the Antivivisection Society, that the duty of deciding as to the grant of certificates was not satisfactorily discharged, was disgraceful. Sir Watson next referred to the principle arguments raised against experiments on dogs. It was said that if there was anything of value to be learned it could be obtained by observations on patients and by post-mortem examination. As an illustration how wrong that opinion was, Sir Watson spoke of the situation which occurred when the Germans first used gas. Personally, he was much alarmed, for if the enemy had gas enough, it seemed to him they could easily destroy whole armies. How was that risk to be dealt with? Were the authorities to sit down and wait while the doctors watched gassed men and waited for a postmortem examination? Had experiments on dogs not been made much valuable time would have been wasted and many lives would have been lost. But certain experiments on animals dogs and goats were made and complete protection was quickly found against the gas. The history of medicine was full of instances of prolonged observations of patients and of post-mortem examination, without result.

Yet results had been achieved almost at once by experiments on animals. In conclusion, he urged that at a time when health bills had just been placed on the Statute Book the sensible thing to do would be to sweep away restrictions instead of imposing fresh

ones.

Sir Philip Magnus, in seconding the amendment, said that by the rejection of this bill Parliament would show its appreciation of the efforts that had been made by scientific men through researches to prevent and cure diseases. The bill was inconclusive and contradictory. For example, it appeared, as he read the first clause of the bill, that if some eminent surgeon desired to perform an experiment on a dog, which would relieve it of great pain and possibly save its life, he could not perform this experiment, however urgent, without a certificate from the Home Office. After further discussion in favor of and against the bill, it was defeated by a vote of 101 to 62.

A BILL FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

HONORABLE JOSEPH I. FRANCE, U. S. Senator from Maryland and chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine, introduced on July 17, Senate Bill 2,507 creating a department of public health. The bill follows the general plan of the Owen Bill, with some important modifications.

According to the summary in the Journal of the American Medical Association it provides for a department of public health under the direction of a secretary, who shall be a member of the cabinet, and for three assistant secretaries, the first assistant to be a man trained in medical science, public health and sanitation; the second to be an expert in vital statistics, and the third to be a woman trained in medicine or nursing and public health. The U. S. Public Health Service and the Bureau of Chemistry are to be transferred to the new department, which is also to have bureaus on vital statistics, sanitation, hospitals, child and school hygiene, quarantine, food and drugs, nursing, tuberculosis and personnel. The secretary of public health is directed to communicate with the governor of each state requesting him to recommend to the legislature suitable legislation with adequate appropriations to secure cooperation between the federal department of public health and the state board of health. Every state taking such action is to be entitled to its proportionate share of such funds as may be appropriated by Congress for carrying out the provisions of the act. The secretary of public health is also directed to divide the United States into health states, districts, subdivisions and precincts, each conforming to the geographical boundaries of the various political divisions. Each state is to create a state board of health with a state health officer and a health officer for each district, subdivision and precinct, the secretary of public health to appoint these state officers as federal health officers "so that in each cooperating state every health officer of said state or of each district, county or precinct therein is by virtue of his selection by the

local authorities become also a federalized officer and as such an integral part of the Department of Public Health." The Department of Public Health is directed to cooperate with the Departments of Commerce, Labor and the Interior in the collection of vital statistics and to establish a uniform system of cards, records and reports regarding diseases, disabilities, industrial accidents, births, deaths, physical condition of school children, the number and condition of existing hospitals, etc. The bill provides for the appropriation of $15,000,000 for 1920 to be prorated among the states in proportion to their population as soon as the states comply with the provisions of the law and the regulations of the secretary of public health, provided that each cooperating state must contribute to the public health work a sum equal to that contributed by the federal government and that it must make full and complete reports of births, deaths and morbidity. It also appropriates $48,000,000 for the construction of sanatoriums and hospitals, this sum to be distributed among the states in proportion to their population, each state receiving its allotment to provide an equal amount, also location, plans and means of future support for the proposed hospital.

THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL

RESEARCH

THE Board of Scientific Directors of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research announces the following promotions and appointments:

Dr. Harold L. Amoss, hitherto an associate in pathology and bacteriology, has been made an associate member.

Dr. Oswald T. Avery, hitherto an associate in medicine, has been made an associate member.

The following have been made assistants: Miss Clara J. Lynch (pathology and bacteriology). Dr. Waro Nakahara (pathology and bacteriology). The following new appointments are announced:

Dr. Homer F. Swift, associate member in medicine. Dr. Francis G. Blake, associate in medicine.

Dr. Raymond G. Hussey, associate in pathology and bacteriology.

Dr. J. Harold Austin, assistant in medicine and assistant resident physician.

Dr. Albert H. Ebeling, assistant in experimental surgery.

Dr. Ferdinand H. Haessler, assistant in pathology and bacteriology.

Dr. Thorsten Ingvaldsen, assistant in chemistry. Dr. Charles W. Barrier, fellow in pathology and bacteriology.

Dr. J. Jay Keegan, fellow in pathology and bacteriology.

Dr. Philip D. McMaster, fellow in pathology and bacteriology.

Dr. Alphonse R. Dochez, hitherto an associate member in medicine, has accepted an appointment as associate professor of medicine in the medical department of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Arthur L. Meyer, hitherto an associate in physiology and pharmacology, has accepted an appointment as associate in physiology in the school of hygiene and public health, Johns Hopkins University.

THE RAMSAY MEMORIAL

Ar a meeting of subscribers of the Ramsay Memorial Fund held at University College, London, the committee submitted a report showing that £43,000 in cash was already in hand, and £70,000 was in view, so that £100,000 aimed at was within realization. The sum already collected is probably the largest which has ever been raised in honor of any man of science, however distinguished. Sir Hugh Bell explained the views of the committee with regard to the application of the money, and after hearing him the meeting agreed to the following resolution:

1. That a sum of £25,000 be definitely allotted to the senate of the University of London towards the provision of a laboratory of chemical engineering at University College, London, on the site proposed in close proximity to the existing engineering buildings.

2. That the executive committee be empowered to employ the balance of the fund already subscribed, and all future donations to be received, to the foundation of Ramsay Memorial Fellowships to the number of three or to such smaller number as they may deem expedi

3. That if and when the amount of the fund exceeds the sum required for giving effect to resolutions (1) and (2) the division of such further sum between the augmentation of the sum allotted for the chemical engineering laboratory and the augmentation of the number of available fellowships be referred to the executive committee for decision.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

DR. JOHN CAMPBELL MERRIAM, professor of paleontology and historical geology in the University of California, who has been acting chairman of the National Council of Research, was elected president of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Pasadena meeting.

On the occasion of the seventieth birthday of Sir William Osler, regius professor at Oxford University and previously professor in the Johns Hopkins University, which occurred on July 12, he was presented by Sir Clifford Allbutt with a collection of essays contributed by about one hundred of his pupils and colleagues.

DR. F. G. COTTRELL, chief metallurgist of the Bureau of Mines, has been named assistant director in charge of all investigative and scientific work and J. E. Spurr, chief of investigative work in connection with relief claims has resigned to become editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal of New York.

Ar its recent commencement the University of Maine conferred the degree of LL.D. upon Dr. Raymond Pearl, of Johns Hopkins University.

MAJOR WILLIAM BOWIE, chief of the Division of Geodesy, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, received the degree of doctor of science at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, on June 23, Major Bowie sailed from New York on July 5 to attend as a delegate from the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, the conference of the International

SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND, known for his works on Asia and Africa, has been elected president of the Royal Geographical Society to succeed Sir Thomas Holdrich.

MR. L. G. RADCLIFFE, of the Municipal College of Technology, Manchester, has been awarded the gold medal of the Worshipful Company of Dyers, London, for his researches on the sulphonation of fixed oils.

