book reviews
that have not been supplied with an English translation will handicap readers; to a lesser deeree the same mav be said of the many French and German passages. form to the conventions by Nonetheless and despite the rather high the IUPAC in 1967. A clear statement price, this outstandingly fine book deconcerning the nomenclature employed servesa place in every medical and science for optical rotatory dispersion and library. I t will not only give much indichroism is given. formation to the readers, but will also LEROYW. HAYNES provide hotm of entertaining reading. The College of Wooster RALPHE. OESPER Wooster, Ohio 44691 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio Herman Boerhaave: The Man and his Work.
G. A . Lindebom, Professor of Internal Medicine in the Free Iteformed University of Amsterdam. Foreword by E. Ashworth Undenuood, M.D., University College, London. Methnen & Co. Ltd., London, England, 1968. Distributed in the U S A . by Barnes & Noble, New York. xx 452 pp. Tables and Photographs. 15.5 X 23.5 cm. $22.50.
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Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) was regarded by many as the greatest physician of his time. Extraordinarily brilliant, his knowledge extended over the fields of mathematia, chemistry, botany, and the languages, both c l a 4 e and modern. An outstanding teacher, his lectures, hooks, and stndenta fundamontnlly changed the methods of teaching in the medical schools of Europe; teaching from the bedside and the clinic became of equal or greater importance than the lect~nes. will be The readers of THE JOURNAL interested chiefly in his chemical activities. His experiments were condnct,ed in s laboratory whose area. was 18.6 sq. yds. Here he prepared the experiments shown during his lectures. His chemical researches d e d t mostly with the transmutation of metals, not for gold-making purposes but to test the theory that metals could be changed into ot,hers. For example, he heated a sample of mercwy for fifteen years and he distilled a gold amalgam no less than 877 times. In addition he was seeking a remedy based on gold or mercury for such diseases as gout and rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, etc. However, hia greatest contrihution to chemistry was his 2-volume text Elementa chemiae that was pnblished a t Leyden in 1732. I t soon was translated into the principal European languages and these translations had many reprintin@. Boerhaave's chemical endeavors, his views, and his publications are discussed in considerable detail in the book under review here. There has been no book-length biography of Boerhaave for several centuries though many papers about him and his work are available. None of these t,reatments is nearly as exhaost,ive, and t,his well executed work, which was fourteen years in preparat,ion, is probably not only the definitive biography but also the most timely, since we are now observing the tercentenary of his birth. Though Latin was the universal language of the scholars of his time, this is no longer the ease, and so the numerous passages in this book
A632 / Journol of Chemical Education
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Gmelin-Durrer Metallurgy of iron. Volume 2, Parts A and B
Edited by G. Tvoml and the Gmelin Institute. 4th ed. Supplement to "Gmelins Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry," Syst,em No. .59, Iron, Part A, Sections 3 to 5. Verlag Chemie, GMBH, Weinheim/Bergstrmse, 1968. Val. 2%.vi 360 . un. . Vd. 2b. iv 188 pp.' Fi&. and tables. 18 k 25.;5 cm. $123.
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This puhlicat,ion follows t,he format of Volume 1 (see J. Cmm. Enuc. 43, A160 (1966)). Volume 2 complete the review of raw materials and their preparation for industrial scale reduction and then d e scribes the indust,rial processes for the reduction of iron are which do not involve the convent,ionalblast furnace. JANETB. VANU ~ R E N College of Wooster Wooster. Ohio
Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganirchen Chemie. 8. Aufloge, System Nummer 57, Nickel. Teil A 11, Lieferung 2, Elektrochemisrhes und Chemischer Verhalten Narhweir und Bertimmung
Edited by E. H. E. Pietseh, A . Kotowski and the Gmelin Institute. Verlag Chemie, GMBH, Weinheim/Berg760 pp. Figs. and strasse, 1968. xx tables. 17.5 X 25.5 cm. $211.
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This volume nearly completes the Gmelin monograph on nickel which covers the literature for over 150 years. Part C, Section 2 on coordination compounds of nickel will be the final volume in the series. Electrochemical behavior topics include the standard data plus citations through 1967 on t,he ose of nickel hydroxide eleotrades in alkaline storage batteries. The electrodeposition chapter is quite extensive with an emphasis on bright nickel plating. Many reactions with both organio and inorganic snbstances are included under chemical react,ions. The chapter on detection and determination contains a complete outline on the newer methods available as well as special methods for the determination of nickel in various materials snch as alloys, pet,roleum produot3, and biological materials.
JANET B. VANDORBN College o f Wooster ~ o o d e rOhio .
