Abstract
THIS charming book consists of thumb-nail sketches of the lives of famous men of science, and is well illustrated with portraits and with facsimiles of autograph letters. Physicians, physicists, chemists, and others all find a place, and the true internationalism of science is reflected in the catholic nature of Prof. Darmstaedter's gallery. Biographical details have a perennial interest, and in the present instance many of them are new, or at least not generally known. One of the most interesting sections deals with the men who were responsible for “the error of phlogiston and its overthrow,” namely, Stahl, Black, Marggraf, Priestley, Scheele, and Lavoisier, though microscopists will derive equal enjoyment from the sketches of Leeuwenhoek, Redi, and Ehrenberg, and physicists from the sympathetic insight into the minds of Gilbert, Guericke, von Kleist, Galvani, Volta, and Ohm. Prof. Darmstaedter says that the compilation of this book has brightened his life during the last two years, and he may be assured that the wish he expresses—that his readers may get as much enjoyment from it as he has done—will be fulfilled. If we ourselves may express a wish, it is that he may live long and give us more books of the same kind.
Naturforscher und Erfinder: Biographische Miniaturen.
Von Prof. Dr. Ludwig Darmstaedter. Pp. vii + 182 + 16 Tafeln. (Bielefeld und Leipzig: Velhagen und Klasing, 1926.) n.p.
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 118, 620 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118620b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118620b0