A RAMSAY Memorial Fellowship has been awarded to Elrid G. Young, M.Sc., of McGill University. These fellowships are of the value of $1,500, and are given to the students for ability in research to enable them to continue their work in one of the British universities.

Ir is reported in Nature that in reply to a question in the House of Commons on July 8, it was stated that the appointment of Major C. E. Mendenhall, professor of physics in the University of Wisconsin, as scientific attaché to the United States Embassy has been notified to the Foreign Office by the United States Ambassador. No steps have as yet been taken to appoint a scientific attaché to Washington. The appointment of Professor Mendenhall was a war measure and it has yet to be decided whether the post will be made permanent.

CAPTAIN EBSON Y. TITUS has been appointed assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin. Captain Titus received his doctorate at Wisconsin in 1917. Shortly thereafter he entered military service and became gas officer of the Sixth Division in France. In November, 1918, he returned to the United States and was detailed to the Ordnance Department and was made chief chemist for Nitrate Plant No. 1 at Sheffield, Alabama.

DR. ISAAC F. HARRIS, head of the department of biochemistry of E. R. Squibb and Sons, has moved from the laboratories at New Brunswick, New Jersey, to the offices of this company in New York. During the last years of the war, Dr. Harris constructed and equipped a factory at New Brunswick for the manufacture of the chlorinated derivatives of toluolchloramine-T and dichloramine-T, which were

so extensively employed as antiseptics by the allied forces, according to the methods of Drs. Alexis Carrel and H. D. Dakin.

DR. AUSTIN M. PATTERSON, who for the past fourteen months has been connected with the editorial section of the American University Experiment Station, Chemical Warfare Service, has returned to his home at Xenia, Ohio. LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN AMYOT, professor of hygiene and preventive medicine in the University of Toronto, who has been overseas for three or four years as sanitary officer to one of the Canadian divisions, has been appointed deputy minister of the newly created federal department of public health at Ottawa. PROFESSOR WOOLNOUGH has been granted five months' leave of absence by the senate of the Western Australian University to visit England and place the claims of the western state before Messrs. Brunner, Mond, and Co., as the most suitable site in Australia upon which to establish the alkali industry.

DR. S. BURT WOLBACH, of Harvard University, who has been in Mexico to make certain studies on typhus fever, has returned to the United States.

T. D. BECKWITH, professor of bacteriology at the Oregon Agricultural College, has been granted a leave of absence for one year. He expects to study at the University of California.

DR. EDWARD COWLES, a distinguished chemist, long superintendent of the McLean Hospital and professor of mental diseases in the Dartmouth Medical School, died at Plymouth, on June 25, in his eighty-third year.

ADRIAN J. BROWN, professor of the fermentation industries at the University of Birmingham, known for his contributions to biological chemistry especially in its applications to brewing, died on July 2, at the age of sixtysix years.

SIR WILLIAM MCGREGOR, a well known English colonial governor, who made important contributions to ethnology when stationed at New Guinea, has died at the age of seventytwo years.

DR. NIKOLAS BEREND, a member of the faculty of the University of Budapest and widely known as an authority on children's diseases, was killed recently during an attempt to overthrow the Soviet government in Budapest.

THE first National Congress of the Manufacturing Chemists of Italy is to convene at Milan in October with an exhibition annex.

THE London Times states that members of the International Hydrographic Conference visited the Admiralty Compass Department at Ditton Park, Datchet, where all work connected with the receipt, issue and testing, etc., of compasses, both magnetic and gyroscopic, for the Navy and Air Force is carried out at the Observatory, and branches have recently been formed for experiments and research work on compasses and optical instruments. The guests were received by Captain Creagh Osborne, director of the observatory, and after luncheon split up into parties and members of the staff explained the instruments and their utility. During the war as many as 1,500 aeroplane compasses have been turned out in a week at the observatory, and at times as many as 7,000 have been received from oversea and from the country for repair.

