EDUCATIONAL NOTES AND NEWS MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM FITZHUGH have given $12,000 to the medical school of Stanford University for the purchase of one gram of radium, for use in the actinography department of the University Hospital. The net income is to be used for clinic beds for indigent patients, particularly for those who need either X-ray or radium treatment.

THEODORE HOOVER, consulting engineer, has been appointed professor of mining and metallurgy in Stanford University.

PROFESSOR W. LEE LEWIS, of Northwestern University, has been elected chairman of the department of chemistry to succeed Professor A. Van Eps Young, who has recently retired. Captain Lewis was in charge of Organic Research Unit No. 3 of the Offense Research Section, C. W. S. during 1918 and is at present assisting Colonel W. D. Bancroft in editing the researches of the American University Experiment Station.

DR. GEORGE W. WILSON, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, has been appointed head of the department of pathology, bacteriology and preventive medicine in the Loyola University School of Medicine, Chicago.

JULIAN G. LEACH, of the University of Minnesota, has been appointed assistant professor of botany in the Colorado Agricultural College.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE APROPOS OF THE PROPOSED HISTORICAL SCIENCE SECTION

IN the April 4 number of SCIENCE, page 331, Felix Neumann referred to a proposed "Historical Science" Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. If the feasibility of forming such a section is to be seriously considered during the meeting at St. Louis it would be of interest to know how the various sciences would probably be affected by this section. As regards mathematics, in particular, it is very difficult to say what is historical mathematics and what is non-historical mathematics.

As early as 1640 the famous French mathematician and philosopher R. Descartes wrote as follows:

I am accustomed to distinguish two things in the mathematics, the history and the science. By history I mean what is already discovered, and is committed to books. And by the science, the skill of resolving all questions.

Since the days of Descartes the amount of mathematics committed to books has increased a hundredfold and hence the history of mathematics up to the present time has outgrown the powers of a single man.

Successful mathematical investigators must perforce be mathematical historians as regards their fields of investigation. If these fields are extensive the successful investigators therein require an extensive historical knowledge. Such men are, however, not commonly known as mathematical historians but as mathematical investigators. The former term is usually reserved for those whose historical studies include details relating to the older developments, which usually have little contact with modern advances.

The historical mathematics which is of greatest interest to the investigator engaged in advancing mathematics is usually based on considerable technical knowledge and hence it would scarcely be treated in a section composed largely of non-mathematicians. On the other hand, the historical mathematics which is now commonly known as mathematical history has extensive contact with the history of other sciences and might profitably be treated in such a section. The fact that the proposed name "Historical Science" would be too comprehensive as regards mathematics can scarcely be regarded as a serious objection since the questions which would normally come before such a section would naturally be determined by its membership.

In a broad way it might perhaps be said. that the mathematical history suitable for such a general section might include practically all the useful developments in this subject before the beginning of the eighteenth

century, a considerable part of the developments during the eighteenth century, and a very minor part of later developments. The unequal emphasis which such a section would thus place on the different chapters in the history of mathematics would be partly compensated by the fact that it would prepare the way for a more sympathetic attitude towards mathematical history in general.

If such a section is formed it should be understood that the more technical and perhaps the more important part of the history of science is of such a nature that it can be appreciated only by the specialists in the fields to which it relates. There is, however, a great need for work on intercommunicating roads in science and such a section might tend to 'improve these roads.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

G. A. MILLER

VITAMIN TESTS WITH CHICKS

OUR experience recently with the use of chicks for the purpose of demonstrating to classes in elementary physiology the rôle of vitamins in a diet has been so satisfactory that we thought it might be of interest to other teachers.

The day-old chick is so universally available, so easily reared, and its growth is so rapid that it makes an admirable laboratory animal for such a demonstration. Because of their hardiness Leghorn chicks were selected and divided into two groups of equal number and weight. Both the control group and the one to be tested (such chicks being easily marked with dye) were placed in the same large cage with free access to water, grit, shell, etc. Both groups were allowed to partake freely from food kept in a feeder. The food thus accessible consisted of either highly milled corn-meal, crumbs of unleavened white flour bread, or cakes baked from rice flour, or combinations of any or all of these. Changes were frequently made so that the chicks ate readily of the food furnished. In addition to this the normal or control group was fed once a day with small amounts of food containing vitamins.

After the second day the curve of the daily average weights showed a marked difference between the two groups. After approximately two weeks the one group began to exhibit the typical symptoms of lack of vitamins. Death occurs so promptly in the young chicks after the onset of symptoms that care must be taken to at once feed the ailing chicks with vitamin containing food. Small amounts of milk, scraped apple, lettuce, etc., sufficed to cause prompt recovery with marked acceleration in the rate of growth.

We of course recognize that no new results have been achieved but felt that the method of demonstration was worthy of note.

