SCIENCE
—————-
———_____ ____
Fripay, SEPTEMBER 10, 1915
CONTENTS
Conservation and the Veterinarian: Dr. PIERRE
A. FIsH
Quantity and Quality: Proressor G. A.
MILLER
Frederic Ward Putnam: PROFESSOR FRANZ
Boas
oeereewreeeee eee eewn een wn eee enenneereeene
Paul Ehrlich
eevee eeereeeewnewn ene eeenewneneee
The New York Botanical Garden
“etree eee wee
Scientific Notes and News
University and Educational News
“ee ee ew wee
Discussion and Correspondence :—
Mass as Quantity of Matter: Proressor L.
M. Hoskins. Is Sivapithecus Pilgrim an
Ancestor of Man? Dr. WILLIAM K. Gree-
orY. Castle and Wright on Crossing-over in
Rats: Dr. A. H. STURTEVANT ............ 340
Scientific Books :—
A Monograph cf the Existing Crinoids:
FRANK SPRINGER 342
The National Academy of Sciences: PROFESSOR
EDWIN BIDWELL WILSON 345
“ee ee eee eee wweenene
Special Articles :—
Intracellular Digestion and Assimilation in
Amphibian Embryos: Dr. Grorce E. Coe-
HILL. Trains of Beating Light Waves: Pro-
CRE, GA OD ong ic ce eed ek ceases.
Society of American Bacteriologists: Dr. A.
EAE IE owe aie 0 cos 5 0 bers cc ne cee
MSS. intended for publication and books, ete., intended for
review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-
on-Hudson, N. Y.
CONSERVATION AND THE VETERINABIAN!
As civilization advances and freer com-
merce develops with other nations, new
conditions arise. New dangers menace our
plant as well asouranimalfoodsupply. As
farmers must now contend with the San
José scale and other insect pests which
formerly caused no concern but now
threaten his fruit and other crops, so must
the veterinarian realize that new dangers
in the form of foreign diseases as rinder-
pest, foot and mouth disease, trypanosomes
and possibly others may at any time invade
our territory. Aside from the possibility
of the danger of this foreign invasion, the
diseases already established here in the
form of glanders, anthrax, tuberculosis,
abortion and sterility are sufficient cause
for the most serious apprehension. The
condition may soon arrive, if it has not
already arrived, when, in certain sections,
it will be difficult to maintain the normal
size of the herds, letting alone the question
of surplus stock for the market, because of
the ravages of bovine diseases. If there is or
should be difficulty in maintaining the size
of the herds as they now are, the problem
of rearing surplus animals is indeed a
serious one.
The old order changeth. The day when
the only desirable practise was in the city,
and this was concerned principally with
the horse, has gone by. While the automo-
bile has undoubtedly affected city practise,
it is no more likely to supplant the horse
1A portion of the president’s address presented
at the twenty-sixth annual meeting of the New
York State Veterinary Medical Society, Ithaca,
N. Y., August 3, 1915.
xgesorte
omens: _
BS sca bee | ae a od
ED Fein ees
Be
{3
a
Bae
:
ts Ae Nan Se Pia |
iss 7
Be el pct oh
ee
gas ers poaentad. ast
ek, a
Siatae ane
sean
sid ke
FE I Pe Leaning
CBee > Pa
324 SCIENCE
than did the trolley cars and bicycles.
Aside from his use as a beast of burden, the
horse will still be indispensable in safe-
guarding human lives by the production of
serums and antitoxins. Within our own
generation there was a time when the price
of farm products sank almost to the vanish-
ing point. In some of the northwestern
states, it was reported, horses could not be
given away and many were turned loose
upon the plains and mountain-sides to gain
what sustenance they could. This was not
far from the period when the automobile
first began to attract notice, and although
the automobiles have shown a phenomenal
increase in number, the census returns
show, also, a marked increase in the num-
ber of horses and a still greater increase in
their value. The demand for horses from
this country in connection with the Eu-
ropean war will serve to stimulate their
production, and for a period after the war
we may expect a further demand in order
to restock the countries that are now being
devastated. With his master the horse has
taken an important part in war and the
conquest of nations. Like his master he is
subject to death and fearful injury. It is
therefore no more than an act of justice
that in the present war an organization
known as the blue cross has been effected
for the purpose of aiding wounded horses.
Above all is humaneness. This quality
needs cultivation in time of peace as well
as war and veterinarians will do well to
consider it not only in their own practise,
but by showing a sympathetic interest and
activity in local humane societies.
While the civilized world has shuddered
at the horrors of the trenches of the Eu-
ropean warfare, there has been a tragedy
of the trenches in our own country which,
although not seriously involving human
life, has nevertheless caused great hard-
[N. S. Vout. XLII. No. 1080
ship and paralyzed agricultural pursuits
in certain localities.
The lives of thousands of our domes-
ticated animals have been sacrificed, threat-
ening more or less seriously our food and
milk supply. This foreign invasion of an
insidious infectious disease has necessitated
the expenditure of a vast amount of money
and has invoked the highest skill and
strategy of the veterinary profession to ex-
terminate an enemy so fatal to our re-
sources.
Although the trenches have been filled
and the green sod of the pasture marks
the lasting resting-place of the many vic-
tims of the foot and mouth disease, there
remains an aftermath of bitterness on the
part of many stockmen and others who
have suffered loss from the ravages of the
disease and the restrictions imposed by the
quarantine. This bitterness has been di-
rected largely toward the Bureau of Animal
Industry, because of delay in diagnosis and
quarantine restrictions. The sentiment of
hostility has been crystallized in a resolu-
tion adopted by the National Society of
Record Associations representing thirty-
four pure-bred-stock breeder’s associations
with a combined membership of 110,000
breeders of pure-bred live stock in the
United States.
This resolution puts the association ‘‘on
record as favoring and strenuously urging
that the live-stock interests . . . be repre-
sented in an official capacity in the United
States Department of Agriculture by an as-
sistant Secretary of Agriculture who shall
be a practical stockman, and not a scien-
tist by profession, such officer to be the
ranking officer in immediate charge of the
live-stock interests and sanitary regulations
administered by the Bureau of Animal In-
dustry.’’
A second resolution ‘‘urges the adoption
of state and national legislation providing
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
for just compensation at market value for
all stock, pedigreed or otherwise, destroyed
by state or nation, in the work of extirpa-
ting animal diseases; such compensation
to be fixed by two appraisers, one ap-
pointed by the sanitary authorities and the
other by the owner of the stock, ete.’’
The bitterness: has apparently been in-
tensified by the appraisals of the agents of
‘the bureau, unsatisfactory to the owners of
pure-bred and high-grade live stock. There
are apparently two questions involved:
one is the delay in diagnosis and quaran-
tine, the other is the matter of the appraisal
of prize cattle. Thus far only one side of
the question has been heard and it would
seem fitting that judgment of the bureau
should be suspended until the report of the
committee of investigation is available.
Whatever the blame for the outbreak, there
can be no serious criticism of the efforts of
the veterinarians to eradicate-it. All that
was humanly possible was done to check
its progress after the disease was deter-
mined, and it is only fair to render credit
for what has been accomplished. We do
not believe the veterinarians should be de-
posed as administrators of sanitary affairs.
We do not behieve a stockman, ‘‘not a
scientist,’’ no matter how high his business
qualifications, could have rendered more
efficient service in cleaning up the outbreak
than have the veterinarians.
Sanitary administration is one thing; ap-
praisal is another. Appraising does not
come in the veterinary curriculum. We
believe the two should not be confused.
The second resolution of the National
Records Association is an admission that
the remedy for this cause of bitterness is
legislation by the states and nation and in
this remedy the stockman may expect the
hearty cooperation of the veterinarian. It
is gratifying at this time to say that New
York state is the first to enact legislation of
SCIENCE 320
this character. Because appraisals are not
satisfactory is no reason why veterinarians
should be displaced in the administration
of sanitary affairs. The remedy is in
legislation.
Lamentable as this experience with foot
and mouth disease has been, it points the
way clearly, among other things, to the
fact that a technical veterinary education
should be built upon something more than
a grammar-school foundation. Something
more than the general education of a child
of thirteen or fourteen years should form
the basis of a preparation for technical
studies which are to fit him to stand as a
bulwark of protection between insidious
diseases, on the one hand, and the health of
millions of dollars’ worth of live stock, on
the other.
Some years ago a former Secretary of
Agriculture, with the idea of improving the
service of the United States Veterinary In- .
spectors, through a committee of veterina-
rians, formulated certain changes in the
curricula of the veterinary schools. The
recommendations of the committee were
converted into regulations by the Secretary
of Agriculture and the United States Civil
Service Commission. Although it was stated
that there was no desire to control the
schools, but merely to make known the re-
quirements of the government for grad-
uates who planned to enter the service of
the Bureau of Animal Industry as vet-
erinary inspectors, the effect was much the
same as control, as apparently none of the
intitutions were desirous of being omitted
from the list of eligible schools as pub-
lished by the department. We have always
felt that the secretary erred in regarding
the curriculum as more important than
the man.
To improve conditions it would seem
logical that the effort should begin at the
foundation and that it should be unneces-
a
Boia
teres
pom
see
Raocg ttn om ae Haas Seariak
Se =
SUA Roa ey TRO yh eng A ee
Pie oe ate | ae aa T.>F aT
REE ON" AOR ELE RES
a) MSNA healt ee oa
age. e WN el ae rt i a: A
aR. EV eben a
TaN Rete
ihe
Paes)
pe
a
pes: *
ys
i.
=
is
%
ta
i:
oS Oh oS APY TB mb Ble ei oy
+814 PRUE MALS BP wn
ET IN, LEON RR a WOES EE Riss SL
ae ee
ea‘
ey:
ey Ss Sage
ere en een
ww
326 SCIENCE
sary for outbreaks of animal diseases in-
volving millions of dollars of property to
force home to us the fundamental knowl-
edge that it is the quality of the man that
counts.
One basic step toward the prevention of
a repetition of serious outbreaks in the
future is the requirement of at least a high-
school rather than a grammar-school foun-
dation for a proper veterinary education.
The National Society of Record Associa-
tions, representing 110,000 breeders of
pure-bred live stock, and the Secretary of
Agriculture may do well to consider seri-
ously an agitation for and an insistence
upon a better fundamental education for
those who are to enter veterinary work.
The veterinary can not take its place with
other learned professions until it conforms
to the same standard of requirements. The
fault has been with the system. The weak
link in the educational chain has been the
low entrance requirements. With this link
strengthened, with a strong foundation
upon which to build the veterinary curri-
eulum, there is hope for the future.
A further safeguard against outbreaks of
infectious diseases is the establishment of a
system of district veterinarians on a plan
similar to that in use in some foreign coun-
tries. If county agents are of benefit in
the progress of agriculture, if the twenty
health supervisors of the state are of service
in the physical uplift of the population by
preventing and restricting human diseases,
then it is equally important in the conser-
vation of our resources that there should be
district veterinarians. The duty of a dis-
trict veterinarian should be to keep a close
supervision over all transactions involving
the possible introduction and spread of in-
fectious diseases of animals as well as other
matters pertaining to them. He should
also have supervision over a state meat in-
spection service. Bovine tuberculosis alone,
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
the control of which is estimated to cost the
state about $3,000,000 annually, would
warrant the services of a skilled veterina-
rian in each district. Such an arrange-
ment is not an experiment; its efficiency
has already been demonstrated in other
countries,
As pointed out by Dr. Moore,’ the wide
distribution of foot and mouth disease has
illustrated in a striking manner the neces-
sity of having a competent veterinarian in
each district to guard against such infec-
tions. Had there been a competent district
vetermmarian in the county where foot and
mouth disease first appeared last August, it
is highly probable that its spread would
have been checked before its virus had
been so widely disseminated. If by this
extra precautionary measure one per cent.
of the loss from such diseases could be
prevented, the amount it would save the
state would many times overpay the ex-
pense of such service. A bill embodying
the features just enumerated was before
the legislature at its last session, but, un-
fortunately, failed to become a law.
In no other profession, perhaps, are there
as many temptations in the way of com-
mercialism as in the veterinary profession.
The desire to win and retain the good will
of certain clients, who may themselves be
dishonest and are willing to pay for dis-
honest tests and falsified records, may
serve as a pitfall for a weak veterinarian.
Opportunities are not wanting in the case
of glandered horses, tubercular cattle, cer-
tified milk and other instances for veterina-
rians intentionally or through carelessness,
indifference or criminal negligence to in-
flict great damage upon the public and
bring their own profession into disrepnte.
Human life may pay the toll of this neg-
ligence. Falsified records and incompetent
tests may brand the person making them as
2 Cornell Veterinarian, April, 1915.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
an unconscious murderer of little children.
Greater criminality than this can no man
possess: that he jeopardize the lives of his
kind for the sake of money. In no pro-
fession is there greater need for self-control
and the exercise of the strictest honesty and
personal integrity.
The conservation of our domesticated
animals and their products is of the highest
importance to the welfare of our nation.
The following figures are taken from the
census of 1910. They are the latest official
figures available, although probably inac-
curate at the present time. During the
last five years there has probably been an
increase in the number of veterinarians.
In this period, also, there has probably been
a decrease in the number of some of the
domesticated animals because of the rav-
ages of foot and mouth disease and estab-
lished diseases as well as a decline, more or
less fluctuating, in production.
The figures show that in 1910 there were
in this country on farms and not on farms
206,646,069 domesticated animals, includ-
ing cattle, horses, mules, asses, burros,
swine, sheep, and goats, with a valuation
of $5,296,421,619. With 11,652 veterina-
rians in this country, we have a ratio of one
veterinarian to 17,734 animals, or in finan-
cial terms one veterinarian to $454,550 of
animal valuation. While this average is
higher in some parts and much less in
others, it serves to emphasize the fact that
a great responsibility rests upon the vet-
erinarian if he is to assist, not merely in
the conservation of much valuable animal
stock already in existence, but in promoting
a still greater production. The necessity
for this is obvious in the case of the animals
used for food. The census returns show a
decrease of 8.7 per cent, in the number of
cattle on farms with an increase of 1.6 per
cent. in their valuation; a decrease of 7.4
per cent. in swine with an increase of 72.1
SCIENCE
327
per cent. in their valuation, and a decrease
of 14.7 per cent. in sheep with an increase
of 36.8 per cent. in their valuation. Horses,
mules, asses and burros have increased in
number during this period and their valua-
tion shows a much higher percentage of in-
crease than in the case of the food animals.
It has been figured that our average
disease loss of live stock in the United
States is $150,000,000 and our exposure
loss $44,000,000, a total of nearly $200,-
000,000 annually. It is evident that few
industries could endure such proportionate
losses and survive. The largest toll has
been taken from the food-producing an-
imals. We may assume that practically
all losses from exposure are preventable
and that this item will diminish as the
open-range boundaries contract and better
provision is made for the winter sustenance
of stock.
The checking of the disease loss is a
slower and more serious matter and it is
here that the services of the veterinarian are
necessary. To meet this obligation he
must be something more than an uned-
ucated, practical horse doctor more or less
successful in the treatment of spavins, ring-
bones, colies and other routine cases of
practise. He must be able to see beyond
the educational horizon which treats only
of routine practise and, with a proper
blending of scientific and practical train-
ing, show an appreciation not only of per-
sonal but community interest in the animal
resources of our country.
PreRRE A, FISH
ITHaca, N. Y.
QUANTITY AND QUALITY
PROFESSOR Eun Bore, who visited America
in 1912 as one of the inaugural lecturers at
the opening of the Rice Institute of Houston,
Texas, recently embodied some of his impres-
sions about America in an article under the
ef
Bad koa 5 -
ae
eee
EY te CMR ET Fr = ~
eet aly ee H
“he be op
fea Sees. LN) . ar oY —
TE SESE ORAS OW Ls BARS ALA CO ea ht
we ;
as + ss a
RE agtites ees
Se CP Oaths oan 3 foe ip
Ps
=e a
v
er
328 SCIENCE
above title, published in the April, 1915, num-
ber of the Revue du Mois. As this article was
written by a Frenchman after the beginning
of the great European War, it has naturally
been very much influenced by feelings aroused
by events connected with this war.
The central thought of the article is that
there is a great tendency to lay too much stress
on quantity and too little on quality in speak-
ing about scientific achievements. It is per-
haps natural, under the conditions existing
while the article was written, that the author
concluded that the Germans had done most
during the last forty years to acclimatize in
Europe the conception which makes quantity
the sole criterion for the social, intellectual
and moral values of the people. Many Ameri-
can readers may however regret to find that
this conception is said to be of American
origin, even if this statement is modified by
the fact that the most cultured Americans are
striving to habituate their countrymen to
judgments based on quality.
Among the illustrations given by Professor
Borel in support of his contention that the
Germans have in recent years unduly empha-
sized quantity is the following small table,
which aims to give the approximate number of
letters in an average volume of certain im-
portant mathematical periodicals:
Mathematische Annalen ..1,680,000
American Journal ......... 1,014,000
Journal de Mathématiques. .1,012,000
Acta Mathematica ........ 980,000
Journal fiir Mathematik ... 875,000
Annali di Matematica .... 825,000
This table was first published at the end of
the “Generalregister” to the first fifty
volumes of the Mathematische Annalen. About
two years after its publication the Transac-
tions of the American Mathematical Society
began to appear in volumes involving a much
larger number of letters than the American
Journal, which occupies the second place in
the given list. While it may be questioned
whether it is desirable to direct special atten-
tion to the mere size of the volumes of a
periodical the given table has at least an indi-
rect value, since it furnishes an interesting
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No, 1080
concrete illustration of the meaning of a
million.
As questions relating to quantity are much
more easily treated by statistical methods than
those relating to quality, the growing popular-
ity of statistical methods, even in educational
matters, seems to be a sign that we are at
present placing too much emphasis on quan-
tity at the expense of quality. Mental inert-
ness naturally leads to considerations of quan-
tity rather than of quality. It is much easier
to enumerate the books and articles written
by a certain man than to exhibit the value and
influence of these publications. It is easier
to estimate a man’s wealth in dollars than to
determine the merits of his intellectual con-
tributions or his moral influence on his fellows.
