Oral Surg., is chair., includes Drs. W. S. Bainbridge, William Carr, H. Holbrook Curtis, Thomas Darlington, W. C. Dean, Francis Delafield, E. P. Fowler, Wm. J. Gies, S. S. Goldwater, V. H. Jackson, Ernest Lederle, O. V. Limerick, F. P. Miller and H. D. Pease.

FOR UNIFORMITY IN FOOD AND DRUGS LAWs. The Chamber of Commerce, U. S. A., a body composed of repr. from about 600 local boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and trade assoc. throughout the U. S., has taken up the study of uniform food and drug regulation. For this purpose a special commit. was appointed in July; its first meeting was held in Washington, Oct. 8. The commit. is composed of W. M. McCormick, Baltimore; A. J. Porter, Niagara Falls; John A. Green, Cleveland; B. L. Murray, and T. F. Whitmarsh, New York.

OFFICERS AND INVESTIGATORS, SPRAGUE INST. During the year 1914 the following persons have been connected with or have done work under the auspices of the Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Inst.: Director: H. G. Wells. -Members: R. T. Woodyatt, Samuel Amberg, Lydia M. DeWitt, E. A. Graham, H. F. Helmholz, Maud Slye, H. J. Corper, E. J. Witzemann.-Fellows: Kaethe M. Dewey, W. B. McClure, F. W. Gaarde, W. D. Sansum, Grace Meigs, L. W. Sauer, A. B. Schwartz, W. H. O. Hoffmann, G. H. Coleman.Assistants: Hope Sherman, Edith Farrar, Mary E. Maver.-Voluntary associates, recipients of aid from or users of the facilities of the Inst.: Frank Billings, P. S. Chancellor, Harriet F. Holmes, E. F. Hirsch, J. H. Lewis, G. T. Caldwell, H. L. Huber, E. W. Schwartze, J. J. Moore, E. R. Hayhurst, C. R. Spicer.

NEW PROCESSES: GASOLINE, BENZENE, TOLUENE. Sec'y of the Interior Lane has announced the discovery, by Dr. W. F. Rittman (chem. engineer in the Bureau of Mines, working at Columbia Univ.), of two chemical processes, one of which, it is claimed, will greatly increase the supply of gasoline, while the other may make the U. S. independent in regard to materials necessary for the dye industry and the manufacture of high explosives. Application has been made by Dr. Rittman, on behalf of the federal gov., for patents of these processes, in order to prevent monopoly in their use, the patents to be dedicated to the Amer. people.

PROHIBITION. I have been in the actuarial profession for over 20 years, and I have had the opportunity of studying not only the published statistics, but many private investigations. I cannot recall a single class of men or women using alcohol freely but not immoderately at the date of application for insurance, or who had used it in excess formerly and were now temperate, that did not have a higher mortality than the normal. While not a total abstainer, I am convinced that it would be immeasurably better for this, or any other country, to have the production and sale of alcoholic liquors abolished if it were practicable. The advantages claimed for alcohol are a small offset, in my judgment, to the evils which proceed from its use and its abuse. Arthur Hunter (Med. Review of Reviews, 1915, xxi, p. 25).

II. WAR NOTES

Necrology.-Max Brandt, assis., Botan. Museum, BerlinDahlem. Philip Beck, head of the Austrian Army Med. Staff.Hans Halle, assis. plant physiol., Univ. of Munich. Oswald Loeb, docent for pharmacol., Univ of Göttingen.-Franz Marshall, director of the exper. lab., Agric. Inst., Univ. of Halle. Wilhelm Schneider, assis., Agric. Inst., Giessen.-R. Stumpf, docent and first assis., Pathol. Inst., Univ. of Breslau.-Alfred Tournier, formerly prof. of viticulture, Univ. of Cal., later connected with the U. S. Dep't of Agric.

Awards of the Iron Cross. To Walther Nernst, prof- of physics, Univ. of Berlin, who, since the death of his son at the front, has joined the automobile corps. - To Dr. Karl Thomas, of Prof. Rubner's lab., Berlin.

University items. GENERAL. Two thirds of the number of students at Oxford and Cambridge Univ's have enlisted in the British army. Trinity Coll. has been converted into a military hos P

Prof. R. du Bois-Raymond, writing in the Berliner Tageblatt, says that from Berlin Univ. 236 lecturers, nearly half the total number, are in the army, either voluntarily or in obedience to law. The med. faculty furnished 133 men, presumably for the med. service of the army.

Of the 2,069 German students at Tübingen last semester, 1,500 are at the front, and several hundred are in the med. service.

The Harvard Univ. corporation has set aside $100,000 to pay

professors who have been driven from Belgium and may give courses at Harvard Univ. next year.

PERSONAL. The Imperial Soc. of Naturalists, Moscow, has removed the names of Prof's Haeckel and Ostwald from the list of members because they signed the address "To Civilized Nations."

In answer to the manifesto of the "German intellectuals," which is considered as unifying German culture and German militarism, La Société Nationale d'Acclimatisation de France has removed from its list of members all Germans and Austrians.

Among the German scientific men who have affixed their names to a manifesto renouncing the honors conferred upon them by English univ's and other learned institutions are Prof's Ehrlich, v. Behring, Haeckel, Weismann, Wundt, Lenard and Roentgen.

