THE death is also announced of Professor Max Fürbringer, the well known comparative anatomist of Heidelberg.

M. EUGENE AUBOURG DE BOURY died on April 17, in France, at the age of sixty-three years. A correspondent writes that M. de Boury, though a long-time invalid, had devoted himself with ardor to the study and collection of mollusks of the genus Scalaria. He gathered in the last ten years an extraordinary collection of these beautiful and rare shells for the Paris Museum of Natural History, increasing their series from 300 sets to 3,000, exclusive of photographs and illustrations of inaccessible species to the numbers of 1,800 more. This series far surpasses any other extant. He published numerous papers on the genus and indicated many new subdivisions of it, but the great monograph which was his ideal must remain for other hands to prepare.

UNDER the able guidance of Mr. Jasper E. Crane, a cellulose symposium was organized as a part of the program of the Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry at the St. Louis meeting of the American Chemical Society last April. One of the objects of this symposium was to ascertain whether a cellulose section, if formed, would secure the interest and support of a sufficiently large number of chemists. The object of such a section would be to promote intercourse and cooperation between the chemists in the various cellulose industries. This group constitutes one of the largest and most important of American industries; all branches of it are intimately concerned in the problems of cellulose, and it seems highly desirable to promote technical activity in this country along these lines. The proposed section would serve as a clearing-house for papers and information on cellulose technology, and should also play an important part in promoting research on the chemistry of cellulose. The symposium at St. Louis was distinctly successful, and it was voted to hold a second cellulose symposium under the auspices of the Industrial Section at the Chicago meeting during the

week of September 6. At this time, the advisability of forming a permanent cellulose section will be considered. An interesting program is being arranged, and a large attendance of those interested in cellulose is anticipated. Titles of papers or suggestions for the symposium should be sent to G. J. Esselen, Jr., 30 Charles River Road, Cambridge, 39, Massachusetts.

The British Medical Journal states that the University of Paris has come to an understanding with the French government, through the minister of health, and buildings have been found in Paris which can be converted into a large institute of hygiene. It will be under the general direction of the professor of hygiene, Dr. Léon Bernard, but there will be five sections, each with its director. It will have sections of epidemiology, of social hygiene, food, of industrial hygiene, and of sanitary technology; and a series of laboratoriesof bacteriology, chemistry, physics, and physiology-a museum, a library and lecture rooms. Courses of lectures of two standards will be given, the one elementary, for ordinary students of medicine, and the other advanced, for doctors proposing to specialize in hygiene. Instruction will also be given to persons employed in disinfection and as health and school visitors. It is hoped eventually to extend the opportunities for study by establishing courses for architects, engineers and statisticians. The food section will comprise three departments, the first dealing with the chemistry of foods and of adulteration, the second with the damage done by parasites and microbes, the third with the physiology of food and nutrition. An institute of hygiene on similar lines is also being established in the University of Strasbourg.

We learn from Nature that the bequests of the late Rr. Rudolf Messel include: £5,000 to the Royal Institution of Great Britain; £1,000 to the Chemical Society; £2,000 and his platinum still," in which I carried out with W. S. Squire my experiments in connection with the decomposition of sulphuric acid," to Mr. Squire, requesting him on his death to leave it to the Society of Chemical Industry; his platinum

crucible to the Society of Chemical Industry; and his electric telephone by Reis to the Institution of Electrical Engineers. The residue of the property is to be divided into five parts, four of which are to go to the Royal Society and one to the Society of Chemical Industry, the wish being expressed that the fund shall be kept separate from the funds of the society the capital to be kept intact, and the whole of the income expended in the furtherance of scientific research and other scientific objects, and that no part thereof shall be applied for charitable objects, as the granting of pensions and the like.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association states that what is reported as the largest medical conference ever assembled in the capital of China was held February 21-28, of the present year. Over 300 delegates were present, including 210 medical missionaries. A message from the minister of education of China was read which stated the following as the educational policy for the immediate future in that country: (1) To establish new medical schools as soon as conditions will allow on the basis of one medical school for each province. (2) To improve and extend such schools as were already established. (3) To encourage the study of medicine and to maintain for the scientifically trained doctors a high social status aiming at a sufficient number for this important profession. (4) To cause to be organized at proper localities such institutions or facilities of investigation as will aid specialists in their own research work. (5) To regulate the practise of doctors trained in the traditional way with a view to the unification of standards required of medical practitioners.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

Ir is planned to establish eight new professorships at Cornell University to commemorate the war services of 7,800 Cornell

men.

DR. H. R. KRAYBILL, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, has been appointed professor of agri

cultural chemistry and head of the department of chemistry of the New Hampshire State College.

P. W. WHITING, in charge of biology at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa., has resigned to accept a position at St. Stephen's College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N. Y.

PROFESSOR C. F. CURTIS RILEY has been promoted to a full professorship in the department of forest zoology, Syracuse University.

JOHN T. METCALF, Ph.D. (Yale, '13), psychological examiner with the Illinois Department of Public Welfare, has been appointed assistant professor of psychology in George Washington University.