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

R. J. SEYMOUR, E. P. DURRANT

QUOTATIONS

THE BRITISH AIR-FORCE ESTIMATES AND AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH

THE development of military aviation has been one of the wonders of the war, but we have naturally been kept somewhat in the dark as to the exact extent of such development while the war was still in progress. The veil has now been lifted, and General Seely, in speaking on the Air Estimates in the House of Commons on March 13, has given us a striking summary of the progress made during the past four years. The fact that the expenditure on the Air Force has increased twohundred-fold since the outbreak of hostilities is a sufficient comment on the enormous advances that have taken place in the aeronautical world. General Seely states that if the armistice had not been signed, this year's estimates would have reached the sum of £200,000,000-an amount which is practically four times our pre-war expenditure on the entire navy! Even with the signing of peace in sight the sum of £66,500,000 is asked for, in order to ensure the maintenance of the aerial supremacy which we have gained during the

war.

It is exceedingly gratifying to note that the true value of research is at last being appreciated, and the specific provision of £3,000,000

for "civil aviation, experiments and research" will be welcome news to those who hope for the scientific development of commercial flying. General Seely further points out that this sum does not by any means represent the total amount that will be spent on research beneficial to the civilian aviator, since the results of experiments carried out for military purposes and paid for out of the Army Estimates will be equally available for the improvement of commercial machines.

The government has decided that it can not itself undertake commercial flying, but that it will do everything in its power to give encouragement and protection, and it is already announced that the Postmaster-General is prepared to give contracts to private firms which are able to offer approved machines for postal services. Moreover, the government will place most of the military aerodromes of the country at the disposal of civilian pilots for a small fee, and this alone should do much to encourage civilian flying.

In the course of his speech General Seely announced that an important invention in wireless telephony had recently been made, by means of which the wireless operator in an aeroplane was able both to send and to receive messages. It was possible during the war for the leader of a scouting aeroplane squadron to communicate with the others, but it was not practicable to receive an answer. A vacuum valve generator was employed to generate smooth oscillations in the hanging aerial, and a vacuum valve magnifier with a crystal rectifier was used as the receiver. The experimental apparatus was in use in pre-war days, but it required years of research to make it practical and trustworthy.-Nature.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

The Place of Description, Definition and Classification in Philosophical Biology. By PROFESSOR WILLIAM E. RITTER, in "The Higher Usefulness of Science and other Essays" (4th essay). Richard G. Badger. 1918, Pp. 105-136.

FEW of those who have sometimes harbored mild inward protests against the expansions

of subjective biology implied in the organization and interpretation of many of the experimental researches of the day realize the cogency of their unexpressed protests. That accurate thinking regarding biological fundamentals is of first importance for the proper direction and development of biology, science and even of civilization itself is suggested by Professor Ritter in a significant article which has not received nearly the attention it deserves.

Summarily stated Professor Ritter's thesis is as follows: Taxonomy has by many been set aside "as marking a juvenile period in the life of biology"; this appraisal of taxonomy involves a monstrous fallacy; the dominance of individual scientists animated by this mistaken attitude toward systematic zoology and botany has led to unfortunate consequences, both in the development of science and in that of civilization itself.

In science it has given rise to a state of affairs in which the experimental method has been raised to the high place of an end in itself, and has apparently been the stimulus to an extreme of speculation which is perhaps best exemplified by the theoretical conceptions of the German Weismann. In philosophy it has led to the doctrine of the superman, best exemplified in the writings of the German Nietzsche.

On the basis of the assertion that taxonomic research in both zoology and botany has for years, so far as it has been based on morphology exclusively, taken as one of its guiding principles neglect nothing," Professor Ritter goes on to suggest that we can no longer properly restrict our dictum of "neglect nothing" to morphological attributes alone, "but must extend it to all attributes of organisms whatever-morphological, physiological, ecological, chemical and all the rest." He is of the opinion that a comprehensive review of the whole range of biological results won during the last twenty-five years indicates that each of the main provinces of research "contain differentia corresponding to the systems of classification previously established on the

basis of pure morphology," and says: "No biological phenomenon is adequately interpreted or dealt with experimentally, until it has been considered with reference to the place which the organisms to which it pertains hold in the system of classification." That is, no generalization about the reaction of a species to light, or its chromosomal characters for example, can be accepted as fully valid until compared with the reaction to light or the chromosomal characters of all the other species of the genus, etc. All biologists with extensive field experience will have been struck with the "individualness" in many respects of the distribution, behavior and habit of the different species studied. "Each kind of organism has a chemistry to some extent unique," says Professor Ritter. The same appears to be true of its behavior, ecology, physiology, distribution. Yet nothing is common, in the literature of present day biology, than generalization for the entire animal kingdom (sometimes even including man), on the basis of the experimental study of a single organism, perhaps among the Protozoa, Insecta or Aves!

