Am.  JoUr.  Fharni. ) 
February,  1S96.  J 
RevteivS. 
REVIEWS  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICES. 
Essentials  of  Vegetable  Pharmacognosy.  A  Treatise  on  Struc- 
tural Botany,  Designed  Especially  for  Pharmaceutical  and  Medical 
Students,  Pharmacists  and  Physicians. 
Part  I.  The  Gross  Structure  of  Plants.  By  Henry  H.  Rusby,  M.D.  Part 
II.  The  Minute  Structure  of  Plants.  By  Smith  Ely  Jeliffe,  M.D.  With  560 
illustrations.    New  York:  D.  O.  Haynes  &  Co.  1895. 
The  book  which  these  authors  have  produced  is,  on  the  whole^  a  welcome  ad- 
dition to  the  literature  of  the  pharmaceutical  profession. 
In  Part  I,  Dr.  Rusby,  after  a  brief  introduction,  takes  up,  first,  the  flowery 
then  in  succession  the  fruit,  the  seed,  the  embryo,  germination,  the  root,  the 
stem,  the  leaf  and,  finally,  anthotaxy.  This  order  of  presentation  of  the  sub- 
jects might  well  be  objected  to  on  the  ground  that  one  of  the  most  difficult 
parts  of  botany  is  placed  first.  But  that  much  more  depends  upon  the  method 
of  treatment  than  upon  the  point  of  beginning,  is  in  the  present  instance  well- 
nigh  justified  by  the  result,  for  the  author  has  made  his  exposition  of  the  floral 
structure  so  simple  and  clear  that  the  student  need  find  no  serious  difficulty 
with  it.  In  fact,  the  author  has  succeeded  in  presenting  his  whole  subject  in  a 
very  clear  and  attractive  way.  Too  many  works  which  purport  to  give  only  the 
essentials  of  a  vast  subject  are  mere  skeletons,  uninteresting,  forbidding;  but 
Dr.  Rusby's  book  is  far  from  being  of  this  class.  While  probably  it  would  not 
profess  to  be  original  in  the  sense  of  presenting  facts  heretofore  unknown  to 
science,  nevertheless,  it  is  original  in  the  freshness  with  which  already  well- 
known  facts  are  presented.  They  are  presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  enlist  in- 
terest and  awaken  thought. 
The  author  shows  himself  to  be  so  much  a  master  of  his  subject  that  he  need 
give  little  heed  to  the  beaten  paths.  With  the  instinct  of  the  true  botanist,  he 
often  prefers  to  go  "across  lots,"  and  this  fact  adds  much  to  the  value  of  the 
book. 
This  part  of  the  book  is  very  fully  illustrated,  and  the  illustrations,  while 
simply  executed,  are  nearly  always  telling  and  true  to  nature.  The  larger  por- 
tion of  them  are  also  original.  In  the  opinion  of  the  reviewer,  however,  the 
value  of  these  illustrations  would  have  been  considerably  enhanced  had  they 
been  accompanied  by  descriptions.  In  some  instances  the  plants  from  which 
the  drawings  are  made  are  not  even  named  in  the  text. 
A  protest  is  recorded  here  against  the  continued  use  of  the  terms  pr inline  and 
secundine  as  names  for  the  coats  of  the  ovule.  Some  recent  writers,  among 
them  Dr.  Rusby,  employ  the  term  primine  to  designate  the  inner  coat,  because 
it  is  the  first  formed,  while  they  apply  the  term  secundine  to  the  outer  and  later- 
formed  one.  Many  other  botanists,  however,  reverse  the  order,  calling  the 
outer  coat  the  primine,  and  the  inner  the  secundine.  This  is  most  confusing, 
and  it  would  be  wiser  to  abandon  these  names  altogether  in  favor  of  the  sim- 
pler terms  inner  and  outer  integuments. 
Part  II,  though  on  the  whole  well  up-to-date  and  written  in  the  modern 
spirit,  is  scarcely  up  to  the  level  of  Part  I.  It  is  less  careful  in  its  statements, 
less  free  from  errors.  On  p.  115,  for  example,  it  is  stated  that  "the  lining 
membrane  is  called  the  cell-wall;"  on  p.  116,  that  "it  (referring  to  the  cell 
nucleus)  consists  of  a  nuclear  membrane,"  etc.;  on  p.  119,  that  "starch  is 