DR. L. V. KING has been appointed Macdonald professor of physics at the Macdonald Physics Building, McGill University, from which he received his bachelor's degree in 1905. The chair to which Dr. King has been promoted has been held in succession by Professor H. L. Callendar, Professor, now Sir Ernest Rutherford, Dr. H. T. Barnes, Professor H. A. Wilson, and by the present director, Dr. A. S. Eve.

Ar the University of Sheffield, Dr. W. E. S. Turner has been appointed professor of glass technology, Mr. J. Husband professor of civil engineering, Dr. Mellanby professor of pharmacology.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE GENERA AND SUPERGENERA

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: I sympathize with Dr. Witmer Stone (SCIENCE, N. S., 51: 427, 1920) in his wish to preserve in generic names an expression of taxonomic relationships. Dr. Stone advocates the adoption of "an arbitrary set of genera de convenience so far as nomenclature is concerned and use subgeneric terms when we desire to call attention to more refined phylogenetic groups.” I would call attention to the results of a practical application of this system. If I understand the proposed system correctly the genera for general use would stand toward the genera for technical use (since the latter

would be subgenera) in the relation of a supergenus to a genus. Suppose we apply this to the well-known genus Panicum among the grasses. There has been a tendency in the historical development of this Linnæan genus to split off one after another species or groups of species to form new genera. Even as limited by the avowed "splitter" the genus still includes hundreds of species. The more conservative botanists include as subgenera, Digitaria (Syntherisma), Echinochloa, Trichachne (Valota), Thrasya, Echinolana, Hymenachne, Sacciolepis, and several more, in some cases, even Setaria (Chatochloa). I should be willing to use Panicum in the broader sense, but for the sake of consistency I should want to include under Panicum such genera as Paspalum and Ichnanthus. I think that the technical characters that separate these last from Panicum are no greater nor more important than those which separate Digitaria and Echinochloa from Panicum. But Paspalum and Ichnanthus have been considered distinct genera by most botanists for over 100 years. Paspalum is a Linnæan genus and includes probably more than 200 species. The practical question then arises, if the grasses are arranged in genera which are really supergenera on the basis of the relative importance of technical characters, the more technical groups appearing as subgenera, will the layman-or the botanist who is a layman in relation to the taxonomy of grasses gain in convenience. Many wellknown genera will disappear. Bromus and Festuca, Sporobolus and Muhlenbergia, Trisetum and Deschampsia (Aira), are as closely allied as Panicum and Digitaria. If Digitaria is placed as a subgenus of Panicum then one feels as if he must place Sporobolus as a subgenus of Muhlenbergia and so on. The layman is chiefly concerned with the stability of the names he uses. The method just outlined would, I think, be just as confusing to him as the "splitting" of which Dr. Stone speaks. It is very difficult to devise a nomenclature which shall adapt itself to the normal growth of a living science and yet have the kind of stability that the layman wants.

It has been assumed by some that the Linnæan concept of genera was a broad one, that his genera are what we are calling supergenera, and that later botanists have been splitting off fragments, or dividing along convenient cleavage lines, to form our modern genera. This assumption scarcely accords with the facts. He seems to have established genera according to his knowledge, his convenience, or sometimes apparently by a mere whim, if one is to judge by his grass genera. Bromus and Festuca are Linnæan genera that remain much as he left them; Panicum and Andropogon are supergenera; Holcus and Aira are assemblages of unrelated species or groups of species.

I believe there would be considerable confusion in the application of the concept of supergenera; and the names of the supergenera would be subject to continual change as our knowledge of relationships increased. Nevertheless, as a general principle, I think it is desirable to retain minor groups of species as divisions of genera rather than to recognize them as genera.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

A S. HITCHCOCK

THE SITUATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEN IN RUSSIA

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: In your issue of April 23 there is reproduced a letter from Professor Babkin, of the University of Odessa, in which the following statement occurs:

The bolshevic revolution has brought Russia into such a state that not only has scientific work come to a standstill, but even our lives are in danger.

One is very much tempted to discuss the situation of scientific men in Russia, but it is perhaps better simply to quote testimony from impartial sources. There is, however, one remark which must be made with regard to Babkin's statement, namely, that Odessa is very far removed from the limits of the Federated Soviet Republic, being in the region (Ukraina) dominated by the anti-bolshevic forces.

I happen to have before me a book published recently by Gauthiers-Villars et Cie,

Paris, entitled "Etudes de Photochimie " par Victor Henri. The front page of the book bears this further legend: Professor Henri, formerly assistant director of the "Ecole des Hautes Etudes" (Sorbonne), and much to my amazement at present "Directeur de laboratoire à l'Institut scientifique de Moscou."

I open the book with curiosity and read in the preface that this great work on photochemistry was begun by the author in Paris but since the war "la photochimie fut oubliée." In 1915 it was Henri's good fortune to be dispatched to Russia on an official war mission. Then the revolution broke out and -but here I make room and let Professor Henri tell his own story:

La révolution russe arriva avec toutes ses phases. Un souffle de vie nouvelle se leva. Un espoir d'organization scientifique générale amenant le progrès, c'est-à-dire augmentant la somme de bonheur de l'humanité, se réveilla et une période de vie active commença en Russie, à laquelle je fus mêlé à Moscou. L'Institut scientifique de Moscou me donna un accueil très chaleureux; l'Université de Moscou m'offrit une chaire; la Commission de l'Académie des Sciences de Russie pour l'étude des richesses naturelles de la Russie me demanda d'être le secrétaire scientifique de la section de Moscou.

