Popular Science Monthly/Volume 63/May 1903/Scientific Literature
PSYCHOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY.
Since the publication of the brief review in the August number of the Monthly, the literature of this subject has continued to receive important additions, which indicate the increasing influence of the chemical aspects of biological study. The appreciation of this fact has given rise to the appearance of the Biochemisches Centralblatt[1] under the editorial supervision of P. Ehrlich, E. Fischer, A. Kossel, O. Liebreich, F. Müller, B. Proskauer, E. Salkowski and N. Zuntz. These well known names alone suffice to assure a future for the new journal, which is to report at brief intervals abstracts of chemical or biochemical investigations having a bearing on the biological sciences and medicine in particular. It is hoped in this way to enable the chemist, the physician and the general biologist to obtain a brief survey of the entire domain of activity along related chemical lines of work. The few numbers of the Centralblatt already at hand contain, in addition, cursory reviews of the literature upon restricted topics, e. g., the proteids, alimentary processes, etc., written by competent scientists.
A more critical résumé is aimed at in the 'Ergebnisse der Physiologie,'[2] the first volume of which has recently appeared under the joint editorship of Professor Leon Asher, of Berne, and Dr. Karl Spiro, of Strasburg. With the collaboration of a large number of many well-known physiologists, it is proposed to publish yearly two volumes, one of which is to be devoted to biochemistry, the other to biophysics and psychophysics. The entire field of physiology will thus be reviewed from time to time in the form of essays, more exhaustive, critical and suggestive than any mere compilation of abstracts could be. If one may judge by the character of the contributions to the first volume, it seems inevitable that the 'Ergebnisse' will become an important work of reference; and it will serve, even better than most textbooks, to keep the physiologist in touch with current progress in the study of the problems of biology.
Maly's 'Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der Thierchemie' completes its thirty-first year under the editorship of Professor Andreasch and Dr. Spiro, the latter taking the place of the late Professor v. Nencki. Dr. H. C. Jackson, of New York, has been added to the list of contributors.
Dr. O. V. Fürth's 'Vergleichende chemische Physiologie der niederen Thiere[3] is one of the most valuable of the new books. The interest which the study of the lower forms has aroused lately has for the most part been confined to the more purely physical and morphological features of animal life. The chemical data accumulated during many years and scattered through various journals and monographs have now been collected by v. Fürth into a series of chapters useful for reference and helpful in suggesting opportunities for research.