vestigations of the metabolism of fishes, conducted in the N. Y. Aquarium and Col. Univ. Biochem. Lab.

West. Penn. Hosp. (Pittsburgh): Dr. Max Kahn, biol. chemist, to succeed Dr. Jacob Rosenbloom, resigned.

FROM THE BODY OF ADVANCED STUDENTS. U. S. Bureau of Mines (Wash.): Gustav Egloff, assis. to Dr. W. F. Rittman, discoverer of a new process for the production of benzene and toluene, and of increased yields of gasoline from crude petroleum. (See page 253.) Univ. of Calif.: Agnes F. Morgan, assis. prof. of nutrition. Appointments to the staff. Katherine R. Coleman (Turck Research Lab.), assis. (Teach. Coll.); research assis. ("P. and S.").Helen C. Coombs, assis. (Teach. Coll.).

Associations and societies. OFFICERS OF THE DEP'T. Amer. Chem. Soc.: Robert Bersohn, Tula L. Harkey and Dr. E. G. Miller, Jr., members.

N. Y. Acad. of Sciences: Dr. V. E. Levine, member. ADVANCED STUDENTS. Amer. Chem. Soc.: O. C. Bowes and Alexander Lowy, members.

Addresses and reports. Amer. Chem. Soc., Phila. Sect., Dec. 17, 14: Dr. Wm. J. Gies, Chemical investigation of the cause and prevention of dental caries.

First Dist. Dental Soc. (N. Y.), Nov. 2, '14: Dr. Wm. J. Gies, Annual report on research in dental chemistry (1) Further study of the effects of acid on natural extracted teeth (with Drs. A. P. Lothrop, H. W. Gillett, C. C. Linton, A. H. Merritt and H. L. Wheeler); (2) Distribution of trypan blue, after injection into living albino rats (with Dr. E. G. Miller, Jr.).

Nu Sigma Nu Alumni Assoc., Yale Club, N. Y., Nov. 24, '14: Dr. Wm. J. Gies, Dental caries.

The Cosmopolitan Clinical Club held its eighth meeting, Dec. 14, '14, at Columbia Univ. [Crocker Lab. (9.30-10.45 a. m.) and "P and S" (11-12.30 p. m.)) and at the Rockefeller Inst. (2.305.00 p. m.). The first meeting at "P and S" was held in this lab. (11-11.30 a. m.), and was addressed by Dr. Gies, by invitation, on Dental caries. (See page 259.)

Miscellaneous items. Dr. E. G. Miller, Jr., has been cooperating (since Jan.) with Drs. Gies and Howe, in the editorial management of the biochem. dep't of Chemical Abstracts.

Dr. Emily C. Seaman has been appointed, by the Commis. on Prison Reform, to investigate the dietary efficiency and conditions of the State Prison of N. Y.; to report on the result of the investigation; and to cooperate with the Commis. in bringing about desirable changes. Dr. Seaman has also been made a member of the Commit. on Social Hygiene of the Nat'l Commit. on Prisons and Prison Labor.

Misses Lucy F. Cooper and Leila J. Wadsworth have been appointed Practical Arts Scholars (Teach. Coll.).

Dr. Gies has been elected a member of the N. Y. Sabbath Commit.; an honorary pres't of the Panama-Pacific Dental Congr., San Francisco, Aug. 30-Sept. 9; member of the Honorary Council of the 14th Internat'l Lord's Day Congr., Oakland, Cal., July 27-Aug. 1; member of the School Lunch Commit., N. Y. Assoc. for Improving the Condition of the Poor; chair. of the sub-commit. of the Advisory Council, N. Y. Board of Health, to deal with the problem of the shipment of fat into N. Y. City; member of a commit. of N. Y. physicians, surgeons and dentists which petitioned Congress to revoke the war tax on dentifrices (p. 252).

EDITORIALS

WILLIAM J. GIES

In our last preceding issue we apologized to our subscribers for the unavoidable delay which had characterized the issuance of the successive numbers of the BIOCHEMICAL BULFurther delay in LETIN, from the beginning of its career. When the issue of the Biochemical Bulletin that apology was written we intended to begin Vol. IV with the January issue. Further difficulties connected with the printing of this number, and the ensuing delay, induced us, on Mar. 15, to send to the subscribers the following announcement:

The number of the BIOCHEMICAL BULLETIN now in press is the largest ever issued. It greatly exceeded our expectations in difficulties attending its printing and its size, and unavoidable delay in its publication has ensued. Instead of making this number the January issue, as we intended to do, it will be credited to March and the four parts of Volume IV will continue, as previously planned, to coincide with the calendar year 1915. This adjustment of our quarterly issues to the conventional Mar.-June-Sep.-Dec. sequence will insure success in our effort to "catch up with our schedule," and thereafter to issue the numbers regularly "on time." This change will involve no financial loss to any subscriber. On the contrary, Volume IV will be correspondingly larger.

