Miscellaneous items. PERSONALIA. A demonstration of admiration and affection was rendered to Prof. H. A. Hare, Apr. 11, by the faculty and students of Jeff. Med. Coll. in commemoration of his 25th anniv. as a member of the coll. fac. A reception, which was attended by several hundred students, members of the fac., and professional friends, was held in the hosp. amphitheater. Dr. F. X. Dercum, prof. of nerv. and ment. diseases, acted as ch'r'n, and a beautiful bronze statue of Mercury, by Pigalle, was presented by the students. The presentation address was made by Dr. J. C. Da Costa, prof. of clin. surg., and a memorable address of appreciation and acceptance was made by Dr. Hare.

The students in pharmacy, Univ. of Pittsb. Coll. of Pharm., recently gave a dinner in honor of Prof. J. A. Koch, on the 25th anniv. of his appointment as dean of the college.

Dr. Mary E. Pennington is the only member of the Amer. Soc. of Biol. Chemists to be included among the "advisory editors" of the recently founded Jour. of Bacteriology.

Prof. Elie Metchnikoff has been seriously ill at the Inst. Pasteur. Sir Ray Lankester wrote to Nature, under date of Feb. 26, that Metchnikoff's med. attendants believed the pleurisy would soon disappear and that the pulmonary congestion had already vanished.

RADIUM CLINIC. The Radium Inst'n of N. Y. has established a weekly clinic at 205 West 70th St., and extends a general invitation to med. men to be present any Saturday afternoon.

ALCOHOL AND ITS EFFECTS. Dr. Kraepelin, an eminent investigator, has written an entirely new chapter on this subject. Working with instruments of precision that measure the rapidity of transmission of nerve impulses and mental operations, he found that as small a quantity as 1/4 oz. of alc. produced paralyzing influences that could be detected for hours afterwards by such instruments. These experiments demonstrated that it frequently takes a man under the influence of alc. seven times as long to hear, feel, taste, or receive an impression of any sort as a normal person. Such a man, called upon to act in an emergency-an engineer, for instance, would require at least seven times as long to make up his mind what he ought to do as a healthy person would require. DAVID PAULSON: Med. Rev. of Rev., 1916, xxii, p. 284.

Work and alc. do not belong together, especially when work demands wideawakeness, attention, exactness and endurance. QUENSEL: The alc. question from a med. viewpoint-Studies in the pathol. of alcoholism; Year Book, U. S. Brewer's Assoc., 1914, p. 168.

TRIBUTE TO FAVILL. Members of the Nat. Dairy Council, repr. every branch of that industry, held a memorial meeting at the Hotel Sherman, Chicago, Feb. 28, to pay tribute to their late pres't, Dr. H. B. Favill.

MANITOU WATERS. The El Paso Co. Med. Soc. (Tex.) has appointed a commit. of ten, known as the Manitou Mineral-Waters Commis. of the El Paso Med. Soc. This commit. intends to secure the services of a physiol. chemist, to thoroly test the effects of the waters, and will provide a fully equipped lab. for exper. purposes.

"PHILA. THE HOME OF DENTISTRY." An exhibition illustrating the progress of dentistry was held at the Hotel Adelphia Roof Garden, Phila., under the auspices of the dental manufacturers and dealers of Phila., April 25 to 28, inclusive.

DERMATOLOGISTS SEEK CHARTER. A petition for a charter was filed, Mar. 1, in the Common Pleas Court, of Phila., by Drs. J. F. Schamberg, J. M. Kolmer, David Riesman and A. D. Ferguson, for the incorporation of a Dermatol. Research Lab., the object as stated being "for the promotion of scientific research into the cause and cure of skin diseases and every other disease of cognate character."

ACIDOSIS. Much remains to be learned regarding acidosis. The presence of abnormal acids explains the origin of some forms, but there are others that are in nowise understood. Are there abnormal acids whose presence has not been detected? Are normal acids formed in excess? Are bases lost? Does the kidney fail to excrete sufficient acid? These are a few of the questions at present unanswered that must be answered before our knowledge of acidosis can be considered in any way complete. JOHN HOWLAND and W. MCK. MARRIOTT: Bull. Johns Hopk. Hosp., 1916, xxvii, p. 63.

SPRAGUE MEMOR. INST.: Officers and workers, 1915. 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, Harriet F. Holmes. Voluntary investi

gators, Frank Billings, Linton Gerdine, W. H. O. Hoffmann. Fellows, W. B. McClure, L. W. Sauer, A. B. Schwartz, L. D. Minsk, G. H. Coleman, Kaethe W. Dewey, H. B. Culver, Frank Nuzum. Assistants, R. M. Wilder, W. D. Sansum, J. H. Lewis, Hope Sherman, Mary B. Maver, Edith Farrar, G. L. Huber, G. T. Caldwell, S. M. Cadwell, C. H. Christman, J. J. Moore.

LOWEST BODY TEMP. The lowest recorded body temp. in a human being who survived was 75° F. The patient was a man, aged 34, who, while intoxicated, had been exposed to a temp. of 34° F. over night. This case was reported by Reineke (Deut. Archiv. für klin. Med., xvi, 15). A temp. as low as 71.6° F. is said to have been observed in one case. The authority in the latter case, however, does not seem entirely dependable. ANSWER TO QUERY: Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1916, 1xvi, p. 978.

