Hay Fever Plants

physical and chemical attributes and, moreover, possessed of a variability which, in turn, is referable to more than mere whim. As yet, the bridge is a rather shaky structure, as is recognized by the frequency with which the author is forced to indicate that insufficient data force but tentative conclusions. Nevertheless, the text clears away much rubbish and underbrush, and in some few places offers a firm foundation upon which to build. For example, Dubos gets away from most of the text-book terms that are meaningless and for them he substitutes chemical equivalents or, at least, terms that have some precision of meaning. And that the reader may become confused thereby is quite immaterial; he will unwittingly remain confused so long as he accepts the text-book verbiage and merely gets the notion that it is the tool-chest that bores the hole. For if The Bacterial CeU does nothing more it will persuade the thinking person that the bacterium as such does practically nothing; it is the constituent parts that function or that are so constructed that the host is compelled to a particular functional expression. The book is essential to anyone working seriously in bacteriology and is most certainly a step in the right direction, and that it does not answer all questions is surely preferable to continuing to mask ignorance by a display of sounding phrases without meaning. That it is filled with gaps is also a great merit, for it will demand frequent revision if it is to be kept up-to-date, and it is to be hoped that such revision will eliminate some of the many errors that have crept into the text. Apparently little care was given the matter of making the bok readable, and less to the adoption of a uniform style. The book is hard reading, and one wonders if the author intended "immunolochemical" and by what system of adjectival derivation the word "Pastornan" was formed from Pasteur. The use repeatedly of the phrase "chemical accident" is disconcerting also in a text of this kind. -GEO. H. SMITH.