Kostechev's Plant Respiration. Translated and Edited

Kostechev's Plant Respiration. Translated and edited by Charles J. Lyon. Blakiston. Kostechev's monograph in German has been available to advanced workers in Physiology, but unfortunately the bar of language shuts it off from the less advanced student. In bringing out an English edition Professor Lyon has made it much more available to the elementary student of Plant Physiology. In view of Kostechev's position among Physiologists this is very desirable.

In addition to translating the text Professor Lyon has edited it, adding explanatory material here and there, calling attention in a few cases to other work which either strongly corroborates or tends to modify the views put forth by Professor Kostechev, and making the index much more complete useful.

There has been no attempt to bring the book up to date except for the references to later papers and the incorporation of some additional notes which Kostechev wished added to the work. This seems the wiser plan to follow, since it is seldom possible for a translator to modify the work he is translating without at the same time losing something of the tone of the original. The points of view of various schools of Physiologists frequently differ to such an extent as to make attempts at revision in a work of this type rather unfortunate.

A difficulty which always confronts one in attempting to render German expressions in English is the facility with which the German compounds words. Frequently there is no good English equivalent for the term used. The author has in these cases attempted to adhere as closely as possible to the literal German, so long as this did not do too great violence to the English language. This seems preferable to the attempt to choose an English equivalent in all cases for frequently one loses the connotation of the German expression, under which condition the English term becomes much more confusing than would a fairly literal translation.

With regard to the content of the book, it may be briefly stated that Professor Kostechev, Professor in the University of Leningrad, is one of the most active workers in the field of respiration and fermentation, especially on the chemical side. He was trained in part by Palladin, and has done much to keep those problems which this great worker and his students brought forward under fire, until at present the theories of respiration appear to be coming nearer to agreement. The book is an attempt "to portray the modern, outstanding features of the science of plant respiration, and to consider carefully the whole biochemical side of the problem from a uniform standpoint," to quote the author's preface.

In addition the author has given a description of methods which are in use in respiratory work, thus giving the book an added value as a guide to experimental work. This is of necessity incomplete, for every outstanding worker in the field has developed either entirely new methods or modifications in those used by others.

In making this book more available to English readers Professor Lyon has made a distinct contribution to the science.