It is easier to give the number of students at
a university and the size of the budget than
to estimate the value of the work done at the
institution.
In view of the fact that questions of quan-
tity are usually much easier than those re-
lating to quality, it is perhaps the more sur-
prising to find that Professor Borel attributes
to America the origin of the conception which
makes quantity the unique criterion for social,
intellectual and moral values of the people.
If this criticism is not deserved it should cer-
tainly not pass unanswered, for the implica-
tions which it involves are fundamental and
far-reaching. The fact that the criticism was
made by a man of very high scientific standing,
who recently spent some time in our midst
and in company with some of our leading men,
makes it all the more noteworthy.
It is perhaps especially interesting that the
tendency to make quantity the sole criterion
for intellectual values should be regarded as
being of American origin. Intellectual leader-
ship even along somewhat baneful lines im-
plies vigorous intellectual life, and it is of
some interest to find that we are credited
with such life by a competent observer. As
Professor Borel is a mathematician it would
appear probable that his conclusions in regard
to the intellectual activities of a people would
be largely influenced by their mathematical
productiveness. It can, however, not be said
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
that the quantity of mathematical output on
the part of the Americans is, or has ever been,
such as to justify the statement that the con-
ception of making quantity the sole criterion
in regard to mathematical activity originated
with us. As regards quantity we never had
any mathematical writer who could be com-
pared with Euler, Cauchy, or Cayley.
It is true that in recent years the quantity
of American mathematical literature has in-
creased rapidly, but the same is true in regard
to this literature in several other countries,
As evidence of the fact that the United States
is not inclined.even at the present time, to go
to excess in regard to the quantity of its
mathematical literature we refer to the recent
publications under the general direction of the
International Commission on the Teaching of
Mathematics. At the Paris Conference held
in April, 1914, the extent of these publications
reported by various countries was as follows:
Country No. of Pages
A en eer 3,822
I iid sic 9 basen wine 690
RY hi a es 160 000 aoreoks 348
EE ig i on vn cw #0 wikia aie 107
EE kk hohe inc en 60 thse means 165
WD ME ck vce ceeccceowes 670
MP sa Ri bo b ovine ca caecaees 674
a Near rae 151
ek ees eee ae 130
PBN Mia's OT VAS 853
BD i> nt he ees Kees lew e 253
ch, din ace Wa kh s0: 0 4a ie eta 788
i te ahi ae onde Gnd 16
eo on isn we ial 254
I hal a nics odie & nao Ome 229
SIE cis dv 4 o's cen bmne pep 812
As questions relating to teaching offer
unusual opportunities for extensive publica-
tions the above table is very instructive as
regards tendencies towards quantity along
mathematical lines. It seems therefore un-
likely that Professor Borel had mathematics
in mind when he referred to our undue em-
phasis on quantity. It is much more likely
that he was impressed by the fact that our
conversation and our newspapers are so largely
confined to questions of quantity. In a com-
paratively new country the changes as regard
SCIENCE
329
quantity are so rapid as to attract wide atten-
tion, and these changes furnish the easiest
topics of conversation. Changes as regards
quality may be no less rapid but they furnish
less harmless subjects of conversation in view
of inherent difficulties and room for differences
of opinion.
It is perhaps unfortunate that our conversa-
tion even in regard to intellectual matters is
so commonly directed by a desire to offend no
one instead of by a desire to call attention to
what is very important. The thoughtful for-
eigner who comes into our midst is thus nat-
urally impressed by the fact that we so com-
monly speak of harmless quantity instead of
the more important quality. Some years ago
while talking with a great French mathemati-
cian I was much impressed by the fact that,
in speaking about two of his eminent col-
leagues, he was very free in saying which of
the two he regarded as the more eminent. I
felt then that in America I would probably not
have found such voluntary reference to such a
delicate matter.
The seriousness of this question becomes
apparent if it is observed that the tendency to
refrain from referring to quality in a public
way is reflected to some extent in the life of
the people. If in a university community, for
instance, it is regarded as undesirable to refer
to the quality of the work of the various mem-
bers of the faculty, and if the quantity of
salary is the sole index of relative standing,
there is apt to be little effort on the part of the
younger men to attain to a greater degree
of efficiency. Many questions of quality
appear shocking only in view of their
newness. After they have passed into the
stream of allowable conversation topics they
are not likely to offend anyone and they often
serve a useful purpose. In fact, the inefficiency
of a university professor often becomes a per-
fectly harmless topic. The danger lies in the
early stages towards such publicity as regards
the true conditions, and it is here where there
is usually the greatest field of usefulness.
The greatness of a nation in the intellectual
and moral life is largely influenced by its em-
phasis on quality. Professor Borel urges that
a PSR Ss Pg 4
- i ee ne ee ae at dae fe Anite Sar de Nara er RR eT ——
x vipetincha sesh a : ; CRT ee ee ee Ae eee OES VTA i a him #
: an Pts ta than tate ih ee Ma i Cee CONT ee ON OF
+
“f 4 \ Se an a en el rn iaipatian’ .
‘ h Wine Daag Siting pa a ae FPF es naga Doe phe
nial ndW se Dando ae aii tel 5)
ee ren
330
it is the duty of France to restore the preém-
inence of quality and he points out that the
way towards this end is easy. In fact his sug-
gestions are “to give to quality opportunity to
manifest itself, do not hide it under a bushel,
for men never refuse to recognize the intel-
lectual or moral superiority Which is pointed
out to them; their natural sentiments of
equality and justice, far from being shocked
by this, are exalted thereby. The young
people, in particular, regard themselves united
with the comrade whom they have learnt to
appreciate; far from being jealous of his suc-
cess, they are happy with him.”
These suggestions should be equally useful
among us where the need of reform is even
more evident than in France. Our great
western state universities are doubtless espe-
cially in danger of being overwhelmed by judg-
ments of quantity, in view of their very direct
contact with the public. They present there-
fore unusually important centers for emphasis
on quality, and for guarding against being ab-
sorbed in the work which admits of exhibition
in attractive circulars presenting statistical
data in regard to quantity. Public references
to quality of work and to the deeper joys and
compensations of intellectual life are especially
needed in these institutions.
The very rapid growth of our educational
institutions has naturally led to an abnormal
interest in changes in quantity. It is so easy
and harmless to speak of the increase in the
material equipment. It is much more difficult
and delicate to make clear that the intellectual
advances made by the faculty have kept pace
with these material advances, or that the moral
and intellectual influences surrounding the
students are better than they were in former
years. These latter questions involve com-
parisons, and they frequently lead at first to
differences of opinion. They are, however, the
more important, and the foreign scholars who
may be in our midst will judge us very largely
by the way we deal with these questions of
quality. It will be very unfortunate if we con-
tinue to impress these men as we seem to have
impressed Professor Borel, especially since
SCIENCE
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
superficial attitude, at least, as far as they re-
late to our intellectual and moral life.
G. A. Minuer
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
FREDERIC WARD PUTNAM
Witn Professor Putnam, who died on Au-
gust 14, at the age of seventy-six years, the last
of the three men has passed away who may
well be called the founders of modern anthro-
pology in America: Brinton, Powell and Put-
nam. Brinton in Philadelphia, with keen,
analytic mind, full of imagination, with wide
interests, opened up ever new fields and prob-
lems and stimulated through his personal influ-
ence the work of others and paved the way to
the recognition of anthropology as a scientific
study. Powell performed the great service of
organizing the anthropological work of the
government by founding the Bureau of Ethnol-
ogy and providing in this manner the means
for scientific research. With rare insight he
selected an unusually gifted group of men
around himself, and to their labors we owe the
fundamental data on which modern American
ethnology has been built up. Through the
sheer force of his personality he impressed
some of his fundamental philosophic views
and some of his methods upon his collabo-
rators not only in the Bureau of Ethnology,
but in a much wider group of scientists that
came under his influence, and gave in this
manner to anthropological studies a definite
direction that may still be recognized.
Professor Putnam’s contributions were of an-
other kind. Taught in the Agassiz school of
independent search for facts, he took up anthro-
pological studies with that enthusiastic wor-
ship of material data as the indispensable basis
for inductive studies that has dominated his
life and that, together with his skill ag an or-
ganizer, have made him the most potent factor
in the development of anthropological institu-
tions all over the country. Owing to the trend
of his mind, his interests centered in the ob-
jective, tangible sides of anthropology and,
therefore, his chief contribution lies in the
development of museum work. The search for
A SRB He PET
such impressions seem to represent only our well authenticated Indian material and his in-
ice be wigs 4d
ad el
ee ee
ramble apse =k
Bese!
RE
ins
fos’
pe
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
terest in biological problems led him to lay
particular stress upon archeological evidence,
and in this field he did his most noteworthy
work.
The Peabody Museum of American Archeol-
ogy and Ethnology is, perhaps more than any-
thing else, a monument of his life work, for in
it are manifested the varied phases of his
many-sided interest in the history of mankind,
as exhibited by man’s handiwork and by the
remains of the races of man. The osteological
department, surpassed only by the old collec-
tions of the Army Medical Museum in Wash-
ington, the materials relating to the study of
the antiquity of man in America which he
pursued with unconquerable tenacity, the col-
lections from the mound and village sites of
Ohio, the ample and valuable material from
Mexico and Central America, the old New
England collections, archeological as well as
ethnological, not to mention others, indicate
the lines of his own scientific activities.
In one respect he revolutionized American
museum methods. While it has been cus-
tomary to enlarge collections by purchase, he
inaugurated scientific expeditions, the prime
object of which was the discovery of scientific
facts that were sustained by the evidences of
collections. Journeys for the purpose of col-
lecting had been made before his time, but he
had the courage to emphasize that in museum
expeditions, as in other scientific work, the
method must be determined not by the num-
ber of specimens likely to be secured, but by
the objects of the inquiry. To him the mu-
seum was the storehouse in which the mate-
rials accumulated by scientific research were
cared for, digested and made accessible to the
student. His constant insistance on this
point of view gave to his museum work special
value,
The development of the Peabody Museum
and his wide acquaintance among American
men of science and among those interested in
the advancement of science, brought it about
that his capacity as an organizer was sought
in other centers in which there was a growing
interest in archeology and anthropology. It
was he who laid the foundation to the Field —
SCIENCE
331
Museum of Natural History by organizing the
Anthropological Department of the World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago. There he
solved the difficult task of bringing together
in a short time material illustrating prehis-
toric America as well as the primitive life of
the historic American Indian. With this ac-
cumulation of material he combined scientific
investigation that bore fruit in later times in
the intensive work among Indian tribes car-
ried on by a number of institutions. Some of
the important archeological results of this
period still await publication. Together with
the treasures of the Peabody Museum and
those of the Museums of Ohio they will eluci-
date a remarkable period in the history of early
America, the thorough exploration of which
was begun and carried along for years by Pro-
fessor Putnam. Unfavorable conditions pre-
vented the completion of this work that was
always near to his heart. The opportunities
offered by the World’s Columbian Exposition
enabled him also to advance the work of se-
curing replicas of the monuments of Central
America, a subject to which he devoted much
of his time and energies.
At the close of the World’s Fair he was
called to New York to organize the anthropo-
logical work of the American Museum of Nat-
ural History, and here we find him introducing
the same methods of development that had
been so effective in building up the Peabody
Museum as a center of scientific research. The
field investigations of the New York Museum
extended beyond the narrow limits of the
North American continent and inaugurated a
period of active scientific research.
His great success as an organizer brought
it about that when the development of anthro-
pological work, partly owing to his influence,
was planned in the University of California,
he was called upon to take a vigorous part in
the formulation of plans for a museum and
for the scientific work of the newly founded
department of anthropology which followed
much the same lines as those inaugurated by
him in other institutions.
While these four large institutions had the
benefit of the stimulus of his sustained per-
+
Be
4
3
oy
332 SCIENCE
sonal efforts, many others were helped by his
advice and assistance.
Professor Putnam’s influence has been great
in still other ways. He succeeded in having
anthropology recognized by Harvard Univer-
sity as a regular subject of instruction, with
the result that an ever-increasing number of
students became interested in this subject.
His influence as a lecturer was, however, not
as great as that of his personal contact with
students. Through his sympathy with the
personal interests of younger men, through his
eagerness to help them along on the arduous
path of the young scientist, he associated with
himself a large number of young anthropolo-
gists who were filled with that enthusiasm for
the unbiased collection of data that character-
ized his own work. The precedent set by Har-
vard University, and at the same time by
Clark University, and Professor Putnam’s un-
ceasing agitation have done much to introduce
anthropology as a subject of study in our uni-
versities. Men who have grown up as his stu-
dents are now found in many American and
Canadian institutions.
Professor Putnam’s activities were not by
any means confined to the field of his own re-
searches, but he took a lively interest in the
advancement of scientific work in the whole
country. This quality, his genius as an or-
ganizer, and his sympathetic nature brought
him into prominence in the work of the Amer-
ican Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, of which he was for many years perma-
nent secretary and which he made a most efli-
cient means of promoting and extending the
influence of science. It is a well-marked
period of scientific development that his in-
cumbency of the secretaryship represents: the
extensive and gradual deepening of scientific
interest. It covers the period preparatory to
the specialization of more modern times that
makes the American Association more an ad-
ministrative clearing house of special scientific
bodies than an agency that promotes popular
interest and that gives to the young scientist
the opportunity to gain his first laurels.
For several years Professor Putnam had
been ailing, but his robust nature withstood
[N. S. Vou. XLIT. No. 1080
vigorously the attacks of an insidious disease.
On the occasion of his seventieth birthday his
many friends gave expression to their warm
feelings towards him by the publication of an
anniversary volume containing contributions
from almost all American anthropologists.
His influence, that of a sane and sober scien-
tist who values facts higher than fancies will
be lasting, and we honor and love one who has
helped to lay the foundations on which we are
permitted to build.
Franz Boas
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PAUL EHRLICH}
Paut Enruicn was a genius of the first
order. While he was still a student of medi-
cine, the problems presented by the affinity of
lead for certain tissues attracted his attention.
From speculating on the nature of this affin-
ity, his interest grew to include protoplasmic
affinities in general, and thus was determined
the direction his genius should take.
Some of the notable results of his early in-
vestigations are discoveries in bacterial stain-
ing methods, which proved of great value to
Koch and which, ever since, have been in
daily use everywhere; the micro-chemical
differentiation of leukocytes, on which rests
the study of the blood for clinical purposes;
the development of the methylene blue reaction
of living tissues, and the formulation of that
unique conception of protoplasmic structure
and function on which he based the great side-
chain theory which he advanced to explain the
reactions in immunity and other phenomena.
What might be termed the second phase of
Ehrlich’s work concerned investigations in
immunity under the guidance of the side-chain
conception. No better illustration of the prac-
tical usefulness of the imagination in creating
a successful working hypothesis can be given
than the results achieved by Ehrlich in the
field of immunity. Perhaps the usefulness is
seen most clearly in the standardization of
1 From the Journal of the American Medical As-
sociation.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
diphtheria antitoxin, which was a direct out-
come of experiments devised according to the
side-chain idea. Ehrlich’s method, to the ex-
clusion of others, is used all over the world;
but the influence of the work carried out to
test the side-chain theory of Ehrlich and
his pupils still dominates investigation in all
branches of immunity and the practical use
of the knowledge obtained therefrom.
The side-chain theory is so well known that
it is not necessary to restate it except in the
most succinct form. A toxin or other antigen
is without action on the animal body unless
bound by molecular chains in the cells—
receptors. But when so bound, the antigen
causes injury to the cell, and subsequent re-
pair, in the course of which there is an over-
production of receptors, which, passing into
the blood and lymph, constitute the antibody
for the antigen in question, because the anti-
gen is now bound and neutralized or destroyed
before it can reach the cell. As expressed by
Behring, antibodies are free cell receptors, and
the elements which, when situated in the cells,
are essential for the action of toxins, for in-
stance, are also the means of healing when
free in the blood. In accord with the prin-
ciples of this theory, Ehrlich’s vivid mind
coined numerous new words, which proved
helpful in the discussion of new facts and
ideas, and which soon passed into current
international usage.
Ehrlich’s last work was the development of
the experimental chemotherapy of syphilis and
certain other spirochetal infections. To dis-
cuss this wonderful work fully in all its rami-
fications is not possible at this time. The scien-
tific world has accepted “the development
through a lengthy series of systematic bio-
chemical experiments, based on original con-
ceptions of the affinities of cellular constitu-
ents, of a successful chemotherapy of impor-
tant human infections, by direct attack on the
parasites by substances specially built up for
that purpose and introduced from without,” as
the fitting culmination of the tireless activities
of an altogether unique investigative spirit.
As pointed out elsewhere, Ehrlich’s results in
experimental chemotherapy fully justify Hux-
SCIENCE
333
ley’s prediction in 1881 that through discov-
eries in therapeutics it would become possible
“to introduce into the economy a molecular
mechanism which, like a cunningly contrived
torpedo, shall find its way to some particular
group of living elements and cause an explo-
sion among them, leaving the rest untouched.”
Paul Ehrlich will live in the history of civili-
zation as one of the great investigators, genial,
creative, fertile, excelling in “that boldness of
the scientific use of the imagination which
alone can extend beyond the obvious fact and
reveal the unknown,” one of the great bene-
factors of mankind.
THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
Tue New York Botanical Garden at Bronx
Park is celebrating this week the twenty-fifth
anniversary of its foundation. The first ses-
sion was opened at nine o’clock Monday morn-
ing, September 6, with registration of dele-
gates in the library, followed by an inspec-
tion of museums, laboratories, library and
herbaria, with special reference to the exhibi-
tion of painting of plant life by Mary E.
Eaton in the herbarium, and the Charles
Finney Cox collection of Darwiniana. After
lunch in the Museum Building the delegates
and guests were formally welcomed by W.
Gilman Thompson, president of the board of
managers; by Henry H. Rusby, chairman of
the scientific directors, and by Thomas W.
Whittle, commissioner of parks for the Bronx.
- Dr. N. L. Britton, director-in-chief, then read
“ A History of the New York Botanical Gar-
den.”
