RECENT BOOKS QU~MICAY BIOQU~MICA DB LAS VITAMWAS (CHEMISTRY AND o Professor BIocnEMIsTRY OF THE VITAMINS). A r l l ~ a ~ dNouelli, in the Universities of Buenos Aires and La Plata, Argentina. "El Ateneo," distributors, Buenos Aires. 1942. 410 pp. 17 X 26.5 cm. Paper cover. This excellent monograph in the Spanish language is an up-todate comprehensive treatment of the important developments in vitamin research. It should find ready acceptance throughout Latin America. All the known vitamins are covered, as well as such members of the B complex as p-aminobenzoic and folic acids, inositol, and choline. Each is discussed with reference to chronology, occurrence, isolation, properties, constitution, synthesis, specificity, biological, microbiological, and chemical methods of assay, standards, physiology, and pathology, so far as information is available. The historical parts are briefly hut adequately presented without tiresome detail. The greater part of the hook is written in a style which holds the reader's attention and in language which one does not have to be a biochemist t o understand. For thoqe who desire technical biochemical information there is enough of this, too, t o make the book valuable for reference. No bibliography is given as such, but after each reference in the text t o an investigator's work the author's name and the year of publication of his paper are given, making it possible, with some efiort, to locate the original by consulting Ckcmical Abstracts or other suitable index of the literature. Unfortunately the authors' initials are not given, and this prolongs the search where there are many chemists of the same surname, c. g.. Evans. Kuhn, Robinson, etc. Furthermore, the names are frequently misspelled, thus one finds Summer for Sumner (p. 273), Schnoheyder for Schanbeyder (p. 366), Glavin for Glavind (p. 378), etc No errors in structural formulas were found. Typographical errors are few. At the bottom of page 357, vitamin "A" should read "E." I n the chapter on vitamin A the term "nyctalopia" would be preferable t o "hemeralopias' for the designation of night-blindness. I n the chapter on antirachitic vitamins frequent references are made t o the formation of vitamin D by ultraviolet irradiation, but no statement is made as t o which wave lengths are effective and which, if any, are destructive. The relation of members of the B group to respiratory enzymes is adequately presented. Vitamin deficiencies and their treatment are well covered in the limited space allotted but no attempt is made to make this a medical textbook. There are no tables of the vitamin contents of foods. Instead, the importance of a wellbalanced diet is stressed. The hook is orinted on DaDer DaPer . of medium aualitv. . . The . . bioding is flimsy. There is no index. LEWIS E. GnSoN
MAGNETOC~MISTEY. Pieme W. Selwood, Associate ~;ofessorof Chemistry, Northwestern University. Intencience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1943. ix 287 pp. 80 figs. 42 tables. 15 X 23 cm. 85.00.
+
The author has adopted what he calls a severe definition of magnetochemistry: "the application of magnetic susceptibilities and of closely related quantities to the solution of chemical problems." This he has done to "keep the book within reasonable bounds." The detailed table of contents facilitates knowing what is treated and exactly what pages hold the details. There are also verv comolete and accurate author and subject indexes. These, coupied wiih the many footnote references t i t h e original literature, make i t very easy for any investigator t o find a complete story of any phase of the subject in which he is interested.
The general plan of the book conforms to the above definition. After an exceptionally clear and concise (but fully adequate) treatment of the practical methods of measurement of magnetic susceptibility, there follow chapters on atomic and molecular diamagnetism, atomic and molecular paramagnetism, including complex compounds, metallic magnetism, and ferromagnetism. A final chapter is added covering a dozen or so applications of magnetochemistry not easily classified under the previous chapters. The most interbting of these applications to the reviewer as a chemist (and apparently also to the author, since the largest number of pages is devoted to it) is the relation between the magnetic moment of a catalyst and its catalytic activity. The chapter on atomic diamagnetism which the author admits in the preface that he has slighted, nevertheless has adequate footnote references to full treatment in previous texts. A very useful table of Pascal's corrected constants is given in the chapter on molecular diamagnetism, with some constitutive correction constants. This is followed by an account of the most recent attempts t o explain these empirical constants on theoretical grounds, and the hope is expressed that they may soon be "used by chemists with the same confidence and ease with which molar refractivities are used." But in the two chapters on molecular paramagnetism and on comolex comnounds are treated the fields which "have become the two most active branches of magrncrochemi,try." and have become SO largely during the last ln yclrs. The author has wiscly devoted more than onr-fourth of the book to these two chapterz, and has done a masterly piece of work in condensing so much material into even that space. He summarizes, for example, the interesting application of paramagnetism t o the determination of equilibrium constants and heats of dissociation; the recent wark on the stability of tri-aryl radicals; Michaelis' work on semiquinones; Miiller's work on biradicals; and the work of Panling and Coryell and co-workers on hemoglobin and related compounds. His treatment of nickel complexes, with which the reviewer is most familiar, is clear, accurate, and complete. The book in certainly a most successful and expert reporting of the mare than one thousand papers on magnetochemistry which have appeared between 1934 and 1943, the period which the author aimed especially to cover. Moreover, considerable hackground theory is also included in this relatively brief wark. Furthermore, the reporting of recent work never relaxes into a cold catalog of papers and their contributions, but is drawn into a connected account, enriched by the author's own comments, and by his frequent suggestions for further research. I t seems to thereviewer that no chemical library could afford to be without such a book which supplements so expertly the earlier works of Klemm, Van Vleck, Stoner, and others. HELENS. FRENCH ~~~
.
~
~
WBLLBSLBY COLLBOB
WBCLBSLBY, MASS*CHUSBT~
PRINCIPLES OP PHYSICAL METALLURGY. Frederick L. Coonan. Lieutenant Commander, U.S.N.R.. Associate Professor of Metallurgy, Postgraduate School, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1944. xi f 238pp. 187 figs. 15 X 23.5 cm. $3.25. The stated purpose is to "present those fundamentals necessary for a general appreciation of the properties of metals and alloys. It is an elementarv text and has been desimed to s u o ~ l vcertain
important metals and alloys. I t is also intended to serve as an introductory text for metallurgical students upon which more advanced and specialized treatments may be based." The first 49 pages are given t o the principles, the second 50 pages to commercially important nonferrous alloys, and the third
259
'
