the advantages claimed for Sphagnum dressings by the Germans are the 
high absorptive power, the coolness, the cleanness and long-lasting 
properties, cheapness and abundance. A. G. 
Tb.allopb.yt a. 
Algae. 
Free-living Unarmoured Dinofiagellata.— C. A. Kofoid and Olive 
Swezy ( Memoirs Univ. California , 1921, 5, pp. viii + 562, 12 col. pis., 