Tuesday, September 7, was set for the read-
ing of papers. According to the program these
included: “ Mechanism and Conditions of
Growth,” by D. T. MacDougal; “ Mosses from
Florida,” by Elizabeth G. Britton; “ Direct-
ing Factors in the Teaching of Botany,” by
Arthur H. Chivers; “ Flora of the Mammoth
Cave, Kentucky,” by R. Ellsworth Call; “ Tri-
assic Plants from Sonora, Mexico,” by Edwin
W. Humphreys, and “ A White-Cedar Swamp
on Long Island and Its Significance,” by Nor-
man Taylor; “On the Nature of Types,” by
ree Mp
ERO METS IS hare
| ae - te pee Tt YS ti vane
MAE RIE Sg oD EE EE
Sia als scl Sk
ate aE
334 SCIENCE
R. A. Harper, and “Present Status of the
Problem of the Effect of Radium Rays on
Plant Life,” by OC. Stuart Gager.
Wednesday, September 8, was to be given
up to a study of the flora of sand dunes and
salt marshes on Crooke’s Point, S. I., the ex-
cursion being planned in cooperation with the
Staten Island Association of Arts and Sci-
ences. On Thursday the reading of papers
was to be resumed, including Clifford H. Farr
on “Cell-Division: Bipartition and Quadri-
partition in Pollen Mother-Cells,” and “ Ecol-
ogy and the New Soil Fertility,” by Charles
B. Lipman; John K. Small on “ Recent Ex-
plorations in Southern Florida”; H. Hus on
“A New Interpretation of Fascination”;
P. A. Rydberg on “ Life Zones in the Rocky
Mountains”; Fred J. Seaver on “ Bermuda
Fungi,” and Karl F. Kellerman on “ Coopera-
tion in the Control of Plant Diseases.”
Following tea at the mansion, an inspection
of the nurseries, arboretum, propagating
houses, conservatory range and the Bronx
River valley as far as Hemlock Forest will be
made. A smoker at the Faculty Club, Colum-
bia University, will be held in the evening. On
Friday, September 10, the entire day will be
devoted to a visit to the pine barrens of New
Jersey, under the guidance of the field com-
mittee of the Torrey Botanical Club. On
Saturday the delegates will visit the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden.
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS
Dr. Jacques Logs, of the Rockefeller Insti-
tute for Medical Research, has been elected a
foreign fellow of the Linnean Society, London.
Proressor W. A. Bone has been elected
president of the chemistry section of the Brit-
ish Association at the meeting held in Man-
chester this week, taking the place of Pro-
fessor H. B. Baker who is unavoidably pre-
vented from attending the meeting.
Tue South African medal, founded by the
British Association in 1905, for scientific re-
search in South Africa, was awarded at the
Pretoria meeting of the South African Asso-
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
ciation, to Mr. C. P. Lounsbury for his ento-
mological investigations.
Proressor J. C. ArtHurR, who has been in
college and experiment-station work for nearly
forty years, and for the last twenty-eight
years has held the chair of professor of veget-
able physiology and pathology in Purdue Uni-
versity and chief of the botanical department
of the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, retires on the first of September to be-
come professor emeritus of botany in the same
institution under the provisions of the Car-
negie Foundation. He will continue the re-
searches on plant rusts which have been in
progress for a number of years. His successor
in the experiment station will be Professor H.
S. Jackson, of Corvallis, Ore.
Tue Experiment Station Record states that
there has been held at the Iowa College of
Agriculture a special convocation in honor of
those members of the faculty who have been
in service for at least a quarter of a century.
The guests of honor were Vice-president E. W.
Stanton, in service since 1874; General J. R.
Lincoln, commandant, Henry Knapp, secre-
tary, both in service since 1883; A. A. Ben-
nett, professor emeritus of chemistry, in serv-
ice since 1885, and Dr. L. H. Pammel, pro-
fessor of botany and botanist, in service since
1889.
Ir is stated in Nature that the sum of £140
has been given to the Royal Society of Arts
by Mr. R. Le Neve Foster for the purpose of
founding a prize in commemoration of his
father, Mr. Peter Le Neve Foster, who was
secretary of the society from 1853 to 1879.
The council has decided to offer the prize
(consisting of £10 and the society’s silver
medal) for a paper on “ Zine: Its Production
and Industrial Applications.”
Tue Vienna Academy of Sciences has made
a grant of about $800 to Professor R. Poech
to enable him to conduct anthropological re-
searches among the various races comprising
the Russian prisoners of war.
Ir is stated in Terrestrial Magnetism that
M. Lecointe, director of the Royal Observatory
of Belgium, at Uccles, near Brussels, is at
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
present interned in Holland. He had served
in the war as a major of artillery in the Belgian
army, and took part in the retreat from
Antwerp.
Dr. WarmpBoid, of Berlin, has been ap-
pointed rector of the Agricultural School at
Hohenheim.
Proressor Scumipt, of Marburg, has been
awarded the doctorate of engineering by the
Brunswick School of Technology, in recogni-
tion of his services to pharmaceutical chemis-
try.
Proressor OpPENHEIM, of Berlin, has been
made an honorary member of the Buenos Aires
Society for Psychiatry and Neurology.
’ Henry G. Knicut, dean of the Wyoming
College of Agriculture and director of the sta-
tion, O. L. Prien, veterinarian, and J. E.
McWilliams, acting animal husbandman, have
been granted a year’s leave of absence begin-
ning September 1, to be spent in study at the
University of Illinois, Northwestern Univer-
sity and the Michigan Agricultural College,
respectively. President C. A. Duniway, of the
university, will act as director of the station
during this period.
WE learn from Nature that a munitions in-
ventions branch of the British ministry has
been constituted, with Mr. E. W. Moir as
comptroller. The branch will have the duty
of considering projects for inventions relating
to munitions for warfare on land or matters
appertaining thereto. The comptroller and
staff of the branch will be assisted in their
work of examination, and, if thought neces-
sary, in the investigation and development of
any projects that may be considered worthy of
being developed, by a panel of honorary scien-
tific and other experts. The following have
accepted Mr. Lloyd George’s invitation to act
on this panel: Colonel Goold Adams, Mr.
Horace Darwin, Mr. M. Duckham, Mr. W.
Duddell, Dr. S. Z. de Ferranti, Dr. R. T.
Glazebrook, Sir R. Hadfield, Dr. J. S. Hal-
dane, Colonel N. B. Heffernan, Sir A. Ken-
nedy, Mr. F, W. Lanchester, Dr. A. P. Laurie,
Professor Vivian B. Lewes, Mr. M. Longridge,
Mr. W. H. Maw, Sir Hiram Maxim, Captain
SCIENCE 335
Moore, Sir H. Norman, Mr. F. G. Ogilvie,
Major-General G. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Mr. W.
Stokes, Mr. J. Swinburne, Sir J. J. Thomson,
Mr. A. J. Walter, Mr. C. J. Wilson.
THE president of the British board of agri-
culture and fisheries has appointed a com-
mittee consisting of Lord Middleton, chair-
man, Mr. Henry Chaplin, Sir Ailwyn Fel-
lowes, the Hon. Alexander Parker, Major Sir
M. Burrell, Bart., Sir G. Greenall, Bart., and
Captain M. S. Adye to consider and advise the
board as to the steps which should be taken to
secure the production and maintenance in
England and Wales of a supply of horses
suitable and sufficient for military purposes.
Mr. E. B. Wilson, of the board of agriculture
and fisheries, has been appointed secretary of
the committee.
Dr. Herman Fiscuer, of the German Hos-
pital, New York, will head an expedition, con-
sisting of twenty surgeons and nurses, to be
sent under the auspices of the “ American
Physicians Committee” to Germany and
Austria. The expedition acts in cooperation
with the American Red Cross.
JULIUS VON Payer, the distinguished polar
explorer and artist, has died in Vienna at the
age of seventy-three years. He was a member
of the Austrian Antarctic expedition which in
1871 discovered Franz Joseph Land.
Proressor Guipo GOLDSCHMIEDT, director of
the first chemical institute of the University
of Vienna, well known for his work in organic
chemistry, died, after a prolonged illness, on
August 6, at the age of sixty-five years. Pro-
fessor and Mrs. Goldschmiedt visited this
country in 1912, at the time of the Eighth
International Congress of Applied Chemistry,
and made many friends in scientific circles.
THERE have been killed in the war Dr. Emil
Lask, associate professor of philosophy at
Heidelberg; Dr. Waldemar Conrad, docent for
philosophy at Halle; Dr. Hugo Schuitze, scien-
tific assistant in the Reichsanstalt; Professor
Bartel, director of the Archeological Institute
of Frankfort; Dr. Deimler, docent in the Munich
School of Technology, and Dr. O. Bondy,
docent for gynecology in the University of
Sac
EG eye staan 1
Pre ds
ens Paogiye ie
inl ry Sunes y 7 se
SR Reus
i Be
ee
ek pe
at
“4
in
oa
. oe
i. |
= ’
Pe.
. nl
=
a
Pan
Ms
>
?
i
bas
Per
¥
£
336 SCIENCE
Breslau, and Dr. Kar] Muenk, chemist in the
Prussian Geological Survey.
It is said that the Nobel prizes for the pres-
ent year will not be awarded. From next year
the prizes will be reduced by about $5,000,
representing the amount of the new Swedish
defence tax.
In a letter to the London Times, Sir Henry
E. Roscoe, who was president of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science
when it met in Manchester twenty-five years
ago, writes: “The pressing importance of the
organization of scientific method and research
has now become recognized both by govern-
ment and the public. Your columns have been
generously open to distinguished scientific
opinion as to this necessity. The more impor-
tant scientific societies are busily engaged in
forming committees of their members to aid
government departments, whilst these latter
have called in specially qualified experts from
all branches of scientific inquiry to aid min-
isters and departmental officials in carrying
out the new duties which the present position
entails. So far, so good. But more remains
to be done. A general conference of the lead-
ers and workers in British science needs to be
added. Of the importance of such conference
and of the ensuing personal contact at the
present moment there can not be two opinions.
Such an opportunity will present itself at the
forthcoming eighty-fifth meeting of the great
annual Congress of British Science to be held
in Manchester on September 7. This year the
meeting will be stripped of all but its scien-
tific activities, and these, if properly utilized,
can not fail to be of essential use to the coun-
try, for it is by the personal intercourse of
scientific men of all kinds that stimulus is
aroused and progress made. It is, therefore,
confidently expected that at the September
meeting every branch of British scientific
activity will be fully represented, so that the
expression of their united opinion may be
given with no uncertain voice.”
Tue board of directors of the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, as we learn
from the Electrical World, held in New York
on August 10, its first meeting of the adminis-
[N. 8. Vout. XLII. No. 1080
trative year which began on August 1. Presi-
dent John J. Carty announced his appoint-
ments on the various institute committees for
the administrative year. The chairmen of the
committees appointed are as follows: Finance,
Mr. J. Franklin Stevens, Philadelphia, Pa.;
library, Dr. Samuel Sheldon, Brooklyn, N. Y.;
meetings and papers, Mr. L. T. Robinson,
Schenectady, N. Y.; editing, Professor H. H.
Norris, New York; board of examiners, Dr. A.
S. McAllister, New York; sections, Mr. H. A.
Hornor, Philadelphia, Pa.; standards, Pro-
fessor C. A. Adams, Cambridge, Mass.; code,
Mr. Farley Osgood, Newark, N. J.; law, Mr.
G. H. Stockbridge, New York; power stations,
Mr. C. F. Uebelacker, New York ; transmission,
Mr. P. H. Thomas, New York; railway, Pro-
fessor D. C. Jackson, Boston, Mass.; protec-
tive apparatus, Dr. E. E. F. Creighton,
Schenectady, N. Y.; electric lighting, Dr. Clay-
ton H. Sharp, New York; telegraphy and tele-
phony, Mr. G. M. Yorke, New York; indus-
trial power, Mr. David B. Rushmore, Schenec-
tady, N. Y.; use of electricity in marine work,
Mr. C. S. McDowell, New York; electro-
chemics, Professor A. F. Ganz, Hoboken, N.
J.; electrophysics, Mr, John B. Whitehead,
Baltimore, Md.; records and appraisals of
properties, Mr. Philander Betts, Newark, N.
J.; educational, Professor V. Karapetoff,
Ithaca, N. Y.; public-policy committee, Mr.
Calvert Townley, New York; development of
water-powers, Mr. Calvert Townley, New
York; patents, Mr. Ralph D. Mershon, New
York; membership, Mr. W. A. Hall, Lynn,
Mass.; historical museum, Mr. T. C. Martin,
New York; United States national committee,
International Electrotechnical Commission,
Mr. C. O. Mailloux, New York; relations of
consulting engineers, Dr. L. B. Stillwell, New
York; code of principles of professions] con-
duct, Professor George F. Sever, New York;
hazards from lightning, Professor Elihu
Thomson, Swampscott, Mass.; reserve corps
of engineers, Mr. Bion J. Arnold, Chicago,
TIll.; constitutional revision, Mr. Bancroft
Gherardi, New York. Representatives were
also appointed on various joint committees
and other bodies.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
Ow1ne to the increasing demand, on the part
of astronomers, chemists and physicists, for
accurate values of the wave-lengths of the
lines in the spectra of iron and other elements,
the Bureau of Standards has taken up the
work of determining standards of wave length.
This work is being done in accordance with
the recommendations of the International
Wave-length Committee. The spectrograms
were obtained in Marseilles in the laboratcries
of Buisson and Faby, the pioneers in this
work. The plates were measured at the Bureau
of Standards. This is rather a difficult re-
gion of the spectrum to observe, lying entirely
in the ultra-violet. Apparatus necessary to do
this work has recently been installed in the
Bureau of Standards, and wave-length deter-
minations of the highest accuracy are being
made throughout the spectrum, including those
rays which are too short to be visible and also
those which are longer than any that the eye
can see. A pamphlet upon this subject has
just been issued as Scientific Paper No. 251,
copies of which may be obtained without
charge from the Bureau of Standards, Wash-
ington, D. C.
THe Paris correspondent of the London
Times writes that the Pasteur Institute pre-
sents rather a dead appearance at present.
Most of the laboratory assistants have de-
parted for the front, where, indeed, two doc-
tors have met their death. There has been in
consequence a slackening of experimental
work, as well as a corresponding diminution
in the running expenses of the establishment.
A large part of the famous menagerie has dis-
appeared. Quantities of rabbits, rats and mice
still exist, but the ourang-outangs, amongst
others, have ceased to be, as they were expen-
sive to keep as prospective fields for experi
ment after the war. A large department of
the institute is now engaged in cultures for
serums for use on the battlefield.
THE annual grants made by parliament
specifically for scientific investigations and re-
lated services amount to about £100,000, and
the details of the estimates for 1915-16 are
shown in the subjoined table which we repro-
duce from Nature.
SCIENCE
337
Royal Society:
(i) (a) Scientific Investigations ..... £4,000
(b) Scientific Publications ....... 1,000
(ti) Magnetic Observatory at Eskdale-
| a SS ES ee ee 1,000
(iii) National Physical Laboratory ..... 7,000
(iw) Aeronautical Section of the National
Physical Laboratory ........... 9,425
Meteorological Office ..........2ecseeee. 22,500
Royal Geographical Society ............. 1,250
Royal Academy of Music ............... 500
Royal College of Music ..............+6- 500
Marine Biological Association of the
United Kingdom .............. 500
Royal Society of Edinburgh ............. 600
Scottish Meteorological Society .......... 100
SER ED wa bie Sa dnecetesccede 1,600
Royal Irish Academy of Music .......... 300
Royal Zoological Society of Ireland ........ 500
Royal Hiberian Academy ................ 300
British School at Athens ................ 500
British School at Rome ................. 500
Royal Scottish Geographical Society ...... 200
National Library of Wales .............. 8,200
National Museum of Wales .............. 17,300
Solar Physics Observatory .............. 3,000
RY SUI 5 hh cea Gk os ahececeacess- 400
School of Oriental Studies ............ 1,500
North Sea Fisheries Investigation ...... 1,250
Transantarctic Expedition, 1914-15 ..... 5,000
Edinburgh Observatory .............ee00- 1,657
£90,582
THE Dominion of Canada has, as we learn
from the Experiment Station Record, appro-
priated $3,308,000 for agriculture for the year
1915-16, $785,000 of which is for the mainte-
nance of experiment farms, $550,000 for the
development of the live-stock industry, $540,-
000 for the “health of animals,” $280,000 for
exhibitions, $275,000 for the administration
and enforcement of the meat and canned-foods
act, and $200,000 for the encouragement of
cold-storage warehouses. The appropriation
includes $150,000 for the development of the
dairying industries and the improvement in
transportation, sale and trade of food and
other agricultural products, $140,000 to enforce
the seed act, $113,000 for the fruit branch,
$100,000 for the administration and enforce-
ment of the destructive insect and pest aet,
$25,000 for the administration and carrying
out of the provisions of the agricultural-in-
Ep eee eee
Poe Ae eer |
ESSER ea ea
eta Ds
338 SCIENCE
struction act, $25,000 for the National Biolog-
ical Laboratory, $20,000 to assist in the main-
tenance of the International Institute of Agri-
culture, $20,000 for entomology, $15,000 for
publications, and $70,000 for exhibits, repairs,
ete. A further $900,000 is allotted under the
agricultural-instruction act. The new build-
ing at the Ontario Veterinary College is now
in use. It is a five-story brick structure with
134-foot frontage and 900,000 cu. ft. capacity,
and cost about $250,000. It contains several
large laboratories, an assembly room seating
500, an infirmary for horses, offices, etc. At
the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, a new
science building 130 by 50 feet, with labora-
tories for chemistry, soil physics, entomology,
plant diseases and home economics, an as-
sembly hall seating 250, offices, classrooms,
ete., is nearing completion.
THE Forest Service has sent a warning
that more than half of the forest fires in the
United States are due to carelessness or other
preventable causes, starting from campers,
railroad locomotives, brush burning, incen-
diaries and sawmills. This statement is based
on an analysis of statistics compiled from the
forest records of the last season, when more
than 7,000 fires were reported on national for-
ests alone and approximately 10,000 on state
and private holdings in the eighteen states
which received federal cooperation in fire
protection under the Weeks law, namely,
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu-
setts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota,
Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
Forest fires destroy millions of dollars’ worth
of timber and other property every year, and
in some years cause considerable loss of life.