APPARATUS. Long experience has taught that however much we may owe to the great minds that evolve basic generalizations and hypotheses, real progress in science ultimately rests on the establishment of facts. Our reasoning faculties, by themselves, are unable to cope with the complexity of the phys. world, and are sure to stray from reality unless they are continually guided by observation and experiment. Galileo with his exper. methods contributed more to science than did all the generations preceding him. The greater the advancement in any branch of science, the greater must be the development of the apparatus that is employed. The two are necessarily interdependent. The instrument is to a great extent an index of the state of the science. The greater the precision with which we can make our observations and measurements, the surer we are of keeping on the right path in our interpretation of the phenomena concerned. ANTHONY ZELENY: Science, 1916, xliii, p. 185.

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METHODS. Preparation of collodion membranes. Collodion thimbles of regularly increasing degree of permeability may be prepared by soaking air-dried thimbles in alcohol-water mixtures of increasing alc. content. The diffusive capacity of any substance through collodion may be specified in terms of the alc. strength required to produce the membrane which just prevents its passage. This may be termed the "alcohol index" of the substance. W. BROWN: Biochem. Jour., 1915, ix, p. 617.

Comparison of methods for the determination of casein in milk. Though the official nitrogen method is the standard of accuracy for the determ. of casein in milk, the results show that, for all ordinary work, the Hart method with electric centrifuge is dependable, checking very closely the official method, and is far superior to the volumetric method. As to the time required by the three methods, the official is longest in total time, with about the same time required in personal attention as the Van Slyke method. The Hart method requires, however, but a small fraction of the time of the other methods and has the added advantage of requiring neither exactly standard solutions nor final calculation of results. C. B. HERSEY: Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem., 1916, viii, p. 336.

Use of paper pulp in quantitative analysis. The application of the pulp filter to the quant. estim. of barium and sulfuric acid as barium sulfate, of silver and hydrochloric acid as silver chlorid, and of potassium and ammonium as chlorplatinates, has been shown to give results as accurate as those obtained with standard filter paper. It is convenient and easy to handle, when applied to the quant. determ. of the above acids and bases, and enables one to save considerable time and labor. S. L. JODIDI and H. E. KELLOGG: Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem., 1916, viii, p. 319. (See also BIOCHEM. BULL., 1916, v, p. 87.)

Electrical treatment of water. The gases produced (by electr. action on water) kill a large number of microorganisms, but to kill them all the conditions of the exper. must be such as to bring all the organisms into contact with the gas. I should think it possible that some scheme might be devised whereby efficient treatment could be imparted without relying upon the action of sedimentation. This settling action is undoubtedly an important factor to be dealt with, and if it is feasible to combine the effects of the gases and the effects of sedimentation into a working scheme, the results could be absolutely relied upon. The action of electr. pure and simple is useless. T. A. STARKEY: Amer. Med., 1916, xxii, p. 187.

Manufacture of gasoline and benzene-toluene from petroleum and other hydrocarbons. The large-scale exper. have fully confirmed the lab. exper, and established the fact that the conversion into gasoline can be even more satisfactorily accomplished in a tube of greatly enlarged diam. and increased length than in the electr. heated 1/2 in. tube. The conditions favorable for gasoline produc. are shown to be the same in the larger tubes as in the small tube, namely, a temp. of approx. 500 to 575°C. and a pressure of 250 to 300 lb. per sq. in. The gasoline process, therefore, can justly be considered as a success so far as conversion in the large tubes is concerned. The adaptation of the unit to refinery conditions is a matter of mechan. detail involving no inherent difficulties. In view of the continuous operation of the benzene-toluene process by the Aetna Explosives Co., over a period of nearly one yr., as well as the results of the large-scale operations, there can exist little doubt as to the success of the benzene-toluene process on a commer. operative scale. It has been proved that benzene and toluene can be produced in large quantities by this process. These products have been shown to be capable of being worked into the nitro-compounds desired for making explosives. Furthermore, these nitro-compounds, or the derivatives thereof, are equally suitable for use in producing dyestuffs.

The claims which were made for the process at the outset have thus been fully verified by commer. results, and its future is dependent alone upon the perfection of the mechan. apparatus and the consequent reduction in labor and operating costs. W. F. RITTMAN, C. B. DUTTON and E. W. DEAN: Jour. Ind. and Eng. Chem., 1916, viii, p. 361.

UNSUSPECTED SYPHILIS. Many years ago Sir William Osler used to emphasize the importance of obscure syphilis and admonished his students in no uncertain terms to remember the frequency and diversity of the manifestations of this protean disease; and only the other day his successor in Balt., Dr. L. F. Barker, speaking before the N. Y. Acad. of Med., said: "The more my experience grows, the more I am inclined to take as a diagnostic aphorism, 'When in doubt have a Wassermann test made; when not in doubt still have a Wassermann test made." EDITORIAL: Amer. Med., 1916, xxii, p. 152.

BILE PIGMENT METABOLISM. The curve of bile pigm. secretion can be depressed below normal by a meat diet, and can be raised much above normal by a diet rich in carbohydrates.

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