Chimie Organique en 1868.—Rapport méthodique sur les progrès de la Chimie organique pure en 1868

Abstract

WHEN we opened this work and found that the author had attempted, for the first time, what he truly designates as “neither an easy nor a glorious task” and that he intends his book to be a sufficiently concise and yet detailed annual report, a suitable “vade-mecum for a professor of high-class instruction,” we formed expectations which were not quite realised on further perusal. M. Micé wrote this report at the request of the Société des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, who purpose publishing similar reports annually. The title, it will be perceived, is perfectly general and it might have attracted any student of organic chemistry. But the author informs us (p. 1) that his book “can only be useful on condition of being methodical and containing no more than a Faculty professor can deliver, from memory, in his lectures.” We should strongly recommend M. Micé, especially as he proposes to extend this plan to the entire domain of chemistry, to alter his title-page before again proceeding to publication. “Lecture Notes for Professors of Chemistry” would be a much more appropriate designation; less pretentious, certainly, but having the great advantage of accuracy. Undoubtedly, the author has succeeded in producing a rapport méthodique; but it is decidedly not a rapport sur les progrès de la Chimie organique pure, nor has it that nice adjustment between details and conciseness which is the essential requirement of such a treatise. The only work which fulfils and ably fulfils these conditions, is the German “Jahresbericht der Chemie,” a model of patient and deliberate composition. M. Micé will find prefixed to it a list of some sixty or seventy periodicals, containing the various original papers to which it refers. We may fairly ask him whether many French professors (du haut enseignement) will be satisfied with the basis he has selected, viz., five French journals and the 3rd edition of MM. Pelouze and Frémy's “Traité de Chimie.” Considering that the author has had recourse to such a method of shortening his labours, it is not surprising that the performance should exhibit a generally hasty character. At p. 117, for example, we find the following passage:—“Théine gives up a quarter of its nitrogen, creatine a third, the other natural and artificial alkaloids one-half.” It so happens that the experiments in this particular case, instead of being carried out with all nitrogenous organic bodies, were pardonably limited to nineteen instances. We regret we cannot commend this work, as fulfilling either the promise held out on its title-page, or the more limited intention expressed in its opening paragraphs.

Chimie Organique en 1868.—Rapport méthodique sur les progrès de la Chimie organique pure en 1868.

Par L. Micé. Large 8vo. pp. 446. (Paris: Baillière. 1869.)