It has been estimated from the best informa-
tion obtainable that forest fires last year
burned over an area of approximately 6,000,000
acres with a total loss of at least $9,500,000.
Nature states that the Ipswich Museum has
for some time past made a very strong fea-
ture of the department of prehistoric archeol-
ogy, and has collected extensively from the
uniquely rich district of East Suffolk. The mu-
[N. S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
seum collections now include a large and rep-
resentative series of pre-Paleolithic and Paleo-
lithic flint implements, and also numerous ex-
amples of specimens referable to the later Cave
and Neolithic periods. Among the later addi-
tions may be noted a large series of imple-
ments, bones, etc., from the Grimes Graves
flint mines, Mousteir flints from Baker’s Hole
pit in the Thames Valley, and implements of
different ages presented by Dr. A. E. Peake
and Rev. H. G. O. Kendall. The museum au-
thorities have just purchased the entire series
of local specimens, and the Paleolithic imple-
ments from the Dovercourt gravels collected
by the late Lieutenant-Colonel Underwood, of
Ipswich, and these make a very valuable addi-
tion to the collections. The skeleton of the
Neolithic (or early Bronze age) youth found
with an ornamented drinking vessel by Mr.
Reid Moir at Wherstead, near Ipswich, is now
on exhibition, together with other interesting
human skulls, and the remains of extinct ani-
mals.
Tue Bureau of Standards has published a
paper entitled “Characteristics of Radiation
Pyrometers,” giving the results of careful
study of this type of temperature measuring
instrument. Such a study was considered
urgent on account of the extensive use of
radiation pyrometers in the technical indus-
tries. These instruments are widely used in
the temperature control of the various proc-
esses involved in iron and steel manufacture,
alloy foundry work, glass, ceramics and brick
manufacture, smelting, gas works, steam
generation, lamp manufacture, etc. Many of
the instruments examined show different tem-
perature readings for different focusing or
sighting distances. Errors thus occasioned
may amount to several hundred degrees. The
effect of dirt upon the lenses and mirrors is of
serious importance. The question as to
whether the pyrometer absorbs all the heat
radiation falling upon it is discussed, and the
theory of the instrument, and the connection
of the behavior of the pyrometer with the theo-
retical radiation laws are given. The Bureau
receives a large number of these instruments
for test and standardization, from various
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
technical industries located throughout the
country. Heretofore this testing required
about three days for a single instrument on
account of the difficulty in heating a furnace
to an exactly uniform temperature. A new
method has now been developed which permits
a satisfactory standardization of a radiation
pyrometer within one hour. Many sugges-
tions are given for minimizing the errors to
which the pyrometer is subject, and it is
shown that this type of instrument suitably
designed, adequately calibrated, and correctly
used, is a trustworthy pyrometer having many
advantages over other types of temperature
measuring devices, both for scientific and
technical use.
THE government’s herd of buffalo on the
Wichita National Forest, in Oklahoma, which
is also a federal game preserve, has been in-
creased by the arrival of ten calves, according
to a report received by the Forest Service from
the supervisor in charge. The herd, which now
comprises sixty-two specimens of the almost
extinct bison, is in good condition, says the
supervisor, and promises to continue increasing
at a rapid rate. Eight of the calves are
females, bringing the number of heifers and
cows up to thirty. The bulls number thirty-
two and have been placed by themselves in a
pasture which has just been fenced in for them.
Three years ago the buffalo herd on the Wichita
Forest was little more than half as large as it
is now. It is said that the other game animals
in the preserve, including the elk and antelope,
also are increasing, due to the protection
afforded, not only against hunters, but against
wolves, wild cats and other predatory animals,
which committed serious depredations from the
establishment of the preserve in 1905 until
measures were taken to stop them. In pro-
tecting the game from predatory animals, the
wardens and forest officers are also promoting
the interests of local stockmen, who graze sev-
eral thousand head of cattle on certain allotted
areas within the preserve.
Nature says of the Harvard College Observ-
atory: “ Anything concerning this famous in-
stitution can not fail to be of interest, and
thus we welcome a reprint from the Harvard
SCIENCE 339
Alumni Bulletin, March 10, 1915, of two art-
icles, one by the director, Professor Pickering,
and the other over the initials ‘J. D. M.’ deal-
ing with the observatory and its work respec-
tively. Founded in 1840 by W. C. Bond, with
the help of thirty subscriptions of £20 each,
the endowments now amount to £200,000, and
the annual income exceeds £10,000, yet, we are
told, ‘there has never been a time ... when
funds ... were needed more than they are to-
day.’ In addition to the well-known Arequipa
Station in Peru, where the 24-in. photographic
doublet has been mounted, a station in Jamaica
has recently been founded for visual work. No
fewer than seventy complete quarto volumes
of Annals have been published and eight others
are in preparation, whilst about 200 circulars
have been issued. Concerning the progress of
the Draper Catalogue, we are informed that
down to March 1, 1915, Miss Cannon had classi-
fied no fewer than 188,350 stellar spectra.”
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS
Captain ©. F. Batuere, fellow of Exeter
College, Oxford, who was killed in action on
July 2, bequeathed £1,000 to the college.
AccorDING to the London Times Sir A. H.
Church has bequeathed to fellows of Lincoln
College, Oxford, £500; to the Waynflete pro-
fessor of mineralogy in the university £100 for
the purchase of apparatus and mineral speci-
mens, together with the testator’s optical in-
struments, mineral specimens and chemical
apparatus; and £100 to the curators of the
Ashmolean Museum.
Dr. T. C. Hess, professor of physics at the
Northern State Normal School, Marquette,
Michigan, has been granted his sabbatical year
and will devote it to study at Columbia Uni-
versity.
New appointments at Bedford College, Lon-
don, as we learn from Nature, inelude: assist-
ant lecturer in physics, Miss M. O. Saltmarsh;
demonstrator in physics, Miss M. Baxter;
demonstrators in physiology, Miss Hartwell
and Miss Tweedy; demonstrator in geology,
Miss I. Lowe.
ee
Be phe mon re tags sey Spm ate
tage Te a Se ey
PERS
ae
;
iy
s
‘s
‘
tae
ae
a
=
5
|
z
nf
340 SCIENCE
Dr. H. G. Earue has been appointed to the
chair of physiology in the University of Hong-
kong.
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE
MASS AS QUANTITY OF MATTER
TuHat the words “quantity of matter” are
of service in explaining the significance of
“mass ” in dynamics has been assumed either
explicity or tacitly by many authorities, in-
cluding Newton, Maxwell, Kelvin, Tait and
Clifford, and this view is obviously held by
several of those who have contributed to the
recent discussion in Science. There are,
however, those who dissent from this view,?
maintaining that the word mass as used in
dynamics has no meaning except that given to
it by the “law of acceleration” (Newton’s
second law), and that the statement that “ the
mass of a body is a measure of its quantity of
matter” contributes nothing to our under-
standing of the definition. My present object
is to call attention to a consideration which
appears to be lost sight of by those who take
this latter position. This consideration, stated
briefly, is that the mass of a body is distributed
in a perfectly definite way among the individ-
1 The dissenting view is vigorously advocated by
Professor Huntington in his latest letter (ScIENCE,
July 30, 1915). It should be noted that this
question is aside from the question whether mass
should appear in the fundamental equations.
Whatever definition of mass may be adopted, the
fact remains that the quantity ordinarily called
mass is a part of the fundamental data of dynam-
ies. That Professor Huntington’s formulation
of principles obscures this fact is my chief reason
for dissenting from it. Further discussion of this
point by me would, however, be a reiteration of
what has been said in a former communication
(Scrence, April 23, 1915). Any reader who is
interested in Professor Huntington’s reference to
my text-book on theoretical mechanics may find
by consulting the book that the explanation of the
laws of motion contained in it is substantially that
which I have recently favored in the pages of
SCIENCE; but it is my present belief that the notion
of quantity of matter might have been used more
effectively in this book, as well as in most other
text-books that are known to me.
[N. 8S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
ual portions of matter of which the body is
composed.
Dynamics deals with the motions of bodies,
By a body we mean any connected aggregate
of matter. Without attempting to define mat-
ter, we recognize the applicability to it of the
notions that the whole is greater than any
part and the whole is equal to the sum of its
parts. These are quantitative notions; and it
will be seen that they are an essential part of
the notion of mass which we habitually use in
interpreting the second law of motion.
Consider the following proposition:
I. If two bodies be acted upon by equal
forces, the body having the greater mass will
have the lesser acceleration.
According to one view this is merely an ar-
bitrary definition of the meaning of greater
and less as applied to mass; i. e., the state-
ment that “the mass of a body A ig greater
than that of a body B” is held to mean noth-
ing more than that “if A and B be acted upon
by equal forces the acceleration of A will be
less than that of B.” If, however, we are to
regard proposition I. as having any applica-
tion to actual physical bodies, it is easy to
show that it is not a mere definition, but a
partial expression of a physical law, enabling
us in certain cases to make predictions. Thus,
suppose material to be removed from a body A,
leaving a body B; we know that, if a certain
force be applied to A and an equal force after-
ward to B, the acceleration of B will be greater
than that of A; and the truth of this is recog-
nized because we know that B contains less
material than A. That is, in applying I. to
this case we associate with mass the notion of
quantity of matter.
Consider now the following more definitely
quantitative proposition :
Il. If different bodies are acted upon by
equal forces, the resulting accelerations are in
the inverse ratios of the masses of the bodies.
The interpretation we put upon this proposi-
tion becomes evident from a consideration of
particular cases.
As a first illustration let A be a body which,
when acted upon by a force F, has the accelera-
tion a; and suppose A to be divided into two
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
bodies B and C and that forces equal to F, ap-
plied to B and C, cause accelerations a’, a”.
We recognize the truth of the following state-
ments about the values of a’ and a”:
Both a’ and a” are greater than a.
Tf one of the accelerations a’, a” is less than
2a the other is greater than 2a.
Tf a’ and a” are equal, each is equal to 2a.
The accelerations satisfy the equation 1/a’
+1/a"=1/a. (This of course includes the
three preceding statements.)
These statements are consequences of II.;
but the reason we recognize this is because we
recognize that A contains more matter than
either B or C, and that the sum of the quan-
tities of matter of B and C is equal to that of
A. That is, in interpreting II. we regard
mass as a measure of quantity of matter.
As another illustration, let A and B be any
two distinct bodies such that when equal forces
are applied to them the acceleration of A is
less than that of B. Proposition II. tells
us that the mass of A is greater than that of
B; but is there any reason for saying that A
contains more matter than B? There is this
reason: We know that, by removing from A
some quantity of matter, there will remain a
body A’ such that, if equal forces be applied to
A’ and B, their accelerations will be equal; or
by adding to B some quantity of matter there
will be produced a body B’ such that, if equal
forces be applied to A and B’, their accelera-
tions will be equal. Moreover, we know that
the matter which must be taken from A to pro-
duce A’, and that which must be added to B
to produce B’, have equal masses m as tested
by II.; and that if the accelerations of A
and B due to equal forces F are a’ and a”, a
body of mass m acted upon by a force F would
have an acceleration a such that 1/a=1/a’ —
1/a”. These facts are all recognized as
consequences of II. because we regard mass
as therein used to be a measure of quantity
of matter; they would not follow if our notion
of mass were derived wholly from proposition
IT. itself.
The significance of mass in the second law
of motion is sometimes stated in the following
form:
SCIENCE
341
III. The forces required to give equal ac-
celerations to different bodies are proportional
to their masses.
It is easy to cite illustrative cases showing
that in applying this proposition also we in-
terpret mass as a measure of the matter of
which bodies are composed. Thus the state-
ment that “body A has three times the mass
of body B” means more than that “body A
requires three times as much force as body B
to give it a specified acceleration”; it means
that the material contained in body A might
be made into three bodies, each of which would
require the same force as body B to give it a
specified acceleration.
It is of course true that an important part
of the import of propositions II. and III.
consists in giving precision to the definition of
mass. But the illustrations which have been
given show that the preliminary definition of
mass as quantity of matter is not without
important meaning, and serves a useful pur-
pose in explaining the significance of mass in
the laws of motion.
L. M. Hoskrxs
STANFORD UNIVERSITY,
August 5, 1915
IS SIVAPITHECUS PILGRIM AN ANCESTOR OF MAN?
In the “Records of the Geological Survey
of India ” for February, 1915, Dr. Guy E. Pil-
grim has described the fossil anthropoids of
India, including several new forms of great
interest from the Lower, Middle and Upper
Siwaliks. Through the kindness of Dr. Pil-
grim the American Museum of Natural His-
tory has received casts of his types and prin-
cipal specimens of Siwalik anthropoids, con-
sisting of fragments of jaws and isolated
molars. These casts, together with Dr. Pil-
grim’s excellent illustrations, have enabled the
writer to make a critical comparison of the
extinct Indian anthropoids with the existing
anthropoids and with recent and extinct races
of man.
Pilgrim describes several new species of
Dryopithecus, a genus characteristic of the
Upper Miocene of Europe. Its known range
is thus extended to the Upper Miocene of
sane
pee 8 Serie ait ki OA Sila sy — “ce Fe
es Shih a idekggh sh tse eye en paige 4 = ay wh ae Ee ete ee ee ee Se aon Br ip
SiS PAT Sah iccneat ew Mee i RAO eS RR Ma CER fat SL eos ky Ret 338
Hes
342
India. One of these Indian species of Dry-
opithecus (D. punjabicus) is apparently re-
lated to the gorilla; another (D. giganteus),
perhaps to the chimpanzee; an allied genus,
Paleosimia, bears a significant resemblance to
the orang; a fourth type, Palewopithecus siva-
lensis Lydekker, is a synthetic form with re-
semblances to the gorilla, chimpanzee and gib-
bon. In the reviewer’s opinion all these are
more primitive than any of their modern
relatives and indicate that in the Upper Mio-
cene northern India was not far from the
center of evolution of the anthropoids and
man.
The important genus and species Sivapithe-
cus indicus, from the Lower and Middle
Siwaliks, rests upon fragments of the lower
SCIENCE
[N. S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
this being inferred from the fact that two of
the F, pink-eyed yellows, when mated to red-
eyed yellows of stock, “ produced only red-eyed
(yellow) offspring.” This result must mean
either that these two rats were not sufficiently
tested, and were not really double recessives;
or else, if they were double recessives, that
there had been crossing over in both sexes of
F, rats. As to the first possibility, the crucial
point is the number of red-eyed offspring pro-
duced in the test mating. Unless this number
was large enough to completely rule out the
possibility of the F, pink-eyed rats having been
only heterozygous for the red-eye factor, the
second alternative is not necessarily true. If
the second possibility be true it follows that
the relation of crossing over to sex determina-
tp Reet wi
ip ec a or
Pe ee ee ae
i SE Re Mian AE NEL AT Eee
Te FONE ee ae ey Es
A Seas
Tiwi
ge pratlpm tpn
fee Sareea 1 Ed
- By OU are FN se Su
MP Pts PAB X As Te NS
De
careful study of the evidence he believes Dr.
Pilgrim has erred in attributing the above-
mentioned human characteristics to Sivapithe-
cus, the jaw of which, in the reviewer’s
opinion, should be restored rather after the
pattern of the female orang jaw. The evi-
dence for this conclusion will be given else-
where. The reviewer would also dissent from
Dr. Pilgrim’s allocation of Sivapithecus to the
Hominide, preferring to place it by definition
in the Simiide, since it had ape-like canines
and front premolars, and, as the reviewer inter-
prets the evidence, also an ape-like symphysis.
WituuMm K. Grecory
CASTLE AND WRIGHT ON CROSSING OVER IN RATS
In a recent number of Science (August 6)
Castle and Wright describe a case of linkage
in rats. One point of general interest indi-
cated by their results is not pointed out by
these authors; namely, that crossing over occurs
in both sexes. This conclusion depends on the
appearance, in F, of their cross (red-eyed
yellow by pink-eyed yellow), of doubly recessive
rats. They state that two such rats appeared,
5 jaw and dentition. From these Dr. Pilgrim tion is different here from that in Drosophila
me has attempted a restoration of the lower jaw (Morgan) and the silkworm moth (Tanaka),
i, 4 that shows a subhuman divergence of the op- where no crossing over occurs in the sex which
Ke By posite rami and a very short, man-like sym- ig heterozygous for the sex factors! (male in
a physis. Pilgrim regards this genus as in or Drosophila, female in the silkworm moth).
By a near the ancestral line of Homo sapiens. Since the evidence from sex-linkage and cytol-
| The reviewer regrets to report that after a ogy shows that in several mammals (man, cat,
ete.) the male is heterozygous for the sex
factor, we should expect, if the relation to
crossing over is a general one, that no crossing
over would take place in the male mammal.
A. H. Sturtevant
August, 1915
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS
A Monograph of the Existing Crinoids. YVol-
umel. The Comatulids: Part1. By Austin
Hopart Criark, Assistant Curator, Division
of Marine Invertebrates, United States Na-
tional Museum. Bulletin 82. Washington,
Government Printing Office. 1915. 4to.
Pp. vi-+ 486; with 513 text-figures, and 17
plates.