Nature states that having held its meetings at Taunton during the period of the war, the Somersetshire Archeological and Natural History Society had hoped to hold its seventy-first annual meeting and excursions away from headquarters, but this has been found impossible owing to the difficulty of hotel accommodation. However, long excursions will be taken into Devon on this occasion, viz., to Hembury Fort, Cadhay House (1545-87), and Ottery St. Mary Church on July 30, and to Exeter on July 31. The annual meeting will be held at Taunton on July 29 under the presidency of Mr. Henry Balfour, curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, and pastpresident of the Royal Anthropological Institute. The subject of his presidential address was "The doctrines of General Pitt Rivers and their influence." The society now consists of between 900 and 1,000 members, and owns a

large library and the Somerset County Museum at Taunton Castle.

THE psychological laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University has been granted the sum of $6,000 "for investigating the informational and educative effect upon the public of certain motion picture films used in various campaigns for the control, repression and elimination of venereal disease."

To increase its capacity for the production of anti-pneumonia serum, the laboratory in charge of Dr. Preston Kyes, professor of preventive medicine at the University of Chicago, is to be enlarged at a cost of five thousand dollars.

THROUGH the generosity of Colonel Walter Scott, of New York, the library of the department of zoology at Smith College has received a complete set of the great Belgium entomological work Wytsman's "Genera Insectorum."

DR. WILLIAM ALLEN STURGE bequeathed his large collection of prehistoric objects of stone, bone and horn to the British Museum.

Nature states that it is proposed to establish an institute of commercial and industrial psychology and physiology. The announcement is accompanied by a summary of thirty investigations in which the scientific analysis of industrial movements resulted in a notable improvement of output, and reference is also made to the effects of shorter hours and the introduction of rest pauses. Amongst the scientific supporters of the proposals are Sir Walter Fletcher, Mr. W. B. Hardy, Lieutenant Colonel Myers, Professor C. S. Sherrington and Professor E. H. Starling. The secretary is Mr. G. Spiller, 1 Great Tower Street, E.C.3.

THE Geological Survey, of Ottawa, Canada, has sent an expedition to Graham Island, of the Queen Charlotte group in British Columbia, off the west coast of Canada. Mr. Clyde L. Patch is studying and collecting mammals and birds and is giving special attention to the herpetology of the regions. Mr. Harlan I. Smith is continuing his researches into the archeology of the North Pacific coast of America which he began in 1897 on the Jesup North

Pacific expedition by exploration and excavation in this part of the Haida linguistic area. The Haida were undoubtedly the most noted people and most feared warriors of the Pacific coast of North America. They were unsurpassed as canoe builders, carvers and painters. They were noted for their great potlatches and other financial and social customs. Yet the archeology of the Haida area is practically unknown, no intensive exploration or excavation of prehistoric sites having been made in their historic habitat.

"To stimulate interest, promote study and facilitate publication of researches in agricultural history" is the object of the Agricultural History Society which has been organized in Washington. It plans to present in permanent form the history of one of the biggest constructive factors in the history of the United States -agriculture and the influence it has exercised in making this country what it is. The officers are: President-Dr. Rodney H. True, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.; Vice-president-Professor Wm. J. Trimble, Agricultural College, North Dakota; Secretarytreasurer-Lyman Carrier, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.; Members of Executive Committee-Professor R. W. Kelsey, Haverford, Pa., and O. C. Stine, Office of Farm Management, Washington, D. C. Interested persons who pay the dues of one dollar a year are eligible to membership.

A LARGE herd of American buffalo has been purchased by William Clayton, of Wyoming, from W. D. Turner, of Colorado. The herd contains about 225 animals and sold for approximately $40,000. It is the intention of the purchaser to dispose of the buffalo in small groups to public parks and zoological gardens. The herd was started by General Palmer of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who desired to preserve a representative collection of the animals. Mr. Turner later secured the original herd and improved it by introducing new blood from Canadian herds.

THE annual report of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine (the name is to be changed to the Lister Institute of Medical Re