90 
REVIEWS. 
the following books on cognate subjects :—“ The Physiology of the Inverte- 
brata,” “Researches on Micro-ogranisms ” and “ Diseases of Crops,” besides 
contributing numerous papers to scientific journals on matters relating to 
bacteriology and physiological chemistry ; he is, therefore, presumably well 
qualified to give a resume of modern ideas respecting those minute vegetal 
organisms which affect so profoundly the health and food of mankind. 
The work opens with a brief account of the structure and properties of 
bacteria, or “ microbes,” as the author prefers to call them ; this is followed 
by chapters descriptive of the bacteriological laboratories of Edinburgh and 
Paris, and of the apparatus and methods of cultivating, staining, mounting, 
&c., used in the investigation of microbes ; then comes some account of the 
classification and identification of the organisms and of various phenomena, 
such as pleomorphism, connected with them. After this preliminary work, 
we are ready for the detailed description which follows of the biological 
characters given of nearly all the more important microbes. In each case we 
are told the dimensions of the form under consideration, its appearance, the 
conditions under which it can be cultivated or occurs in nature, the various 
chemical reactions which it produces and its pathogenic effects on animals. 
There are especially minute accounts of the microbes which, it is thought, 
produce specific infectious diseases such as hydrophobia, scarlatina, cholera, 
diphtheria, tuberculosis, &c. ; the treatment given at the Pasteur Institute 
for hydrophobia is described, and we learn that during the years 1886-9, 7,893 
patients were treated, of whom only 53 died, giving a mortality of 0 67 per 
cent. ; that since 1889 this mortality has been reduced to 0’2 per cent., and 
that these results were purchased at the cost of intense suffering ending in 
death of uumerous dogs and rabbits. In order to keep up a constant 
supply of the preventive virus, fresh animals are inoculated every day, with 
the result that two rabbits perish each day in the agonies of rabies. In 
regard to tuberculosis and cholera, Dr. Griffiths holds, contrary to the 
opinion of many other prominent bacteriologists, that each is indeed due to 
that particular microbe which is asserted by Koch to be the cause of the 
respective disease. The microbes of the air, soil and water are next dealt 
with, in which connection opportunity is taken to insist on the great 
importance of boiling our milk and drinking-water, and well cooking our food. 
Then an important but technical chapter describes the chemical properties 
of ptomaines, the products, that is, of the vital activity of microbes, to which 
substances must be ascribed the physiological effects, often including disease 
and death, produced by microbes in their hosts, the action of the former, 
therefore, on the latter being as a rule, indirect only ; this subject has been 
made especially his own by our author. The last chapter gives an account 
of germicides and antiseptics, and finally, in an appendix, we have information 
on various additional points of interest. Looking at the book as a whole, it 
seems likely to be of considerable use to the medical man and the chemist ; 
with the general reader it may not prove so popular, as there are many 
technicalities of medical and chemical science which are necessarily not 
explained ; at the same time, however, much of the book is very readable, and 
certainly affords the uninitiated a clear account of the methods and results 
of modern bacteriological studies. A good feature is the constant reference 
to original papers ; a welcome addition would be a chapter summing up the 
results attained by modern research, now scattered through the 346 pages of 
the work. A list of firms from whom bacteriological apparatus can be 
obtained is likely to prove useful; it is surprising, however, to find that the 
only microscope maker mentioned is a foreigner—the well-known Zeiss of 
Jena ; it is surely absurd, if not insulting,to make no reference to the numerous 
good English manufacturers whose instruments are not surpassed by those of 
any foreign firm. 
On the whole, then, this work seems to nearly fulfil the ideal which the 
publisher has set before himself in planning the Science Series to which it 
belongs. A. B. B. 
April, 1893. 