The last general treatise upon the Recent
Crinoids is contained in the monumental
volumes of P. Herbert Carpenter upon the
“Stalked Crinoids and the Comatule,” pub-
lished in 1884 and 1888 by the British gov-
ernment as part of the results of the voyage of
H. M. 8. Challenger. Although based chiefly
1See Sturtevant, A. H., Amer. Nat., XLIX.,
1915.
ekeih ter. re J Piao 03 a
Pils al
|
q
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
upon the Challenger collections, these volumes
constituted a thorough monograph of the
group as it was known at those dates. During
the ensuing quarter of a century extraordinary
activity in marine exploration has prevailed in
all the oceans, resulting in an enormous in-
crease of material for study—both in the way
of specimens, and of accurate records of oc-
currence and distribution, by which the influ-
ence of depth, temperature and ocean currents
upon the growth and modification of crinoid
faunas can be studied in a manner not
hitherto possible. New species and genera
have thus been brought to light to an extent
wholly unexpected. With this great multipli-
cation of new forms, it has become increas-
ingly evident to those interested in the sub-
ject that the criteria employed for discrimi-
nation of the Fossil Crinoids are only appli-
cable in a limited degree to the Recent, and that
some new method of treating the latter is re-
quired in order to adequately deal with the
new facts. The practical working out of such
a method is perhaps the most important gen-
eral result of Mr. Clark’s researches; this will
be fully developed in his monograph, of which
the present volume is the introductory part, to
be followed by others treating systematically
the genera and species of the Comatulids and
Stalked Crinoids,
Much of the work to be embodied in the
subsequent volumes has already been done, and
the results published in preliminary form in a
series of papers appearing in various American
and foreign journals during the past eight
years, which give evidence of the extraordinary
energy with which the author has prosecuted
his studies. These publications, beginning
with the description of the new genus Ptilo-
crinus in June, 1907, now amount to a total
of 114 papers, of which 23 were issued in jour-
nals of England, Denmark, France, Holland,
Germany, Monaco, India, New South Wales
and western Australia. Some of these are
really treatises in permanent form—notably
that upon the “COrinoids of the Indian
Ocean,” a fine quarto volume of 325 pages and
59 figures, published in 1912 by the trustees
of the Indian Museum at Calcutta; this was
SCIENCE 343
based upon the collections made during a num-
ber of years by the Royal Indian Marine Sur-
vey steamer Investigator, and placed by the
authorities of the museum in Mr. Clark’s
hands for description. Another quarto work
of 209 pages and 10 plates is “ Die Crinoiden
der Antarktis,” published in Germany upon
the collections made by the steamer Gauss, of
the Deutsche Sudpolar-Expedition, which were
sent to the author for investigation. A paper
upon a collection of crinoids from the Zoolog-
ical Museum of Copenhagen was published in
the “ Vidensk Medd. fra den Naturhist. i
Kjébenhaven,” 1909; one of 100 pages on the
“Recent Crinoids of Australia,” in the Me-
moirs of the Australian Museum at Sydney,
in 1911; and another in the same year on the
“ Crinoidea ” of the Hamburg Southwest Aus-
tralian Expedition was published as Band IIL.,
Lieferung 13, of the scientific results of that
expedition.
Of the remaining 91 papers published in
America, the greater part have appeared in
the Proceedings of the U. S. National Mu-
seum. Out of the total number of papers, 69
have been upon collections examined. Some
idea of the wide range of the researches upon
which this monograph is founded may be had
from an enumeration of the collections, and
of material from expeditions which have been
studied. In addition to the already large col-
lections of the United States Bureau of Fish-
eries, and of the National Museum, accumu-
lated by the dredgings of various Coast Sur-
vey and Fisheries vessels, including the recent
cruises of the Albatross in the Pacific Ocean,
the following foreign museum and special col-
lections have been placed at Mr. Clark’s dis-
posal and sent by their owners to Washington
for his use: Zoological Museum, Copenhagen;
Hamburg Museum, containing the types of
Hartlaub’s species; Museum fiir Naturkunde,
Berlin, containing the type material of
Johannes Miiller’s classical works upon the
recent crinoids; Indian Museum, Calcutta;
Australian Museum, Sydney; Western Aus-
tralian Museum and Art Gallery, Perth; Sv.
Gad collection from Singapore; Svensson col-
lection from East Asia, Copenhagen. Also the
“TO
ce
hie hee _—
SIE TRE eb eer oe
A
si ath Tet tah ae yet oh
Pw Se WEEN f ay
“ok aM 88 « om
ih ta
nae ‘
pox At
ek -
. ’
SS hed a Ss oh of 2s emly x eesse .
Vo panne bh Pel cri Lhe ee Te te ae ee Seer i
feo ae a Bits. SIS » Bk Ogee dye Tet ee ieee os ee ee
ick 4 is ad A
F.5d oe 59S cogs ee er ee yo Nee: :
I ie Nh ce SORE BIE TIE IT 2S 1 DEERE i alan dig pate on
Sor ey ene
Een HEI
vitor, ‘SS Rivle
bP se ~
ean’ Frat ewes ft
[ haa ft ee on
, ae ee ie tte
344 SCIENCE
material collected by the following special ex-
peditions, which has been sent to Mr. Clark
from time to time for description: Jngol
(Danish), Greenland and Northwest Atlantic;
Danish expeditions to Siam and to the Danish
West Indies; Investigator and Golden Crown
(Indian), Indian Ocean; Helga (Irish), West
Ireland; Siboga (Dutch), East Indies; Gauss
(German) Antarctic; Gazelle (German), East
Indies and Australia; Golden Hind (Japan-
ese); Endeavor (Australia). It may be re-
marked in passing that in consideration of
the work done upon the collections of these
various expeditions, a liberal portion of the
specimens has in all cases been left in Mr.
Clark’s hands, which have been placed by him
in the National Museum; and that as a result
of these accessions this museum now possesses
a far more extensive and varied collection of
the Recent Crinoids than any other institution
in the world.
The author’s method of treatment, and the
classification proposed by him, have gained
general acceptance by the leading authorities
upon the recent crinoids, and his new genera
have been adopted in practise by Dr. Hubert
Lyman Clark, of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology, Cambridge; and in Europe by Dr.
Theodor Mortensen, of Copenhagen; Pro-
fessor Ludwig Doederlein, of Strassburg; Dr.
August Reichensperger, of Bonn; Professors
Rene Koehler and C. Vasey, of Lyons. Dr.
Mortensen and Professor Doederlein turned
over the extensive Danish and German collec-
tions under their control to Mr. Clark for de-
scription ; and the magnificent collections made
by the Marine Survey steamers of the Indian
government were placed in his hands for study
and publication upon the suggestion of Dr.
F. A. Bather, the distinguished crinoid author-
ity of the British Museum.
In the way of technical equipment for this
work Mr. Clark has unusual advantages. In
addition to a general zoological training he had
the benefit of experience in collecting birds
and insects in Europe, the West Indies and
South America. After this he served as nat-
uralist upon the steamer Albatross of the U. S.
Fish Commission during a cruise of some 15,-
[N. 8S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
000 miles, prosecuting extensive and continual
dredgings along the coasts of Alaska, the Aleu-
tian Islands, Kamschatka, Japan and Korea,
and returning via the Hawaiian Islands. On
these voyages vast numbers of crinoids were
taken, and the personal knowledge of their
occurrence and distribution thus gained by the
future author enlisted his interest in the in-
tensive study of these organisms, to which he
has since given his chief attention. By way of
further necessary preparation Mr. Clark in
1910 visited the chief museums of Europe, and
studied at first hand all the collections of his-
toric interest containing types and other ma.
terial used by previous authors from Lamarck
and Miiller to those of the present day, includ-
ing the specimens from the Challenger and
other British exploring steamers which had
been studied by Sir Wyville Thomson and the
two Carpenters. Detailed reports of the ex-
amination of several of these collections were
published in the Proceedings of the National
Museum, and the Smithsonian Miscellaneous
Collections, and in journals of the museums
visited.
The present volume, as already stated, is to
a large extent introductory, and is chiefly de-
voted to the comatulids, or unstalked crinoids.
After a very full historical introduction, a
table of the terms employed in the description
of a comatulid, and a discussion of the rela-
tive status of the crinoids as a zoological unit,
there is an instructive explanation of the
proper way to study a comatulid for purpose
of identification. Then follows an elaborate
treatise upon the structure and anatomy of
the crinoids, in the course of which many new
facts ascertained from dissections and other
observations by the author are brought out.
The illustrations, embracing a total of 602
figures, are prepared with great care for the
purpose of definite information. Witia some
experience in this line as to the fossil crinoids,
the present writer is able to bear testimony to
the immense labor involved in the preparation
of these figures, especially those illustrating
the minute anatomy of the crinoid skeleton,
drawn by the author himself. No such lucid
representation of these structures for the re-
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
cent crinoids generally has ever been given be-
fore.
There is not space to review the questions
of zoological relationships discussed—some of
which are speculative, and will doubtless meet
with criticism—nor the many new discoveries
touching the structure and characters of the
crinoid organism, which testify to the indus-
try of the author. Among the more general
conclusions to which these researches have
led, the following may be mentioned: .
1. The Crinoids of the recent seas are far
more numerous, both in individuals and in
species, than is commonly supposed, and their
relative importance does not fall short of that
of the other echinoderm groups.
2. The Crinoids, after a paleontological
record almost without a parallel for duration
and for variety in development, are repre-
sented in the recent seas chiefly by two highly
aberrant types, viz: (1) the Pentacrinites,
which have departed widely from their proto-
types by enormously increasing the length of
the column through the indefinite reduplication
of the first stem joint, or proximale; and (2)
the Comatulids, which have departed just as
widely by discarding the column and com-
pressing what is virtually the entire column
of the pentacrinites within the compass of a
single highly cirriferous proximale. Thus
while the two groups are parallel to each other,
and are descended from the same ancestral
stock, and represent the same phylogenetic
stage, during their development they have di-
verged from their phylogenetic mean in ex-
actly opposite directions; and both groups are
therefore far removed from the direct line
representing the progressive development of
the class.
3. These two aberrant types dominate the
recent seas to such a degree that in compari-
son with them all the other types become rela-
tively insignificant. The comatulids, although
in their relation to the fossil crinoids merely
an inconspicuous family, far outnumber all of
the other existing crinoids taken together, at
the same time extending through a much
wider geographical, bathymetrical and thermal
range. They exist in a vast array of diverse
SCIENCE
345,
forms, none of which depart in any great de-
gree from the general structure of the group,
so that their classification necessitates the
creation of numerous subfamilies, and fam-
ilies, and higher groups, which are not syste-
matically comparable to similar groups in the
stalked crinoids.
4. Among the Recent Crinoids the calyx,
usually reduced to insignificant proportions, is
of comparatively little systematic value—the
classification being placed chiefly upon the
column (or homologous structures), and the
proximal pinnules. This is, broadly speaking,
the reverse of the conditions in the fossil
forms, and this fact involves the recognition
of characters for the differentiation of species
and genera wholly different from those em-
ployed in dealing with the fossils. The appli-
cation of these criteria to the study of the col-
lections and material above mentioned has re-
sulted in the proposal of nearly 100 new gen-
era, and the description of several hundred
species new to science, among the comatulids
alone, the systematic treatment and illustra-
tion of which are to follow in a succeeding vol-
ume.
5. The author believes the echinoderms to
be a highly abberrant offshoot from a primitive
crustacean stock, and that they are far from
being the anomalous creatures they are com-
monly considered.
The thanks of all students of the echino-
derms are due to the authorities of the Na-
tional Museum for their liberality in facilita-
ting the publication of the results of these re-
searches in so thorough and comprehensive a
manner, and in thus giving to the scientific
public a work which is destined to take rank
with the great monographs following the
Challenger Expedition—a series which in its
entirety stands as one of the finest contribu-
tions to the knowledge of marine zoology ever
produced. FRANK SPRINGER
THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Tue eighth number of Volume 1 of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-
ences contained the following articles:
2 Aidgahaoin wy a Serre) aero
ERR SL SSR
ass TN yt as Sec Ph a Hy De ob
Tete apres e hinee ae
ind ok wise
Pecans oat
Pints Caer
Peat hs : Cis «hd DM? AM Be eee Poe ae bart * fy
8s Taken S 5 EE EIS Gk ER tle OTIS as eee eee os
SA PLAS ES ERS ae PETE Ske i
ak 2 cay MF Wage nr ete ye - J
esse
ORO SS
aa
ya
nS
Gas Fi) WR
346 SCIENCE
1. Weber’s Law and Antagonistic Salt Action:
Jacques Loes, Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research, New York.
The author had shown that the ratio of the
concentrations of antagonistic ions must re-
main within certain limits for the normal
functioning of an organism. It is here shown
that these limits remain approximately con-
stant as the concentration of one of the ions
is changed.
2. The Polarized Fluorescence of Ammonium
Uranyl Chloride: E. L. NicHots and H. L.
Howes, Physical Laboratory, Cornell Uni-
versity.
The remarkable fluorescence spectrum of
this salt is described in considerable detail;
observations being made at + 20° C. and
— 185°.
3. The Linguistic Classification of Potta-
watomi: TruMAN MICHELSON, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Washington.
By study of the so-called “ verbal pronouns,”
which afford most satisfactory classificatory
criteria, it is shown that Pottawatomi belongs
to the Ojibwa Group of Central Algonquian
dialects.
4. The Light Curve of XX Cygni as a Con-
tribution to the Study of Cepheid Variation:
Haritow SHAPLeY and MartHa Betz SxHap-
LEY, Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, Car-
negie Institution of Washington.
The form of the maximum of brightness in
XX cygni is variable from period to period
and thus suggests the hypothesis that the
periodic light and spectrum variations in this
and other Cepheid variables should be ascribed
to internal vibrations producing irregularities
in luminosity instead of to double star phe-
nomena.
5. The Feebly Inhibited. III. Inheritance of
Temperament; with Special Reference to
Twins and Suicides: C. B. Davenport, Sta-
tion for Experimental Evolution, Carnegie
Institution of Washington.
A statistical study of 89 family histories,
affording 147 matings, leads to the conclu-
sion that temperament is inherited as though
there were in the germ plasm a factor H#
[N. S. Vou. XLII. No. 1089
which induces the more or less periodie occur-
rence of an excited condition and its absence,
e, which results in a calmness; also a factor (0
which makes for normal cheerfulness and its
absence which permits a more or less periodic
depression, the factors behaving as though in
different chromosomes, so that they are in-
herited independently.
6. Second Type Stars of Low Mean Density:
Hartow SHapiey, Mount Wilson Solar Ob-
servatory, Carnegie Institution of Wash-
ington.
Because of its bearing on the question of
the order of stellar evolution, the density of
stars of the second spectral type is discussed
from the standpoint of the dependability of the
observation and theoretical work that is the
basis of the derivation of occasional extremely
low values.
7. On the Pathological Action of Arsenicals
upon the Adrenals: Wape H. Brown and
Louise Pearce, Rockefeller Institute for
Medical Research, New York.
That arsenicals of diverse chemical consti-
tution exert pronounced pathological action
upon the adrenals has not been generally
recognized. It appears from these observa-
tions that the adrenotropic action of arsenicals
is one of the most constant and important fea-
tures of arsenical intoxication, and it is sug-
gested that therapeutic doses of some arsen-
icals may be found to produce definite stimu-
lation of the adrenal glands,
8. Variations in the Character and Distribu-
tion of the Renal Lesions produced by Com-
pounds; LovuIsE Pearce and Wape H. Browy,
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
New York.
Not all compounds of arsenic produce vas-
cular lesions; some are capable of producing
tubular nephritis; the difference in the patho-
genic action being explainable only upon the
basis of the chemical constitution of the differ-
ent compounds of arsenic.
9. Seven Points on a Twisted Cubic Curve:
H. S. Wurre, Department of Mathematics,
Vassar College.
If seven points on a twisted cubic be joined,
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
two and two, by twenty-one lines, then any
seven planes that contain these twenty-one
lines will osculate a second cubic curve.
Epwix BipweELt WILSON
SPECIAL ARTICLES
PRELIMINARY STUDIES ON INTRACELLULAR DIGES-
TION AND ASSIMILATION IN AMPHIBIAN
EMBRYOS +
By means of a double stain of janus green
and neutral red in an isotonic salt solution,
the initial dilution of each stain being about
1:10,000, the yolk globules in the living cells
of Amblystoma embryos may be differentiated
into two types, which, for convenience of de-
scription, I designate as “alpha” and “ beta”
globules. The alpha globules stain selectively
with janus green, at first greenish blue and
then pinkish, presumably upon reduction of
the dye. The beta globules stain selectively
with the neutral red, and are by far the more
numerous in the cell. When the same dyes
are used singly in a dilution of 1:30,000 the
alpha globules are relatively inert towards the
red, and the beta globules are not stained by
the green. In smears of living embryos which
have been fixed upon the cover glass with the
acetic-osmic bichromate mixture and stained
with acid fuchsin according to the method of
Bensley,? for mitochondria, the beta globules
stain a deep, brilliant red while the alpha
globules take on a duller tint, bordering on
purple.
similarly differentiated in sections prepared ac-
cording to this method.
In smears of living cells which have been
1 When this paper was written I was not ac-
quainted with the contribution of C. Saint-Hilaire:
‘Ueber die Veriinderungen der Dotterkérner der
Amphibien bei der intracelluliiren Verdauung,’’
Zoologische Jahrbiicher, Abt. f. Allg. Zool. wu.
Physiol., B. 34, Heft 2. After a careful study of
his results I am convinced that Saint-Hilaire has
not seen my ‘‘alpha bodies.’’ Otherwise, my ob-
servations, in many respects, are in striking agree-
ment with his. The differences in matters of inter-
pretation ean not be discussed here.
* Bensley, R. R., ‘‘Studies on the Pancreas of
the Guinea Pig,’’ American Journal of Anatomy,
Vol. 12, No. 3.
SCIENCE
The two types of globules may be .
347
stained in janus green, alpha globules may be
found here and there with deeply stained, blue
excrescences upon their surface. These struc-
tures may be described as “alpha bodies.”
These are particularly distinct after the glob-
ule on which they occur has begun to take
on the pinkish tint. They frequently appear
as rows of slightly elongated masses connected
by slender threads of the same kind of sub-
stance. In optical section some of them seem
to dip into the substance of the globule while
others project in varying degree above it.
Some even have a very slight attachment to
the globule. In other instances similarly
staining substance is arranged in relatively
coarse bands with ragged outline, a condition
to which I shall refer again in considering the
toxic action of the dye.
The different forms of alpha bodies I regard
as indicative of different stages in their
development. I have seen them in numerous
cases arranged in rows over the surface of the
globule as separate and distinct bodies. In
this condition they have the form and color of
mitochondria in the same preparation. In
one instance, in fact, after I had begun to
draw a globule with these separate and distinct
alpha globules on its surface, I observed that
some of the alpha bodies were changing their
position relative to each other, and, giving con-
tinuous and close observation to those bodies,
I saw some of them break loose from the
globule and become indistinguishable in form
and color from mitochondria which appeared
elsewhere in the same preparation. Alpha
bodies are visible also in smears and sections
made according to Bensley’s method for mito-
chondria as noted above.
