Physiology for Beginners Outlines of Biology Practical Methods in Microscopy

Abstract

THE scientific precision and modernness of a book of elementary physiology, written by Dr. Shore, under the supervision of Prof. Foster, is scarcely to be called in question. This little volume is amply ill ustrated, and written with clearness as well as exactness. The authors are especially to be commended for laying stress in their preface upon the necessity of a preliminary acquaintance with Chemistry and Physics, and it is to be regretted that they had not the courage to insist upon this point. But here they are gravely open to criticism. “Knowing,” they say, “how frequently a book on physiology is taken up without any such previous acquaintance, we have given a few chemical and physical facts as preliminaries in chapter i.” A few, and quite too few, it is—six complete pages—expanding scarcely any of the principles which are involved in the simplest physiological explanation, giving, of course, no conceptions of the relations of chemical combination to energy, nor of osmose, diffusion, solution, isomerism, nor the action of ferments, all of which come to the front directly one approaches respiration or digestion. We cannot but think that this concession to a common educational error is greatly to be deplored. The authors occupy a position of authority, and it was their privilege—a privilege they have neglected—to demand here, by assuming a sound basis of chemical and physical knowledge, the proper sequence of studies. As it is they have produced a little primer that by virtue of its clearness and attractiveness and the prestige of their names, will serve to uphold for a few years longer a fundamentally faulty system of scientific education.

Physiology for Beginners.

By Professor M. Foster Lewis E. Shore (London: Macmillan and Co., 1894.)

Outlines of Biology.

By P. Chalmers Mitchell (London: Methuen and Co., 1894.)

Practical Methods in Microscopy.

By C. H. Clark (Boston: Heath and Co., 1894.)