Prof's Waldeyer, Orth and others have added their protest to that of Prof's Foerster and Verworn against the action of Prof's Ehrlich, v. Behring, Roentgen and others, in melting down the medals and renouncing the honors conferred upon them by various scientific bodies in Great Britain.

Honorary DEGREE. The Univ. of Königsberg has bestowed an honorary M.D. upon Gen. v. Hindenburg "for making the Russians take their medicine."

Chemical items. ANILIN DYES. A special commit. of N. Y. chemists, appointed to investigate and report upon conditions and needs involved in the enlargement of the coal-tar dye industry in the U. S., have published their report in the Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem. (Dec., 1914).

DRUGS. The Austrian gov. has prohibited the exportation of hosp. supplies. lab. animals, vaccins, and various drugs and chemicals, including phenol, mercury, iodin, bismuth, strychnin, morphin,

etc.

RADIUM. The European war has, for the present at least, totally closed the European market to Amer. radium ores. As is well known, the uranium ores of Colorado and Utah are sold exclusively for their radium content, so little use being known for uranium that the ores can not be sold for their content of that element. The closure of the European market leaves but one known buyer, so that while the war lasts and probably for some time afterwards, the market will be restricted and without the benefit of competition.

THYMOL. Hitherto thymol has been almost entirely manufactured in Germany, although the ajowan seeds, which are almost the sole source of the oil from which thymol is produced, are grown on a large scale only in India. The cutting off of the supplies of thymol from Germany has increased the price eightfold, and it is even now (Jan. 15) $5 a pound, as against $1.25 before the war. the manufacturing process is quite simple, preparations are now being made to produce the drug in England. A British possession is able to provide a substitute for thymol, carvacrol, obtained from oils derived from a variety of plants, but particularly from the orig

As

anum of Cyprus.

SODIUM VERSUS POTASSIUM SALTS. The probable shortage of potassium salts, due to the war, suggests that sodium salts may in most cases be substituted without disadvantage. In general, potassium salts have no marked superiority over the corresponding sodium salts. While the potassium compounds are said to be more active and to possess a more diuretic effect, the sodium salts are less depressing to the heart and in some instances less disagreeable to the taste. Sodium iodid, sodium bromid, sodium acetate, sodium citrate, etc., are just as effective as the corresponding potassium salts. Miscellaneous items. In consequence of the war, the publication of the British Pharmacopoeia for 1914 has been postponed. The weekly French scientific journal, La Nature, which suspended publication in August, began again on Dec. 12.

The family of Emil du Bois Reymond has donated the Helmholtz gold medal to the relief fund, with the statement that this medal, representing the highest appreciation in his own land of the scientific achievements of du Bois Reymond, is honored more by devoting it to the service of his country than by preserving it.

The Münch. med. Wochenschr. has proposed that a select commit. prepare a list of German equivalents for the names of diseases which have been taken from the Russian, French and English languages; if no satisfactory German names can be found, Latin or Greek to be substituted.

The Rockefeller Inst. for Med. Research has appropriated $20,ooo to be used, under the direction of the Inst., for the furtherance of med. research under war conditions, and is equipping Dr. Carrel's new hosp. in France with apparatus for research along pathol., bacteriol., surg. and chem. lines. Dr. H. D. Dakin is associated with Dr. Carrel in this work.

Dr. C. D. Walcott, sec'y of the Smithsonian Institution, has been informed that the Stazione Zoologica at Naples is in a somewhat serious condition financially, owing to the withdrawal of German support. The Smithsonian Institution maintains a table at the station, which is all it can do under existing conditions. Dr. Walcott's informant suggests that if our univ's would take up some of the vacated tables, it would not only assist the station, but would eventually result in closer cooperation between our scientific men and those of Europe.

III. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BIOCHEMICAL ASSOCIATION 1. General notes

Appointments. Columbia Univ.: Dr. B. S. Oppenheimer, assis. prof. of clin. med., Montefiore Home (promotion). Dr. A. D. Dryfoos, clin. assis., and Dr. H. J. Wiener, assis., in med., Vanderbilt Clinic. Dr. O. C. Pickhardt, assis. in anatomy.-Helene M. Pope, assis. in dietetics (Teach. Coll.); Elizabeth G. Van Horne (Rochester A. and M. Inst.), Caroline Scholar, Sch. of Practical Arts (Teach. Coll.).

Conn. Coll. for Women (New London): Dr. R. C. Osburn (Columbia Univ.), assis. prof. of zool.

Cornell Univ.: Mabel C. Little (N. Y. Polyclin. Med. Sch.), director of the dining rooms and instr. in institutional administration. General Bakelite Co., N. Y.: M. L. Hamlin (Harriman Research Lab.), chemist.

Home for Incurables (Newington, Conn.): R. A. Yergason (Trinity Coll.), pathologist and bacteriologist, and attending surgeon. Marine Biol. Lab. (Woods Hole, Mass.): Dr. Chas. Packard, instr. in zoology (summer, 1915).

N. Y. Botan. Garden: Helene M. Boas (Col. Univ., Barnard Coll.),

assis.

N. Y. City Board of Health: Dr. C. F. Bolduan, director of public health education (promotion); L. J. Hirshleifer (N. Y. State Food Inspec. Lab., N. Y. City), chemist.

Penn. State College: J. P. Kelly, instr. in botany.