Similarly there appear on some beta globules
structures which may be called “ beta bodies.”
These stain a deep red in contrast with the
more delicately tinted body of the globule.
In some respects they resemble in general
structure the alpha bodies, but they are of a
coarser nature. In some instances there is a
hull of this substance around the greater part
of the globule. Upon other globules it appears
in ridges or as a chain of angular bodies. In
smears of living cells I have seen beta bodies,
Tu Pn a APY et 4
bad a "Se a elo ee pes
F aee SPAS - oes Liem eer it bs i bs 2s dere ae me 4 ee Be pbs x ; oe pate mR Traps ter, bake tt ane)
5 i ae OORT ae PPS ee BONE Pe Aas sty he = Pease ee corte EIS OREN ERE MI TA EY Yea
elas!
i sa festa
ts SSE rege rece ee ei “at, f Lor Var alee} Gay) 2
Sis Se tae ee nate Wry oe
na the cbt catia Ryo et ete PALS SEG Ta pte ot Sekaes
Poth, See Bio
NO Sli coy dive
be eateee tev nk
eet eae
Woes a ike? he
AEM Me: sage
ua
ee See
Wie:
Rae sh hes ciy Sh i gai
Coe ESN tO al AL RRM CARR hal aan aaa
ae ne RI ATE WS
ie eae
348 SCIENCE
also, break loose from the globule. In the
free condition they become indistinguishable
from the free bodies which are abundant in the
cells of amphibian embryos and which are
ordinarily regarded as pigment. These pig-
ment granules, although having a color of
their own, at least upon their surface, stain
deeply with neutral red. The beta bodies give
the reaction for fat with Herxheimer’s method.
That the beta bodies can not be degeneration
products in the strict sense is evidenced by the
fact that yolk globules remain intact for a
long period in dishes of putrefying embryos,
and that, in this condition, they do not stain
selectively in neutral red and nothing like beta
bodies can be found upon them. However,
such globules, taken from disintegrating em-
bryos, after they have been ingested by large
protozoa, stain selectively in the food vacuoles
of the living organism. In fact, large ciliates
which have been feeding in dishes where em-
bryos are disintegrating in a solution of neu-
tral red, become gorged with deep red granules
in dense masses. In one instance I have seen
a swimming ciliate discharge a number of
these granules, apparently as dejecta.
In the study of the reaction to janus green
of yolk globules that have been ingested by
protozoa I have met difficulties which have not
been entirely overcome, but in one large ciliate
I have succeeded in getting the reaction of two
food vacuoles to the double stain of janus
green and neutral red. In this case the sur-
face of the globule stained a dense red and the
other contents of the vacuole around the yolk
globule a faint blue which changed in time to
faint pink. The latter reaction was delicate
but unmistakable.
A study of the artificial digestion, also, of
yolk globules which have been taken from
dead embryos supports the view that the selec-
tive staining of yolk globules and the bodies
on their surface is due to processes of diges-
tion. When such globules are digested in a
mixture of pancreatin and neutral red many
stain selectively and bodies appear on their
surface which resemble beta bodies in living
preparations. With prolonged digestion in
pancreatin and neutral red the solution be-
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
comes yellow, and the core of the digesting
globules yellow, while the bodies on their sur-
face are deep red. Such reactions do not
occur in digestion with pepsin in solution with
neutral red, either with or without the addition
of hydrochloric acid, although there is positive
evidence of digestion in the mixture. Diges-
tion with pepsin and janus green, however,
brings about selective staining of globules
which, during digestion, break up into very
small bodies. These bodies stain a deep blue
or blue-green. Such bodies occur, also, upon
the surface of more faintly stained blue glob-
ules, in which case they resemble the alpha
bodies of living preparations. Although they
are usually larger than the typical alpha
bodies, some of them are of about the same
size.
In preparations of living cells stained with
the double stain of neutral red and janus green
I have on several occasions found an individ-
ual globule which had both alpha and beta
bodies attached, the alpha bodies situated in
bluish areas and the beta bodies in regions of
fainter red. One such globule I had under
observation for over eight and one half hours.
During the latter part of this period beta
bodies became detached from the globule
while the globule became much reduced in size
and retained the bluish tint over a relatively
larger area than formerly. During this time
an alpha body, also, disappeared from the
surface of the globule, but it could not be
recognized afterwards in the free condition as
were the beta bodies. The latter, in the free
condition, assumed the characteristics of the
so-called pigment granules in the same prep-
aration.
These preliminary observations have left a
strong conviction in my mind that, in the
digestion and assimilation of yolk in these
embryos, enzymes effect a cleavage of the super-
ficial substance of the globule; that, following
this cleavage, the end-products of the process
segregate into alpha bodies on the one hand
and beta bodies on the other, and that the
alpha bodies, probably undergoing some
chemical change in the meantime, become free
as mitochondria in the process of assimilation
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
into protoplasm, while the beta bodies are at
this stage of development essentially a residue
which later in cytomorphosis, possibly only
after the circulatory system has assumed its
nutritive réle, may undergo further digestion.
This interpretation is further supported by
the fact that janus green manifests much
greater toxicity than does neutral red when
embryos are grown in like dilutions of these
dyes. This difference in toxic action becomes
intelligible when one recognizes that it is the
processes that are leading up to the construc-
tion of protoplasm that are obstructed by the
reaction of janus green with the cell, whereas
it is only the residue, so to speak, of these
processes that is attacked by the neutral red.
The latter dye has, however, a very considerable
toxic action, the intracellular effects of which
can be readily recognized. The yolk globules
of embryos that have grown some time in a
solution of neutral red have enormous, deeply
stained red excrescences upon their surface.
Many small structures like beta bodies in the
fresh smears of living cells occur also under
such conditions. The excessively large ex-
crescences, which form large buds and separate
into deeply staining, small globules, can not
be regarded, of course, as perfectly normal.
Neither are they degeneration products in the
strict sense, for, as noted above, they do not
occur on globules of degenerating tissues.
They should be regarded, rather, as the result
of normal processes that have been obstructed
by the reaction of the products with the dye.
That there is a more stable chemical compound
established here is evidenced by the fact that
these excreseences can be fixed with ammo-
nium molybdate and preserved in microscopic
sections, whereas neutral red stains of other
structures in the cell can not be preserved by
this method. Unusually large excrescences,
also, which I have frequently seen on alpha
globules, are probably the expression of the
toxic action of janus green.
The experiments which have led me into
this field began as a search for a method of
detecting polarity in cells and physiological
gradients within the embryo, my purpose being
to correlate my work on the growth of the
SCIENCE 349
reflex arc in its relation to the development
of behavior with recent researches upon gra-
dients in lower organisms, particularly by
Child. In their bearing upon this original
plan my results seem to justify the use of
janus green and neutral red as indicators of
digestion and assimilation of yolk in amphib-
ian embryos. Beyond this, it seems to me, my
observations give a clue, not only to the
mechanism of intracellular digestion and as-
similation of yolk, but also to the nature of
the toxic action of the dyes that have been
employed. My observations, however, are not
presented here as conclusive evidence. They
require critical review and extensive corrobora-
tion. But, awaiting the opportunity of an-
other season, I feel justified in making this
preliminary report, particularly in the hope of
enlisting the interest of other biologists in the
amphibian embryo as a unique source of in-
formation upon important phases of cellular
biology. It would be interesting to know, for
instance, the cytological side of the toxic
action of the phenolic compounds which Gort-
ner and Banta‘ used on amphibian embryos.
With reference to mitochondria, my interpre-
tation that they are derived in the amphibian
embryo from yolk through the formation of
structure which I call “alpha bodies” is
wholly in accord with the conclusion of Cowdry®
that mitochondria are associated with me-
tabolism, and it is not at variance with the
observations of M. R. and W. H. Lewis® that
8Child, C. M., ‘‘Studies on the Dynamic
Morphogenesis and Inheritance in Experimental
Reproduction, VIII., Dynamic Factors in Head-
determination in Planaria,’’ The Journal of Ez-
perimental Zoology, Vol. 17, No. 1.
4Gortner, R. A., and Banta, A. M., ‘‘ Notes on
the Toxicity of Dilute Solutions of Certain Pheno-
lic Compounds, ete.,’’ Biochemical Bulletin, Vol.
3, Nos. 11, 12.
5Cowdry, E. V., ‘‘The Comparative Distribu-
tion of Mitochondria in Spinal Ganglion Cells of
Vertebrates,’’ The American Journal of Anatomy,
Vol. 17, No. 1.
6 Lewis, M. R., and W. H., ‘‘ Mitochondria (and
Other Cytoplasmic Structures) in Tissue Cul-
tures,’’ The American Journal of Anatomy, Vol.
17, No. 3.
a Oe
; ne”
Miran *
350
mitochondria in the cells of the chick embryo
increase in size and divide by fission, when
the cells are grown in vitro. If, as my obser-
vations indicate, mitochondria are involved in
the anabolic phase of metabolism, one would
expect them to grow in the cell of the chick
embryo by accretion from end products of
digestion absorbed by the cell; whereas in the
amphibian embryo the food is stored within
the cell as relatively stable substance and the
whole transformation from food to protoplasm
must take place in situ. So long as the cell is
nourished from yolk which it contains, the
mitochondria, I believe, grow upon the surface
of the yolk globule. They may be certain end
products of digestion, or they may be synthe-
sized out of certain of the end products of
digestion. However, before accepting this
hypothesis it is important to know whether
mitochondria occur in cells which have been
deprived of their yolk by centrifuging. The
work of Banta and Gortner,’ and particularly
that of Jenkinson,® upon the development of
centrifuged amphibian eggs should be ex-
tended into the cytological field to determine
wherein the mechanism is deficient in those
cells which do not develop normally. Further-
more, the interpretations here offered, in so far
as they relate to mitochondria, must be quali-
fied by the consideration that their validity
rests largely upon the nature of the bodies in
the protoplasms which I have regarded as
mitochondria. My judgment on this point is
based upon the use of janus green as a vital
stain and of Bensley’s acetic-osmic-bichromate
method, the two methods which, taken to-
gether, seem to be accepted as the nearest ap-
proximation to a specific test for mitochondria
now at our command. But regardless of
theoretical considerations, the observations
7 Banta, A. M., and Gortner, R. A., ‘* Accessory
Appendages and Other Abnormalities Produced
in Amphibian Larve through the Action of Centrif-
ugal Force,’’ The Journal of Experimental Zool-
ogy, Vol. 18, No. 3.
8 Jenkinson, J. W., ‘‘The Relation between the
Structure and the Development of Centrifuged
Eggs of the Frog,’’ Quarterly Journal of Micro-
scopical Science, April, 1914.
SCIENCE
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
which have been described are, I believe, sub-
stantially correct, and they are presented in
this form with the hope of stimulating in-
terest in a field of study which affords peculiar
opportunity for making a definite advance in
our knowledge of the mechanics of the cell,
particularly in relation to the growth of the
organism.
Gerorce E. Cocuiny
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
TRAINS OF BEATING LIGHT WAVES
IF two spectra, having the same longitudinal
axis but reversed in color (i. e., respectively
red-violet and violet-red), are brought to inter-
fere, the interference should occur only along
the single transverse line of coincidence and
therefore be inappreciable. If it is visible,
then light waves of slightly different wave-
lengths, lying symmetrically on either side of
the common transverse axis, must also be capa-
ble of interference in optics, in complete anal-
ogy with the case of musical beats in acoustics.
After long searching I found that the occur-
rence of the phenomenon in question can be
shown experimentally. Its scintillating ap-
pearance is exceedingly striking. It is com-
plete within a transverse strip of the spectrum
but one half to one third the width of the
sodium lines. It partakes of the general char-
acters of elliptic interferences however, except
that the ellipses are now extremely eccentric
(needle-shaped in other words) and confined to
a single color. If the given width be regarded
as the distance between two fringes and esti-
mated as d\=2.4 &K 10-8 em., if x be the dis-
tance along the axis of propagation within
which one reenforcement occurs, then
x= */dd = 36 XK 10-*/2.4 K 10° == .15 em.,
or the limiting group wave-length of the light
waves is over a millimeter. Details and allied
results, for which there is no room here, will be
found in. the complete paper, now in the hands
of The American Journal of Science.
Cart Barus
Brown UNIVERSITY,
PROVIDENCE, R. I.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BACTERIOLOGISTS
VI
Sanitary Bacteriology
Under the supervision of W. W. Ford
Bacteria in City, Country and Indoor Air: WIL-
LIAM W. BROWNE.
The New York State Commission on Ventilation
under the direction of Professor C.-E. A. Winslow
undertook a systematic examination of the air in
and about New York City. During the survey 353
samples of air were examined and may be roughly
divided as follows:
1, CRRA. cide taxes 0 134 samples.
2. Country air ....... 85 samples.
ee eee 87 samples.
4. Factory air ....... 47 samples.
The samples were collected and examined ac-
cording to the methods prdposed by the Committee
on Standard Methods for the Examination of Air
of the American Public Health Association. In
each examination 5 cu. ft. of air were pumped
through a sand filter by (1) hand pump in the
field, (2) power pump in factories and offices.
Samples were plated on gelatin and litmus lactose
agar and plated at 20° C. and 37° C., respectively.
Summary of Results
Sl ciamealiinn per Cu. Ft. Strep
Source No.| .; . per 100
co | Per Cent. | © | Per Cent. | Gy. Ft
Below 125 Bel 25 ting
5, per Cu. Ft & saree. aad
Country.......| 85, 56) (94%) |30| (94%) | 12
Ge. 134! 72] (82%) |32| (98%) | 11
Offices......... 87| 94/ (80%) 80) (90%) | 22
Factories... 47/113} (82%) i“ (92%) | 43
Schools!......|684) 96] (78%) |—| .....0 30
Conclusions
1. Microorganisms developing at 20° C. on gela-
tine are generally under 50 per cu. ft., rarely over
100 per eu. ft.
2. Microorganisms developing at 37° ©. are
rarely over 50 per cu. ft.
3. Number of Streptococci equals 10 per 100
eu. ft.
4. Air of occupied spaces contains more bacteria
than open spaces and shows greater fluctuations.
1 From Baskerville and Winslow school-room air
examination in New York City, in which same
methods were employed.
SCIENCE
dol
The Efficiency of Endo’s Medium in Detecting
Members of the Colon Group: G. C. SUPPLEE.
Fifty-three cultures were studied and identified.
Twenty-nine of these were found to belong to the
colon group. Eleven were closely allied forms, but
could not be included within the group if strict
adherence to the classification was observed. Three
were coccus forms; four were of the acid pep-
tonizing type and two failed to ferment any of
the sugars and produced no change in milk. The
data were not complete from four of the cultures.
Representatives of the colon types and the acid
peptonizing type were plated upon Endo’s me-
dium after different degrees of attenuation. The
results of these experiments showed fhat the in-
tensity of the reaction was weakened as the at-
tenuation increased. The color reaction of the
aerogenes and acidi lacti types tended to fade to a
white or pink. The fading took place much
sooner if the colony developed on the surface or if
the culture was at its greatest vigor.
Since sub-surface development gave rise to many
doubtful reacting colonies, two hundred and thir-
teen such colonies were studied and fifty-seven per
cent. were found not to belong to the colon group.
From experiments with pure and mixed cul-
tures of the colon varieties it was found that about
a plus four tenths acidity gave the maximum num-
ber of reactions.
Organisms which Do Not Belong to the Colon
Group and Produce Black Fields on Zsculin-
Bilesalt Media: J. VANDERLECK.
In the summer of 1913 more than 3,000 esculin-
agar plates made of milk were examined and 700
eolonies selected for further study. As a resnlt 10
organisms were found to produce black colonies
on esculin-bilesalt media at blood heat inside 48
hours and which did not have the least relation to
the colon group. These organisms showed hardly
any action in milk, gas production in sugars was
absent in the majority and sometimes liquefaction
combined with alkalinity was present. These or-
ganisms came from one milk district—Huntingdon
—and could not be recovered from that source in
the following spring. However, another exception
appeared for a short time in large numbers. This
organism was in many respects closely related to
the colon group, produced first acid in milk fol-
lowed by alkaline digestion and formed gas in
saccharose. Altogether 135 organisms were tested
in the examination.
Working at lower temperature and keeping the
plates for at least 5 days, more exceptions would
appear, 7 of which were carefully studied. Col-
352
onies appearing in water samples were also tested,
but among 250 test cultures no exceptions were
encountered. Our conclusions of these exhaustive
tests are that the esculin-bilesalt test is thoroughly
reliable. Out of 1,200 samples analyzed only in
one case a wrong impression was obtained on ac-
count of the presence of some exceptional organ-
ism. A full description of this investigation will
appear in the Centralblatt fiir Bakteriologie.
Numbers and Efficiency of B. bulgaricus Organ-
isms in Commercial Preparations Examined Dur-
ing the Period January-June, 1914: RutTu C.
GREATHOUSE,
The number and efficiency in acid production of
B. bulgaricus in commercial preparations are an
index of the value of the preparations.
Forty commercial preparations, the products of
twenty-three firms, were examined between Jan-
uary 15, 1914, and June 1, 1914. These samples
were collected fresh from the manufacturers and
held under conditions of temperature and humid-
ity which are practicable for commercial handling.
They contained, in the case of dry cultures, from
none to 250,000 living B. bulgaricus per gram; in
the case of liquid cultures, from 2,300 to 320,000,-
000 per c.c.; in the case of sour milk drinks, from
800 to 790,000,000.
The maximum acidity produced in milk by the
B. bulgaricus in these preparations varied from
1.20 per cent. to 3.41 per cent. acid calculated as
lactic. The ability of the B. bulgaricus to pro-
duce acid was decreased in the old preparations.
The amount of decreases averaged 38.5 per cent.
in the case of dry cultures kept on ice for two
months, and 26.4 per cent. in the case of liquid
preparations kept on ice for two weeks.
The strains producing different degrees of acid-
ity were examined for differences in morphology,
staining properties and curd production in milk,
which would indicate that they were separate or-
ganisms, but no such differences were found.