THE CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY, ОМАНА

S. MORGULIS

CONCERNING OUR RELATIONS WITH TEUTONIC SCIENTISTS

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: I fear that Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn's letter in SCIENCE, June 4, 1920, quoting from and commenting upon letters from my esteemed friend Arrhenius and another colleague, will convey to many readers an erroneous impression in one very important particular, namely: that there are scientists in the entente countries who would restrict the interchange of publications with scientists in the Teutonic countries. If there are any such entente scientists, I have not heard of them. I can safely parallel Professor Osborn's statement, "We paleontologists welcome the works of Othenio Abel," by saying that "We astronomers welcome the works of Struve

(Berlin) and von Hepperger (Vienna); we shall read these works as carefully as we have read those issued by them in 1913 and earlier; and as soon as peace is declared we shall unreservedly do our part in arranging that Struve and von Hepperger and their colleagues receive the published writings of American astronomers.

In the relief of present-day distress and suffering in enemy nations, to which the quoted Stockholm and Vienna letters refer, I feel sure that all American scientists are glad to contribute in accordance with their abilities, and without question as to what occurred in 1914-18. I doubt if any appeal for assistance from this country has been made in vain.

There still remains the question of personal relationships in the future. Professor Osborn has quoted from one of the European letters as follows: "... every German believed [in 1914] a war would be much cheaper than the steadily increasing military expenses." This undoubtedly assumed, on the part of " every German," that the war would be short, that Germany would win it, and that Serbia, France, and Russia would pay the bills! In this precise connection should the world be permitted to forget that Germany would not consent to a reduction of armaments when the other nations at the Second Hague Conference in 1907, made and urged this proposal?

Professor Foerster, of the University of Munich, was quoted throughout the world early in 1919 about as follows: "We Germans have only ourselves to blame for the moral blockade which hems us in, and the raising of this blockade depends upon ourselves alone." Whether the quotation is correct or not, it faithfully represents widely prevailing opinion in entente scientific circles.

MOUNT HAMILTON, June 11, 1920

W. W. CAMPBELL

QUOTATIONS

MEDICAL EDUCATION

DURING the last thirty years the feeling has become increasingly insistent, both in this

country and in America, that certain radical reforms were needed in the methods of education in medicine. But our American colleagues have been fortunate in having the opportunity and the means for building new schools of medicine to meet the new circumstances and for making drastic changes in their methods of teaching which a variety of circumstances has hitherto prevented us from attempting in Britain. Now that the Rockefeller Foundation, by its magnificent generosity, has made it possible for us to embark upon the difficult sea of reform, it is particularly interesting and instructive to study the policy adopted in the more advanced schools of America during the twenty-seven years since the Johns Hopkins Medical School gave the study of medicine in America a new aim and a higher ideal. Though we are a quarter of a century behind our American colleagues in making a start, our delay has given us the advantage that we can profit by the experiments made on the other side of the Atlantic.

It is not generally recognized here how thoroughly the leaders of medical education in America explored every possible method of education throughout the world, and how much devotion and thought they have expended on experiments to discover, by truly scientific methods, how best to employ the few years that the medical student can devote to the training for his profession. Those who want to understand something of the spirit and the high deals that have inspired the American leaders in this great reform movement should read the account of their work and aims in the volume "Medical Research and Education," issued by the Science Press in New York in 1913. Briefly expressed, the matters upon which chief insistence is placed are as follows: The absolute necessity of (a) an adequate preliminary education and a serious university training in the basal sciences, physics, chemistry, and biology, without which foundation it is impossible for the student really to profit from his training in medical science; and (b) a method of practical teaching in all branches of professional work, whereby the student can, so far as

The great development in the science of anatomy during the last thirty years has been due mainly to the use of the microscope for the investigation of the structure of the body and for the study of embryology. British anatomy has been hampered by the lack of the facilities for teaching these vital parts of the subject, and has suffered enormously from the lack of stimulating daily contacts with them. In other countries, and especially in America, the cultivation of histology and embryology has not only made anatomy one of the most active branches of medical study and research, but also brought the work of the department into close touch with physiology, biochemistry and pathology, to the mutual benefit of all these subjects, and especially to the student who has to integrate the information acquired in the different departments. It was the radical reforms effected in the teaching of anatomy by the late Professor Franklin Mall at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1893 that played the chief part in starting the great revolution in medical education in America. The stimulating influence of the abolition of the methods of medieval scholasticism in anatomy and the return to the study of Nature and to the use of experiment brought about a closer cooperation with other departments and a general quickening of the

students' interest in the real science of medicine. Nature.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

A new Morphological Interpretation of the Structure of Noctiluca and its bearing on the Status of the Cystoflagellata (Haeckel). By CHARLES A. KOFOID. University of California Publications in Zoology, Vol.