Abstract
“RICHTER”is too well known to need description, and the only matter requiring attention is the way in which the translator has done his work. In the first place, it must be pointed out that the German edition on which the translation is based was published so long as ten years ago, and the volume for review is, therefore, relatively out of date. In the second place, a much more serious fault is the surprisingly inexact way in which the translation has been carried through. Even an elementary knowledge of chemistry and of technical German would have prevented such translations as “carbohydrate” for “Kohlenwasserstoff,” and would have allowed the German names “benzol,” “anilin,” “hydrazin,” “hydrokinone,” “mono-sulpho-per-acid,” etc., to have been rendered into their English equivalents. As examples of chemical errors may be mentioned the use of ferric sulphate as a reducing agent, MnKO as the formula of potassium permanganate, etc. These are but a few of the elementary blunders for which the translator is responsible, and as a result the book will be found very confusing by students. As a book of reference for those who already have a good knowledge of organic chemistry it will certainly be found very useful.
Organic Chemistry, or Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds.
By Victor von Richter. Edited by Prof. R. Anschütz and Dr. R. Meerwein. Translated from the eleventh German edition by Dr. E. E. Fournier D'Albe. Vol. 2: Chemistry of the Carbocyclic Compounds. Pp. xvi+760. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 35s. net.
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Organic Chemistry, or Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds . Nature 109, 709 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/109709a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/109709a0