an

Dr. Ritter calls attention to a fact which seems to have been missed by not a few biologists particularly in the fields of cytology and biochemistry, namely, that work in the " alysis" or "causal analysis" of organisms, in so far as the work really has an objective basis, is nothing more than a part of the description of the organism. In other words, analysis and explanation are only species of the genus description. "The sooner it is borne in upon the minds of all students of living beings, no matter with what aspects of such beings they may be occupied, that they are engaged in the great task of describing and classifying the living world; and, so far as pure biology' is concerned, are doing nothing else, the sooner will objective biology get itself set off from subjective biology and the sooner will philosophical biology become purged of the many morbific growths which now impair its health and mar its beauty." "Never more than in the present day," says Professor Ritter, "when experimental research

has found so wide and lasting, and, on the whole, beneficent a hold in biology has there been need of fidelity to description and classification." The emphasis is not so much on the shortcoming or even the incompleteness of the experimental method as on the great need for researches which shall inform us as to the "normal behavior of normal organisms under normal conditions."

Probably few would be willing at this stage of scientific development to go all the way with Professor Ritter in his apparently thoroughgoing skepticism regarding some of the popular biological concepts of the day, e. g., those of the " germ plasm and the "fit"; and it is quite certain that his implication of a lack of regard for and appreciation of the orderliness and unity of living nature on the part of the dominant school of biologists of the day is not wholly justified; but the note of warning he sounds as to the tendency "to neglect everything except the one or a very few things which the experimenter must of necessity make the object of each special piece of work" is one which deserves emphasis.

There are signs of a growing realization on the part of scientific men that recent tendencies to minimize the importance of description and classification in biology are unhealthful; and that with this realization is associated a tendency to utilize in greater measure the natural history mode of philosophizing of which Professor Ritter speaks and which he so highly recommends.

The war has taught scientific men, philosophers and people generally, the overwhelming necessity for right thinking about life and living, if we are to avoid additional cataclysms

in the future.

WALTER P. TAYLOR

BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY

SPECIAL ARTICLES TO CUT OFF LARGE TUBES OF PYREX GLASS ON a number of occasions I have heard the remark from instructors in physics and chemistry, who do most of their own glass blowing, that they are unable to cut" " off squarely

large tubes of pyrex glass. Small tubes, up to about 20 mm. in diameter, yield readily to the usual file mark.

A well-known method for cutting large tubes of common glass is to make a file scratch round the tube, apply one turn of an iron wire held taut, and then heat the same to redness by an electric current.

This method, however, without modification, fails when attempting to cut pyrex tubes. The glass will simply not crack, and if the heating is pushed the hot wire usually sinks into the glass and finally fuses under the intense heat.

I was surprised recently to find that if the iron wire is replaced by a nichrome wire, say, of no. 14 or 16 gauge, the tube may be cut off by the incandescent wire in the same manner that a cake of soap is cut in two parts by means of a string.

When all is in readiness, turn on the heating current and adjust same by means of the tin resistance until the wire glows a white heat. If now a blast from a hand torch be allowed to play on the wire and glass the tube may be cut as shown in Fig. 2. Be careful not to let the flame strike the glowing wire where it is not in contact with the glass for the extra heat will burn it. The object of the blast is to aid in softening the glass, and also to distribute the heat along the tube and thus prevent the freshly cut edges from checking due to the otherwise intense local heating. The burr of glass that results from the cutting may be removed by a file or on the grindstone.

Recently the neck of a twelve-liter pyrex Florence flask was cut off with the greatest ease. The diameter was about 60 mm., and the wall thickness about 2.5 mm.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

CHAS. T. KNIPP

Fig. 1.

A

Fig. 2.

To insure success proceed as follows: Take a length of about one foot of nichrome wire, connect it up to a D. C. (or A. C.) dynamo current and include an adjustable tin resistance (for the current required must necessarily be large). The wire is held under tension by pulling on it with a pair of pincers, as shown in Fig. 1. Care must be taken not to let the two parts of the wire touch at A.

THE ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE

THE twelfth annual meeting of the Illinois State Academy of Science was held at Jacksonville, Ill., on March 21 and 22, having been postponed a month on account of the prevalence of influenza.

Important items of business transacted were the following: It was voted that the academy become affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on the plan proposed by the committee on affiliations, of the American Association. It was voted that the academy become affiliated with the Division of State Museum of the Department of Registration and Education of the State Government. It was voted that the academy seek affiliated relations with science clubs in high schools, colleges and elsewhere in the state and a committee was appointed to perfect a plan for such affiliations. A committee on secondaryschool science instruction was appointed. This committee is to make annual reports to the academy and to ask the aid and cooperation of the academy in its efforts to further the interests of such instruction. It was voted to offer for sale to libraries and individuals, full sets of the ten volumes of transactions now published at $5 per set.

Through the affiliated relation of the academy with the state museum, the former is practically guaranteed financial aid from the state for the