Agglutination Studies of Milk from Cows Affected
with Contagious Abortion: L. H. CooLEncGe.
Milk studied was obtained from a herd in which
a high percentage of animals have repeatedly
given positive complement fixation and agglutina-
tion tests for contagious abortion and having a
record of frequent abortions.
The milk from each quarter of 61 cows has been
examined at intervals during the last 6 months.
Of these the milk of 18 (30 per cent.) has given a
positive agglutination test with Bact. abortus, in
one or more quarters, at some time, or during this
period. The power of the milk of one quarter to
SCIENCE
[N. S. Vou. XLIT. No. 1089
agglutinate the abortion bacterium has been ob-
served to spread to another quarter and finally to
all four; it has also been observed to gradually die
out. Milk drawn at about the middle of the milk.
ing has the strongest agglutinating reaction.
An attempt to demonstrate the presence of Bact.
abortus in milk that agglutinates the organism has
resulted as follows. Out of 18 quarters the milk
of which agglutinate the abortion bacterium the
milk of 14 produce lesions in guinea-pigs which
are like the typical lesions caused by a pure cul-
ture of Bact. abortus.
In the 7 cows whose milk has gradually acquired
the power of agglutinating the abortion bacterium
during this experiment one or both of the rear
quarters have been the first to show agglutination.
This suggests contamination of the rear quarters
by genital discharges.
The Presence of Bacillus abortus in Milk: Atice
C. EVANs.
Special methods of plating milk samples which
were drawn aseptically have shown that the ba-
cillus of contagious abortion occurs commonly in
certified milk in the vicinity of Washington, D. C.,
and Chicago, Ill. These organisms grow profusely
en serum agar plates. About 30 per cent. of the
samples of milk from two certified dairies near
Chicago, which were plated on serum agar, showed
this organism to be present in milk at the time of
drawing from the udder, in numbers varying from
110 to 4,300 per cubic centimeter. In one sample
taken from a herd which does not produce certified
milk, 50,000 of the Bacillus abortus were found
per cubic centimeter. This organism grows abun-
dantly in the cream layer, with the formation of
acid, but it grows sparingly in milk from which
the cream has been removed. Four per cent. of
lactic acid in the milk does not check the multipli-
eation of Bacillus abortus in the cream layer.
The Influence of Milk and Carbohydrate Feeding
on the Bacteriology of the Intestine: L&o F.
RETTGER AND THOMAS G. HULL.
The intestinal flora of white rats and of fowls is
determined in a very large measure by the diet.
White rats that were fed ordinary white bread
and green vegetable food exhibited an intéstinal
flora which closely resembles that of man. Soon
after the diet was changed to mixed grain 4
marked transformation took place. When to the
diet of bread and vegetables a liberal amount of
milk‘ or of lactose was added the ordinary mixed
flora quickly became simplified, and often pre-
sented the picture of only two or three types of
bacteria, namely B. bifidus of Tissier and B. acido-
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
philus of Moro. During continued milk or lactose
feeding the acidophilus type may give way even-
tually to B. bifidus. Similar results were obtained
in the domestic fowl, the acidophilus bacillus being
the most prominent. The feeding of other carbo-
hydrates, dextrose, maltose, levulose, dextrin and
starch did not bring about such a change.
The feeding of bacteria, even in large numbers,
will in itself exert very little if any influence on
the intestinal flora. B. bulgaricus suspensions ob-
tained from plain agar growths could be recovered
only occasionally from the feces, and then in very
small numbers only. On the other hand, when
sterile milk, whether sweet or sour, was fed to
white rats which exhibited the usual mixed flora in
which organisms of the acidophilus type were very
few or absent, B. acidophilus, which in many re-
spects is practically indistinguishable from B.
bulgaricus, rapidly made its appearance in the in-
testine and for a time occurred there in relatively
large numbers,
A Simple Test for B. sporogenes in Milk and
Water: JOHN WEINZIRL.
The sample of milk to be tested is placed in a
sterile test tube, and enough solid paraffin is added
to make when melted, a layer one eighth of an inch
in thickness. The tubes are then placed in the
Arnold and heated at 80° C. for ten minutes.
After heating, they are cooled rapidly; this canses
the melted paraffin to solidify and form a cover
which effectively excludes atmospheric oxygen.
The cultures are then incubated at 37° C. for 24
hours. If B. sporogenes is present, it digests the
lactose and forms gas which lifts the paraffin plug.
The test is simple, cheap and easy of applica-
tion. When applied to market milk it gave the
following results:
90 samples of 5:c.c. milk each gave 28 per cent.
positive.
112 samples of 10 ¢.c. milk each gave 37.5 per
cent. positive.
34 samples of 15 ¢.c. milk each gave 50 per cent.
positive.
Utensils as a Source of Bacterial Contamination
of Milk: M. J. Prucua, H. A. Harpine, H. M.
WEETER.
This investigation attempted to measure the
amount of bacterial contamination received by the
milk from the utensils in which it was handled be-
tween the cow and the milk bottle.
The utensils were carefully washed in the ordi-
nary way, being scrubbed with brush in a warm
Solution of Wyandotte and then rinsed out with
warm water.
SCIENCE
353
In the accompanying table is given the summary
of the experiments.
All Utensils Sterile
Bacteria
per C.c
1. Milk leaving the barn ............4-- 2,558
PO MIs ncn wikis Hh deka eadanees 3,875
Utensils Washed—Only Bottles Sterile
3. Increase due to pails ............... 57,077
4. Increase up to clarifier ............. 15,353
5. Increase due to clarifier ............. 172,763
6. Increase due to cooler .............. 19,841
7. Increase due to bottler .............. 247,611
eS a ry 515,203
An Improvement in the Composition of Lactose
Bile: THomas W. MELIa.
Lactose bile, as employed at present, has certain
disadvantages.
First: The bile is not always fresh.
Second: The media, after sterilization, contains
a heavy sediment in the fermentation tubes which
interferes with the development of the test.
Third: Many authors have criticized the inhibit-
ing power of the bile salts upon B. coli.
In regard to the first disadvantage it was found
best to purchase ox gall from freshly slaughtered
animals and have it delivered within a few hours
to the laboratory. It is then evaporated to dryness
in a vacuum dryer and stored away in one pound
airtight containers. The bile will keep indefinitely.
The sediment present in fresh bile and in the
sterilized media was found to contain mucin, lime
salts and broken gall stones (cholesterine) prob-
ably formed by the streptococcus growth. The bile
should be settled and only the clear supernatant
liquid used.
The sediment in the fermentation tubes may be
prevented by making a five per cent. instead of a
ten per cent. solution of bile media.
The known inhibiting power of bile salts led to
an investigation of the best strength of bile media
to employ.
Table showing relative efficiency of the five and
ten per cent. bile media on ordinary quality of
drinking waters (60 in number)
Five Per Cent. Dried Ten Per Cent. Dried
| Ox Gall Ox Gall
| Ge. C.c. | Cc. | Cc. | Cc. | Cue.
| O01 1.0 10 =s«Ou 1,0 10
24 hour results... 2% | 22% | 50% | 2% | 16% |31%
48 hour results... 13% | 31% | 75% | 7% | 18% |40%
72 hour results..| 15% | 49% | 82% | 9% | 27% |51%
354
Attenuated B. coli is more readily shown, also
less interference from overgrowths in the five-per-
cent. bile media.
Infection and Immunity
Under the supervision of J. A. Kolmer
The Parasite of Oral Endamebiasis. Endameba
gingwalis (Gros): ALLEN J. SMITH, M.D., AND
M. T. Barrett, D.D.S.
The authors present a detailed comparison of
the amebiform organisms which have been an-
nounced as discovered in the human mouth and re-
lated parts, including the amebe of Gros (1849),
of Steinberg (1862), of Grassi (1879), of Flexner
(1892), Kartulis (1893), of Prowazek (1904) and
of Verdun and Bruyant (1907). They conclude
that of these all save the last are really specifically
identical and therefore propose as the proper
nomenclature for this organism Endameba gingi-
valis (Gros) with synonyms: Amiba buccalis
Steinberg, 1862; Ameba dentalis Grassi, 1879;
Entameba kartulisi Déflein (Ameba mazilaris
Kartulis, 1907); and Entameba buccalis Prow-
azek, 1904. The organism is an ameba which
ordinarily is of 30 or 35 micromillimeters in diam-
eter in the resting stage, has a fairly differentiated
ectosarcous periphery, a granular endosarc, full of
nutrition vacuoles in which are found bacteria, rem-
nants of leucocytie nuclei and red blood cells or
their detritus. There is no contractile vacuole.
The nucleus is small, usually central or subcentral,
but occasionally excentric; is seen with difficulty if
at all in the unstained specimen; is poor in chro-
matin and vesicular in appearance, with small cen-
tral ‘‘binnenkérper’’ and a delicate but irregularly
thickened chromatic membrane. The pseudopodia
are ordinarily single or few, broadly lobose to long
and digitate; cellular and pseudopodial motility
active but variable; reproduction surely by binary
division and by gemmation; persisting cysts
formed, but no reproduction cysts as yet observed.
Habitat in the pus of pyorrhea pockets, on the
neighboring mucous and dental surfaces, in the
tonsils, in the abscesses of the jaw, etc.
The writers urge their inability to distinguish
morphologically between Endameba gingivalis
(Gros) and Endameba histolytica Schaudinn.
While stating this view of morphological indistin-
guishability, the writers are unwilling to declare
general biological identity, although they suspect
it; and acknowledge that such identity, if estab-
SCIENCE
[N. S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
lished, would open the door to need for important
revision of our present ideas in regard to ame@bic
dysentery.
The Production and Detection of Specific Fer.
ments for the Typhoid-coli Group: Grorege H.
SMITH.
The results of the application of the Abderhalden
reaction to the investigation of three important
problems were presented, namely:
1. To what degree does the property of specific-
ity extend among ferments produced in the body
through resistance to infective agents?
2. Which method of administration—intra-
venous, intraperitoneal, or subcutaneous—is the
most effective for immunization?
3. Is there any difference in rapidity of action
between living bacteria, killed bacteria and killed
sensitized bacteria when used for immunization?
As regards specificity of ferments, reference is
made to previous work with Staphyloccus, Strepto-
coccus, Pneumococcus, Micrococcus catarrhalis and
B. influenze in which a complete specificity of fer-
ments was demonstrated. In the present instance
rabbits were immunized against B. coli communis,
B. coli communior, paratyphoid bacillus A, paraty-
phoid bacillus B, and two strains of typhoid ba-
cillus known as the Hopkins and Rawlings strains.
The results of these experiments would indicate that
ferments produced as a result of injections with
the bacteria employed are highly specific.
The experiments with the different methods of
injection, and with living, killed unsensitized and
killed sensitized bacteria were conducted as fol-
lows:
The typhoid bacillus (Rawlings strain) was the
organism employed. Doses of 50 million were
given intravenously, intraperitoneally, and sub-
cutaneously. The animals were bled at stated in-
tervals and the serums tested by the Abderhalden
method for specific ferments.
From this work it appears that the intravenous
method of administration is most rapid in its re-
sults, and the subcutaneous gives the slowest re-
sponse, and that the killed sensitized bacteria are
most potent in inducing a rapid formation of fer-
ment.
In verification of this latter conclusion, subcu-
taneous injections were given, simultaneously, of
killed typhoid and killed paratyphoid B, of killed
typhoid and killed sensitized paratyphoid B, of
sensitized typhoid and killed paratyphoid B, and
killed sensitized paratyphoid B. When killed un-
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
sensitized organisms of both types were injected,
ferments for paratyphoid B appeared in 33 hours,
and for typhoid in 36 hours. When killed unsensi-
tized typhoid and killed sensitized paratyphoid B
were employed specific ferments for paratyphoid
B appeared after 16 hours, and for typhoid after
35 hours. When killed sensitized typhoid and
killed unsensitized paratyphoid B were injected
ferments for typhoid were demonstrable after 17
hours, and for paratyphoid B after 36 hours.
With the final combination in which both types
were sensitized the serums showed specific ferments
for both kinds of bacteria after 18 hours.
The above experiments indicate that previous
treatment of the bacteria with immune serum
renders them more susceptible to assimilation by
the body and thus enables them to bring about a
more rapid formation of the specific ferments
which may be detected by the Abderhalden test.
Recent Studies on Pellagra: J. F. Stuer, P. E.
GARRISON AND W. J. MACNEAL.
The theory that pellagra is due to the ingestion
of maize or maize products, either good or spoiled,
is wholly inadequate to explain the distribution of
the disease actually observed in Spartanburg
County, 8. C. :
The conception that pellagra is a specific infec-
tious disease in some way transmissible from per-
son to person is strongly supported by our obser-
vations. The higher incidence of pellagra in the
more populous districts and its occurrence in defi-
nite foci are in accord with this view. Definite
tendency to self-limitation of the attack of pel-
lagra without specific treatment and without
change in diet is very evident in many cases, and
especially so in children.
The manner of origin of pellagra in its endemic
foci from year to year indicates that the disease
spreads from old cases as centers and that it is,
as a rule, transmitted through relatively short dis-
tances, within the same house or to the house next
door. The disease spreads most rapidly in com-
munities. without efficient provisions for sewage
disposal and spreads hardly at all in communities
with sanitary sewer systems.
We have been unable to produce a recognizable
attack of pellagra in any experimental animal,
nor have we as yet recognized the specific infec-
tious agent of the disease.
The Schick Toxin Reaction for Immunity in Diph-
theria: JOHN A. KOLMER AND Emity L. Mosu-
AGE,
Schick has proposed a simple clinical test for
immunity to diphtheria consisting in the intracu-
SCIENCE
300
taneous injection of 1/50th the minimal lethal
dose of toxin for a guinea-pig. If there is less
than 1/30th of a unit of antitoxin in each cubic
centimeter of the patient’s serum, the injected
toxin acts as an irritant and produces an inflam-
matory reaction. If 1/30th of a unit or more
antitoxin is present the toxin is neutralized, no
reaction follows and the individual is regarded as
being immune to diphtheria.
The test has been advocated as a means of test-
ing the response of active immunization with
toxin-antitoxin mixtures and to detect susceptibil-
ity to diphtheria.
The objects of this study were as follows:
1. To apply the toxin skin test to a large num-
ber of apparently normal persons to determine
susceptibility to diphtheria at different ages.
2. To determine quantitatively the antitoxin
content of the blood serum of persons reacting
positively, slightly positively, doubtfully and neg-
atively in order to further study the toxin test
under conditions where the quantity of antitoxin
in the blood is known.
3. To study the degree and duration of im-
munity to diphtheria in normal persons following
an injection of diphtheria antitoxin.
4. To study the degree and duration of im-
munity among persons suffering with scarlet fever
and receiving an injection of diphtheria antitoxin.
5. To study immunity during and following an
attack of diphtheria.
6. To study the practical value of the toxin skin
test in determining which persons should be im-
munized with antitoxin when exposed to diph-
theria.
I. In all 1,265 inoculations were made. Of
these 447 were among persons most of whom
were healthy and well; a few were suffering with
various chronic diseases and were tested while in
various hospitals in Philadelphia.
The reaction has demonstrated that children be-
tween the ages of one and eight years are most
susceptible to diphtheria.
II. The serums of a number of persons were
tested for antitoxin content with the following
results:
(a) The serums of persons reacting negatively
to the toxin test usually contained at least 1/20th
of a unit of antitoxin per cubic centimeter of
serum.
(b) The serums of persons reacting weakly
positive to the toxin test usually contain from
1/40th to 1/160th of a unit of antitoxin per cubic
centimeter of serum.
356
(c) The serums of persons reacting strongly
positive were found to contain less than 1/30th of
a unit per cubic centimeter of serum and fre-
quently none at all could be detected.
These results corroborate those of Schick, Park
and Zingher.
III. The duration of passive immunity to diph-
theria was studied in 106 persons by applying the
toxin skin test at varying intervals after the ad-
ministration of 1,250 units of antitoxin subcu-
taneously.
The immunity conferred was apparently efficient
for ten days; after this interval antitoxin rapidly
disappeared, so that after four to six weeks the
immunity may be regarded as having entirely dis-
appeared.
IV. The toxin skin test was applied to 362 per-
sons in the various stages of scarlet fever and at
varying intervals of time following the subcutane-
ous injection of 2,500 units of antitoxin to study
the duration of passive immunity in scarlet fever.
It was found that in scarlet fever passive im-
munity following an injection of diphtheria anti-
toxin is of shorter duration than that induced
among normal children in that 10 per cent. of the
former are susceptible within ten days after re-
ceiving antitoxin.
V. The toxin test was also applied to 350 per-
sons, mostly children, suffering with diphtheria
and receiving from 10,000 to 100,000 units of anti-
toxin by subcutaneous injection. The high percent-
age of positive reactions during the first ten days
of the disease and after large doses of antitoxin
was quite surprising. As a general rule these oc-
eurred among children with severe infections. It
was also found that patients were in general just
as susceptible after an attack of diphtheria as be-
fore; in other words, it would appear that the body
cells produce little or no homologous antitoxin and
the immune antitoxin is soon eliminated.
VI. Practical experience with a small epidemic
of diphtheria has increased our confidence in the
toxin test as a means of detecting persons suscept-
ible to diphtheria. The chief practical value and
application of this test is the detection of non-
immune individuals and immunizing those only
instead of all persons indiscriminately. The reac-
tion has a special field of usefulness in hospitals
and wards for the care of children.
While cultures were made of a large number of
the persons tested, there was found no constant re-
lation between the occurrence of diphtheria bacilli
in the upper air passages and the toxin test.
SCIENCE
[N. S. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
The Mechanism of Abderhalden Reaction: J,
BRONFENBRENNER.
