Repeated object lessons have demonstrated that nearly all progress in science has resulted in important advances in industry G-E Research Laboratory Schenectady, N. Y. Among the many products developed by the General For further information address Supply Department, Schenectady Office. General Electric General Office Company viii No. 21224 Electric Wassermann Unit Electric Wassermann Unit, for both incubation and inactivation. The upper compar ment A operates at 56° C for inactivation, and the lower compartment C at 372°C f incubation, both connections being to the same cord and plug. Each compartment is su plied with independent C. S. & E. regulator and heating unit. A small paraffine bath B wi inset D is supplied for use in the inactivating chamber A as in the method of the U. S. Arr Medical School. One thermometer can be inserted directly into the paraffine. The insi dimensions of the incubating chamber are 15 x 12 x 10 inches and of the inactivating_co partment 12 x 9x9 inches. The incubating chamber C takes eight Wassermann racks E a the outfit is regularly furnished with three thermometers, paraffine bath B with removal tray D, and eight Wassermann racks E as shown in illustration. The outfit can be used either 110 or 220 volts by simply changing a plug. 21224. Electric Wassermann Unit, as above described, with paraffine bath B with inset $133 99 21228. Paraffine Bath for inactivations, consisting of bath B and removable inset D. 48014. Wassermann Racks E, for 100 x 13 mm test tubes.... 12 .each 2 Prices subject to change without notice ARTHUR H. THOMAS COMPANY WHOLESALE, RETAIL AND EXPORT MERCHANTS LABORATORY APPARATUS AND REAGENTS WEST WASHINGTON SQUARE PHILADELPHIA, U. S SCIENCE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1921 CONTENTS Dinner in Honor of Dr. Keen: DR. JOHN H. JOPSON Address: DR. W. W. KEEN 123 .. 124 The Relation of Mendelism and the Mutation Theory to Natural Selection: PROFESSOR C. C. NUTTING Scientific Events: Professor Calmette on a Vaccine for Tuberculosis; Awards of the Paris Academy of Sciences; The University of London's Physiological Laboratory; Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects at the California Academy of Sciences Scientific Notes and News University and Educational News Discussion and Correspondence:— 129 131 134 137 DINNER IN HONOR OF DR. KEEN ON January 20, 1921, a dinner was tender to Dr. William Williams Keen, the emine Philadelphia surgeon, at the Bellevue Str ford Hotel, in Philadelphia, in celebration his eighty-fourth birthday. Dr. Keen h recently returned from Europe, whither had gone in the summer of 1920, to preside the meeting in Paris, of the Société Inte nationale de Chirurgie, of which he had be elected president in 1914, and the meetings which had been of necessity suspended durin the war. Everywhere abroad he had been r ceived with honors befitting his position President of this Society, and as the lead and dean of American surgery. It Wa thought an appropriate time for the friend and admirers of Dr. Keen in this country, t show their appreciation of his many achieve ments as physician, scientist, educator, ma of letters, and patriotic American. Th occasion proved to be one of the most re markable tributes ever tendered a privat citizen in Philadelphia. Between five and si hundred subscribers, representing all parts o the country, and all of the learned professions and the fields of diplomacy, industry, finance and the public services, joined in honoring Dr. Keen. The presiding officer and toastmaster was his close friend and colleague, Dr. George E. deSchweinitz, professor of ophthalmology in the University of Pennsylvania, and like Dr. Keen, a former president of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the premier medical society of the United States. The speakers, who dwelt on various phases of the activities of Dr. Keen's long and busy life, had all been closely associated with him in one or more of these fields of work. The list included the following gentlemen: Dr. J. Chalmers DaCosta, his one-time assistant, now Gross professor of surgery, in the Jeffer 124 son Medical College, in which chair he had Dr. Keen responded in happy vein, reviewing the many world changes transpiring during his long life, with special reference to the revolutionary advances in the sciences, and particularly in medicine and surgery, in many of which he had indeed played a leading part. His address is printed below. A reception to Dr. Keen followed the dinner. PHILADELPHIA, PA. JOHN H. JOPSON ADDRESS OF DR. KEEN As I have listened to what I might call "oral photographs" of myself, I assure you that it has been with genuine humility, as I realized how far short I had come of fine ideals. I lay no claim to superlative tues. I am only a loyal American, who, t best of his ability, has tried to do his duty to his fellowmen, his dear country his God. You have looked on my ho merits with more than kindly eyes, and regarded my faults and my failings with than friendly forgetfulness. I thank again and again from the bottom of my b This bust, the product of Mr. Mur skill, I accept for myself and my descend with special pleasure from you, Dr. Taylo long my able assistant, later my colleague always my dear friend. It is the visible dence of that