As we go to press, much of the material originally put in type for this issue, that could not be included here because of the excessive bulk of this number, is in course of adjustment for the June issue, copies of which will certainly be distributed before the end of that month.

The result of a recent friendly "scrap" in the Amer. Biochem. Society shows that the Constitution of that organization is not a "mere scrap of paper," and that the society's form of government continues to be unusually democratic in character.

Democratic conduct

of the Amer.

Biochemical Society

The following is quoted from Article V of

the Constitution of the Amer. Society of Biol. Chemists:

Section 2. COUNCIL.-A. The four officers and three additional members to be elected shall constitute the Council.

tion.

B. No two members of the Council may be from the same institu

Section 3. NOMINATING COMMITTEE.-Nine members from nine different institutions shall comprise the Nominating Committee.

Last November a number of members of the Society endorsed a proposal to amend Sect. 2 (above), by striking out sub-sect. B. The chief reason for this proposal was the opinion that the restriction (Sec. 2, B) "is unnecessarily troublesome in the selection of members of the Council." This reason would have been sufficient to commend the proposed amendment, if more important considerations had not stood in the way. Some of those who disagreed with the proponents of this suggestion considered that the adoption of the proposed amendment would facilitate the selection of any number of the seven members of the council from any one group of workers, and thus would discourage continuance of the present democratic and highly satisfactory method of selecting officials from widely scattered groups of workers ("institutions"). One of those who formally opposed the adoption of the proposed amendment wrote (in part) as follows, in an open letter to the members of the Biochem. Society:

The executive affairs of the Society should obviously be in charge of the most representative members. The Society is conducted, on the representative principle, for the benefit of the many and not of a few. To urge that "the executive conduct of the Society should be in the hands of the ablest members" is to say, in effect, that a small number of the most eminent members of the Society, in two or three centers of activity, should be continuously in charge of its management; and to express belief, besides, that they would give to such executive work the time and attention the duties deserved. Yet everybody knows of the invincible apathy among our ablest investigators regarding activity in behalf of the scientific societies. The "ablest men" are usually the most indifferent to the practical activities of the societies of which they are members. Their time is "too valuable" to be wasted on "executive trifles." The constitutional requirement which it is proposed to amend, tends to place the ablest and most worthy of the younger and more active members in the official positions-the members most competent, usually, to voice the prevailing sentiments and attitude of the Society at large, on practically all questions. When extraordinary occasions arise, surely the Society and the Council can easily obtain the advice and follow the guidance of the most eminent members of the Society.

The "institutional restriction" in Section 2, B-the exciting cause of the proposal to amend was a restriction intended to distribute official representatives among separate and independent groups of members. The word "institution" was conveniently used in this particular sense during both the formal and informal discussions prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and has been generally so understood (as a constitutional convenience) since then, by all except a few who have professed to regard it as an artificial and disquieting distinction. I see in it no more danger to the delights and serenity of inter-institutional amity than in the stereotyped legend: "From the Biochemical Laboratory of Blank University, U. S. A.," which conventionally emphasizes institutions and sub-institutions as important considerations in biochemical activity and acknowledgments.

The requirement that "no two officers may be from the same institution" effects the maximum degree of distribution of executive representation and responsibility, professional honors and service, and personal influence. The most representative consensus of opinion and action on any subject may be expected from a body thus selected.

The highest degree of official efficiency, from the representative executive standpoint, has been an outcome, from the beginning, of the elections of officers-in short, the restriction has worked admirably from the standpoint of efficiency.

When the Constitution was originally presented to the Society, in 1907, it was publicly said in its support, by the same writer, with practically unanimous approval by the members:

It is aimed to make the Society thoroughly democratic and to prevent retrogression into a decadent executive system with a complacent we-are-the-people" group at the top. Officers would be deliberately nominated by a large elected committee with that very special duty to perform, and elections could not be farcical. Automatic rotation in office at short intervals would prevent embarrassment in changing officials, good or bad; it would constantly distribute the opportunities and occasions for usefulness as well as the honors, and thus no member would be given fictitious importance. Adoption of the plan of distributing the officials among different laboratories would regularly insure perfectly representative composites of executive opinion and action, and would do much to prevent factionalism.