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NEW ROOKS
NEW BOOKS Starch arid i t s B o i ~ a t i u c s . By J. A. RADLEY.346 pp. S e a York: D. Van Sostrand Company, 1940. Price: $6.00. This book is divided into four parts. Part I is preceded by an historical chapter and dcals with investigations of the structure of starch, the physical chemistry of starch, the reaction of starch with iodine, and the ethers and csters of starch. P a r t I1 covers the nianufacture of starches and modified starches, the manufacture of the starch end-products, glucose and maltose, of derivatives such as ethyl alcohol and acctone, and of destrin :md British gums. Part 111 treats of the industrial application of starch and starch products, covering adhesive applications, the paper industry, the testile industry, niiscellaneous uses, utilization of by-products of starch manufacture, preservatives for starch, the preparation of various amylases. Part IV deals with various methods of esaniination and analysis of starch and i t s products. Forty-seven excellent photomicrographs of starches of common and uncommon varieties are appended. In the reviewer’s opinion this book iu its field is absolutely unique. I t is a painstaking, scholarly, and very readable attempt t o cover, in one medium-sized and well-illustrated volume, a very comples and controversial subject. The book is a veritable bibliography of the literature of starch and dextrins and represents a n enormous amount of library research. It should prove of great interest and value not only to chemists and physicists bnt to practical men as well. The chapter on dextrins is particularly good and there is much of interest in Part 111 on industrial dpplications. It was probably not within the scope and purpose of this book critically t o treat the literature on the structure and physical chemistry of starch and its products. Thc author has compiled his data with great care and completeness and let i t go at that. His work is a self-revealing indictment of the deplorable confusion of scientific thought in this admittedly difficult field. The blunt truth is t h a t an exceptionally large proportion of the literature bearing upon the structure and physical chemistry of starch is worthless or misleading. Perhaps no other technical subject has been more bedeviled by contradictory results and the incubus of a senseless confusion of terms more or less unconsciously created to cover the natural ignorance of investigators. Such vague and ill-defined entities as amylopectin, amylodextrin, erythrodextrin, nchroiidestrin, a-tetraaniylose, etc. should generally be banished from the vocabulary of future investigators. They merely compound confusion of thought. The study of starch and its products has suffered irom too great preoccupation with purely chemical aspects. The importance of the physical-chemical approach, which is doing so much t o rationalize structural conformations and eccentricities of behavior, is inadequately stressed. The reviewer refers particularly t o the micellar theory and the established fact of association through hydrogen bonding, postulates for which there are the strongest experimental proofs. But one cannot say too much for this book. I t fills a very real need, and future editions should be eagerly anticipated. G . V. CAESAR.