When the placenta and serum of a pregnant indi-
vidual are placed on ice, instead of the thermostat,
the Ninhydrin reaction substances do not appear
in dialysate. The analysis of the ingredients, how-
ever, shows that both the serum and placenta
underwent changes—namely, placenta was sensi-
tized by fixing upon itself the specific substances
from the serum, and the serum was exhausted of
its specific substances. Such a serum, moreover,
when separated from placenta and transferred to
37° shows gradual deterioration of its comple-
ment, and parallel with it, the increase of dialyz-
able Ninhydrin reacting substances as the incuba-
' tion at 37° goes on. Similar tendency to apparent
autodigestion can be produced also in any normal
serum by placing it for a certain time in contact
with sensitized placenta (but not with normal
placenta). The absorption by the placenta of
specific constituents of pregnant serum is not due
to a mechanical absorption, but is strictly specific,
at least within certain quantitative limits.
The action of this specific union between the
substratum and specific constituents of the serum
upon the residue of the serum is such that the
normal antitrypsin of the serum is inactivated (or
absorbed) and the normal proteolytic ferment is
set free. The action of this non-specific ferment
upon the residue of the serum is responsible for
the appearance of dialyzable substances. This ac-
tion of the ferment upon the serum can be ar-
rested in the Abderhalden test by the addition of
any substance acting as antitrypsin, as, for in-
stance, the serum albumen or serum lipoids, both
in the pure form and in the form of excess of
whole normal serum. The products of such auto-
digestion of the serum are toxic to homologous
animals, and their appearance can be made evi-
dent by the biological tests (anaphylaxis).1
Do Bacteria Produce Pyrogenic Poisons? D. H.
BerGcey, M.D.
It is believed that the pyrogenic substances act
by (a) the stimulation of the heat-producing cen-
ters, or, (0) the inhibition of heat dissipation
through conduction, radiation and evaporation, or
(c) by the combination of these two processes.
It is well known that the injection of animals
with distilled water, or with sterile bouillon leads
to fever production. Hence it was thought prob-
able that it might be possible to show the presence
of fever-producing poisons in a filtered bouillon
1 The protocols will appear in one of the follow-
ing numbers of the J. of Exper. Med.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
culture of Bacillus typhosus, if the filtrate pro-
duced a uniformly higher degree of febrile reac-
tion than did the sterile bouillon, before bacteria
had been grown in it.
It was also thought possible that the presence of
fever-producing substances in the culture filtrate
could be demonstrated by treating animals for
some time with these filtrates and then using -the
serum of these animals to inhibit the fever pro-
duction in normal animals by injecting serum and
filtrate at the same time.
It was soon determined that the serum even of
normal animals of the same species injected into
healthy animals in itself caused a febrile reaction.
It was not possible to demonstrate definitely that
typhoid bacillus produces soluble toxin which is
responsible for the febrile reaction in typhoid
fever.
It seems more probable that the febrile reaction
is due to substances liberated from the tissue cells
under the influence of the organisms.
How Bacterial Vaccines Act: E. C. L. MILuEr, M.D.
The protein of the dead germ bodies contained
in ordinary bacterial vaccines probably produces
specific immunity. The degree of this immunity is
probably slight and the question is raised whether
the immunity measures the entire therapeutic value
of the vaccine. The fact that well-washed bacteria
have much less tendency to cause a reaction is taken
as evidence that besides the dead germs there are
reaction-producing or pyrogenetic substances in
the vaccines. The fact that bacterial vaccines must
usually be administered in doses that produce some
reaction is taken as indicating that the pyrogenetic
substances have some part in the improvement.
One way in which they may aid is in making the
immunity effective and this may be either by focal
or general reactions. It is suggested that the ex-
istence of these two constituents in bacterial vac-
cines should be more generally recognized so that
they may be used separately or together, as may be
indicated.
A Contribution to the Pathogenesis of the Avian
Tubercle Bacterium: L. R. HIMMELBERGER AND
L, A. MosHER.
The communication deals with the pathogenic
effects of living cultures of avian tubercle bacteria
on rabbits. The problem was undertaken to study
the type of tuberculosis, whether generalized or
localized, produced by intravenous injection of
living bacteria of the avian type.
The work presented in the communication in-
volves the results obtained by intravenous injec-
tion of thirty animals. With but one exception all
SCIENCE 357
developed a generalized tuberculosis, usually termi-
nating fatally in from twenty to one hundred days.
In classifying the type of disease produced, the
nature and distribution of the lesions and the
course of the disease in the animal were the eri-
teria used.
In view of the results obtained the authors de-
sire to suggest that the use of avian cultures in
cattle immunization is unsafe both from an eco-
nomic and public-health point of view. From the
economic standpoint great danger of infecting by
vaccination exists since the senior author? has
previously shown that calves can be infected by
tubercular material from avian sources. From the
public health point of view it is reasonable to sup-
pose that the avian type of organism would prove
equally as pathogenic for humans as the bovine
type.
Reciprocal Relations of Virulent and Avirulent
Cultures in Active Immunization: Putmir B.
HADLEY.
This paper presented data to show that among
seventeen non-virulent strains of the fowl cholera
organism only one (Culture 52) possessed an im-
munizing value, but that the immunizing value of
this one was perfect, in so far as inoculatien with
rabbits with 0.000,000,01 ¢.c. produced permanent
active immunity against the most virulent strain
obtainable. When tested against other virulent
strains, Culture 52 protected in many cases, but
the point was especially emphasized that in all
eases in which Culture 52 alone failed to protect,
perfect immunity was developed through inocula-
tion with Culture 52, followed, after an appropriate
time, by inoculation with Culture 48. By the use
of one or the other method, rabbits may now for
the first time be permanently protected against
any virulent strain of the fowl cholera bacterium
yet obtained.
These experimental results were used as the basis
for more general observations.
1. On the possibility of more efficient active im-
munization in many communicable diseases by dis-
covery of what may be termed ‘‘Immunizing
strains.’’
2. On the varied physiological characteristics
which may be possessed by microorganisms mani-
festing identical morphological, cultural and bio-
chemical features.
3. On the heretofore unconfirmed experiments
of Pasteur regarding the possibility of immuniza-
tion against fowl cholera by means of non-virulent
cultural material.
2 Cent. f. Bakt. Erst. Ab., Bd. 73.
358
Symposium with Section K, A. A. A. 8.
Ventilation
Under the supervision of C.-E. A. Winslow
Ventilation in Its Relation to Air-borne Diseases:
Dr. A, C. ABBOTT.
In several hospitals for the care of contagious
diseases in England, France, and in one in partic-
ular in this country, it has been conclusively dem-
onstrated that certain of the so-called ‘‘air-borne’’
diseases of different natures may be treated side
by side in the same ward without fear of greater
transmission than commonly occurs when they are
treated in separate wards. Obviously such observa-
tions justify grave doubts of the aerial conveyance
of disease.
Though we do not know the causative agents of
the majority of the so-called ‘‘air-borne’’ diseases,
yet presumably they are particulate and never
gaseous in nature. Therefore, they behave in the
air, when they get there, just as do other sus-
pended particles.
From information obtained through the study of
another phase of the subject we know that a num-
ber of diseases may be conveyed through the air,
but here it is always through the agency of insects
acting as vectors or as hosts for the infective para-
sites. This, obviously, has more to do with wire
screens than with ventilation.
In the light of the foregoing, I do not believe
that ventilation has anything whatever to do with
either the transmission of the so-called ‘‘air-
borne’’ diseases, or the lessening of their trans-
mission, and I am further of the opinion that
transmission by way of the air, strictly speaking,
is of infinitely less importance than transmission
by animate and inanimate carriers that have been
in intimate contact with the patient.
Some Fundamental Physical Factors in the Prob-
lem of the Control of Atmospheric Environment:
E. B,. PHELPS.
The physical problem of heat dissipation from
the body is conditioned externally by four prime
factors; temperature, humidity, velocity of air
movement and radiation. Experimental determi-
nation of the mutual relationship and individual
influence of the first three of these is reported.
A simple air conditioning apparatus furnished
the experimental air at temperatures of 8° to 40°
C., relative humidities 30 per cent. to 90 per cent.
saturation and velocities up to 250 em. per second.
The heat loss was determined from a continuously
moist skin surface exposed to these various air
conditions. The surface formed the only exposed
portion of a calorimeter in which accurate thermo-
SCIENCE
[N. 8. Vou. XLIL. No. 1080
control was provided, the actual heat lost being
compensated electrically and determined by noting
the volume of gas produced electrolytically by the
passage of the same heating current through di-
lute sulphuric acid. The results between 20° and
40° are expressed by the following equation:
¢, v[.0072 (46.7 — p) + .00294(37 —t)].
¢, is the heat loss in calories per minute per
sq. centimeter.
v, the velocity of movement in centimeters per
second.
p, the absolute humidity in milligrams per
liter, and
t, the temperature Centigrade.
Below 20° « complicating humidity relation was
developed and at lower temperatures this relation
reversed the one found above, so that increasing
humidity brought about increasing heat loss,
This latter relation has not yet been formulated.
Standards of Ventilation in the Light of Recent
Research: C.-E. A. WINSLOW.
The investigations of the New York State Com-
mission on Ventilation have indicated that even
quite extreme conditions of heat and humidity
(86° with 80 per cent. relative humidity) have no
measurable effect upon the rate of respiration;
dead space in the lungs; acidosis of the blood;
respiratory quotient; rate of digestion and rate of
heat production (both measured by oxygen con-
sumption); protein metabolism (measured by de-
termination of creatinine in the urine) or skin
sensitivity.
On the other hand, the working of the circula-
tory and heat-regulating machinery of the body
was markedly influenced by even a slight increase
in room temperature, as, for example, from 68° to
75° with 50 per cent. relative humidity in both
cases. In a hot room (86°—80 per cent. relative
humidity) the rectal body temperature usually
rose during the period of observation; in a warm
room (75°—50 per cent. relative humidity) it re-
mained on the whole about constant; in a cool
room (68°—50 per cent. relative humidity) it fell.
The average body temperatures attained under
these three-room conditions were 37.41‘, 36.99°
and 37.73°, respectively. The increase of heart rate
on passing from a reclining to a standing posi-
tion became greater by an average of 7 beats dur-
ing a sojourn in the hot room, while it became less
by an average of 3 beats in the warm room and by
an average of 7 beats in the cool room.
Elaborate psychological tests failed entirely to
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915]
show any effect of even the severe 86°—80 per
cent. relative humidity conditions upon the power
to do mental work under the pressure of a maxi-
mum efficiency test.
The results with physical work (lifting dumb
bells and riding a stationary bicycle) were much
more definite. Again maximum effort tests showed
no appreciable influence of room temperature but
when the subjects had a choice they accomplished
15 per cent. less work at 75° and 37 per cent. less
at 86° than at 68°.
As to the effect of stagnant air contaminated
by a group of subjects so as to contain an average
of from 20 to 60 parts of carbon dioxide per 10,000
the observations of the commission are entirely
negative so far as the physiological and psycho-
logical and efficiency tests above mentioned are con-
cerned. In certain experiments the appetite of the
subjects as measured. by the amount of food con-
sumed when a standard luncheon is served to them
seemed to be reduced in the stagnant air.
Recent research has, on the whole, strengthened
rather than weakened the arguments for ventila-
tion. It has shown, however, that the physical
quality of the air as well as the amount should be
_ considered. Temperature standards must come
into more general use, and a rise above 70° must
be recognized as a sign that discomfort is being
produced and efficiency decreased and vitality low-
ered.
Symposium with Sections C and K, A. A. A. 8.
The Lower Organisms in Relation to Man’s
Welfare
Under the supervision of John Johnson.
Theories of Fermentation: C. L, ALSBERG.
There are two types of theories of fermentation.
One deals with the mechanism by which the sub-
stance fermented is converted into the end prod-
ucts of fermentation. The other deals with the
physiological role which fermentation plays in the
life of the fermentation organism. The latter only
was considered in the paper.
The great question which has always confronted
the investigator in judging the physiological sig-
nificance of fermentation is the diffieulty of ex-
plaining why enormous quantities of material are
attacked by a relatively small mass of fermenta-
tion organisms. Until recently most investigators
have looked at this question only from the point
of view of matter, and not from the point of view
of energy.
In the present paper it is suggested that fer-
mentation is nothing other than the expression of
SCIENCE 309
the metabolism of energy of a microorganism.
In the case of microorganisms in which the surface
as compared with the mass is very great, the energy
requirements must of necessity be enormous.
Moreover, microorganisms live in a liquid medium
which is an excellent conductor of heat. There-
fore, the radiation losses of microorganisms must
be excessive. Taking these factors into considera-
tion it is easy to understand why a small mass of
organisms converts a relatively large mass of mate-
rial in its effort to satisfy the energy requirements
of its protoplasm.
The Bacteria of the Intestinal Tract of Man: A. I.
KENDALL.
It has been stated that the average healthy
adult on a normal mixed diet excretes daily in the
feces a number of bacteria, which have been vari-
ously estimated from 128 billion to 33 trillion.
It is very certain that this number of bacteria is
not taken in the food, and, furthermore, the fecal
organisms are not necessarily the same as those
found in the food. Hence the conclusion is reached
that there must be a very great daily proliferation
of bacteria in the intestinal tract.
The question naturally presents itself, why is .
there such a tremendous growth of bacteria daily,
and why is it that the bacteria taken in with the
food are not those which appear in the fecal con-
tents? A rapid survey of the life history of the
intestinal bacteria will explain at least some of
the facts. At birth the intestinal content, the
meconium, is sterile. Very shortly after birth bac-
teria make their appearance in the mouth of the
new born, and organisms appear in the meconium
from four to twenty hours post partum, depending
upon environmental conditions. This is a period
of mixed infection, and the number of organisms
in the meconium increases rapidly after the first
food enters the intestinal tract. After two to three
days post partum, when the intestinal tract has be-
come thoroughly permeated with milk, the organ-
isms observed in the feces—for the meconium has
largely disappeared by this time—begin to assume
a monotony of form and a regularity of type,
which contrasts sharply with the preceding period
of mixed infection.
The types of bacteria which constitute the nor-
mal fecal flora of the nursling are few in number
and definite in their chemical characters. The most
prominent of these, B. bifidus, so-called because of
its developmental peculiarities in artificial media,
is a strict anaerobe.
B. bifidus is an organism which does not thrive
in artificial media in the absence of sugars, and it
1 ee aR emt
*
360
is not surprising to find, therefore, that as the
breast-fed infant becomes older and its dietary de-
mands more varied, B. bifidus tends to disappear
from the fecal mass. In the case of bottle-fed
babies, this disappearance practically coincides
with the substitution of cow’s milk for human
milk. The decrease in the typical nursling organ-
isms is accompanied by an increase in the numbers
of B. coli which then dominate the intestinal tract
and form about 80 per cent., roughly, of the total
living fecal organisms of adolescence, and which
persist in this proportion in normal individuals
until death.
B. coli differs from B. bifidus in one noteworthy
respect. B. coli can grow equally well in media
containing protein and utilizable carbohydrate, or
in media from which utilizable carbohydrates are
excluded. It can accommodate its metabolism to
the varying foods presented to it in the intestinal
contents. This plasticity of the colon bacillus and
its ability to develop in the average intestinal con-
tents, explains in a satisfactory manner the domi-
nance of this organism throughout life.
Turning now to the distribution of bacteria in
the intestinal tract of the normal adult, it is found
that the stomach contents are practically sterile
under normal conditions. When the hydrochloric
acid acidity of the stomach contents becomes
diminished through disease, it is found that the
numbers of bacteria in the stomach contents may
increase greatly. The duodenum also during those
periods when it is empty is practically sterile.
The bacteria population increases as duodenal di-
gestion increases, and diminishes as the duodenal
contents are passed on to the lower levels.
The greatest number of living bacteria is found
in the region of the ileocecal valve and the ascend-
ing branch of the colon. Here the contents stag-
nate, as it were, and they eventually become so
desiccated through the withdrawal of water that
bacterial life is retarded.
The significance of the intestinal flora has been
variously interpreted. Nuttall and Thierfelder
delivered guinea-pigs by Cwsarean section and
attempted to raise them in a sterile environment
on sterile food. For two weeks these sterile guinea-
pigs increased in weight and appeared to be rea-
sonably healthy. These observers drew the con-
clusion that the intestinal bacteria were not neces-
sary for the well-being of these guinea-pigs at
least. These experiments were not accepted by
Schottelius as being conclusive. He claimed that
the experiments were not carried on long enough.
Schottelius experimented with chicks hatched from
SCIENCE
[N. 8. Vou. XLII. No. 1080
sterile eggs divided into three groups. These
were incubated under sterile conditions, and the
chicks developing from one group were kept in an
absolutely sterile environment and fed on sterile
food; a second group were kept under the same
conditions for ten days and then fed with jn-
fected food; the third group were controls and
were kept under ordinary conditions. The first
group, the sterile chicks, did well for ten days, but
after that time their development was seriously re-
tarded. The second group also did well for ten
days, and then, as the first group began to exhibit
signs of abnormalities, they were placed on in-
fected food: they gained rapidly. The third
group, kept under ordinary conditions, did well
from the start. Schottelius believed that his ex-
periments showed that the intestinal bacteria were
necessary for the development and well-being of
chicks.
Madame Metchnikoff made similar observa-
tions on tadpoles, and Moro performed the same
experiments with turtles. These observers agree
with Schottelius that the intestinal flora appear to
be necessary for the well-being of the animals they
experimented on.
A line of evidence which is somewhat different
from this was brought forward by Levin. He ex-
amined the fecal contents of many Arctic mammals
in the Arctic regions, and he found few or no bac-
teria in them.
Attempts have been made to sterilize the intes-
tinal contents of man, either by administering ster-
ile food or by the use of antiseptics, but this line
of experimentation has not been successful.
From the individual point of view the intestinal
flora under ordinary conditions are innocuous, and
perhaps even to a moderate degree protective. But
under abnormal conditions, when progressively
pathogenic bacteria gain a foothold in the intestinal
tract, the intestinal flora may become a menace to
health and may become a matter of real concern
to the health of communities.
The General Mechanism of the Action of Fer-
ments—Enzyme Action: C. 8. Hupson.
A discussion of the chemical changes involved
in the action of enzymes.
Use of Bacteria in the Treatment of Textile
Fibers: F, P. GorHam.
Microorganisms in Their Application to Agricul-
ture: C. E. MARSHALL.’
Professor Marshall’s complete paper has been
published in ScrENCE.
A. PARKER HITCHENS,
Secretary
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11