precious, imponderable, ye powerful force-the affection of many fri What shall I say through you, Ge Ireland, my distinguished pupil, to the w of these many letters in three stately volu They are generous libations poured ou the altar of Friendship. "Timeo Dana dona ferentes was a valid warning in an Troy, but my gift-bearing Greeks I wel with fearless and profound gratitude. It may be a happy augury that we to-day rather than yesterday, the actual versary of my birth. By a little stret of the imagination to-day, I can describe self as "well along "- a phrase with a t ful indefiniteness-"well along on the wa my 85th birthday," and what is imagin for if not to stand by us when we need To-morrow, in spite of the terrible ter tion you have held out to me to do other I promise you that I shall wear the Stetson hat as heretofore. I hardly call it the companion of my youth, but treasure it as an old acquaintance which fits well. My manner of life from my youth up been known to you among whom I have for four score years and four. It is a s of sincere gratification to me that, in of all my faults and shortcomings, of v I am fully conscious, on the whole you to approve of it. When one has reached the altitude of is natural that he should turn and scar far distant horizon and note the outstanding features of his long journey. A brief mention of a few of the more striking events which have occurred during my long life may, therefore, prove of some interest. My ancestor, Jöran Kyn (George Keen), following the Mayflower pilgrims only 23 years later, left Sweden in the retinue of John Printz, the first Governor of New Sweden, and reached the Delaware River in 1643. He founded the nearby city of Chester. We, his descendants, I think may fairly claim to be truly Americans. During my lifetime, the United States has (observe not have but has) grown from a small and isolated nation of only sixteen millions in 1837 to a nation rapidly approaching one hundred and sixteen millions. We have also spread from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. Instead of being isolated, we are bound to all the world by a splendid devotion to Liberty and Law. What a free Democracy can do, even across 3,000 miles of boisterous water, to aid in crushing a tyranny which threatened to engulf the whole world, is the most splendid episode in our entire national history. Yet how short our life as a nation is may be better appreciated when compared with the life of a single citizen. From the date of my birth, January 19, 1837, back to July 4, 1776, is only 61 years and a half. From that same date to yesterday is 84 years! One man links me to the first Napoleon, for, in 1862, I assisted the elder Gross in an operation on a Frenchman for a wound received in the Russian campaign of 1812. One woman, my maternal grandmother Budd, links me even with Washington himself. She often related to me how he used to caress her as a young girl, when seeking food and forage from my great-grandfather's farm just across the ridge from Valley Forge in that fearful winter of 1777. The first six-weeks of my life were spent during the reign of that sturdy old patriot, Andrew Jackson. He and I had at least one thing in common-we were profoundly ignorant of each other's existence. In another matter, our attitudes were miles apart. H was obsessed as to the removal of the deposit of the United States Treasury from tha stately building at 4th and Chestnut Streets while I well recall how utterly indifferent 1 felt about that exciting subject. But I mad the air vibrant if my daily ration was too long delayed. Long since, I gave up the rather oppro brious phrase "Old Age" and have substi tuted for it the more seductive locution ac cumulated years." The latter connotes a cer tain joy in continued acquisition, a sort o pride in adding one annual sparkling jewe after another to an already precious store. I was asked recently how it was that I had managed to accumulate so many years, to which I promptly replied, "Nothing is simple -don't stop. Just keep right along." Mix merry laughter with earnest labor. Always have some as yet unfinished, but not too urgent job waiting just outside your door. Then you will never know ennui. To "kill time" is murder in the first degree. William Dean Howells, one of the privi leged few who spell their names in the plural because they are such multiplied personalities in his delightful essay on "Eighty Years and After," first pays his respects to several nonagenarians. He then turns upon those of us who have accumulated ten fewer years (he actually being also one of us) and says, "As to the Octogenarians, there is no end of them they swarm, they get in one's way." I humbly crave pardon of any of you if I occupy a place in the sun to which you have a better right than I. Ultimately, no doubt I shall get out of your way, but do not over look the fact of my maliciously good health and that a collateral forbear reached the mature age of 106. The prospect, therefore of speedy relief, I regret to say, seems rather discouraging. I commend to you the phi losophy of life of the woman who, when asked by her minister what passage of Scripture gave her the greatest comfort, promptly re plied, "Grin and bear it' helps me most.' 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