smile, we may at least believe that they looked forward to the things they could not accomplish but which you shall accomplish. SCIENTIFIC EVENTS THE JAMES WATT CENTENARY COMMEMORATION AT BIRMINGHAM1 THE arrangements for the James Watt centenary commemoration are now practically complete, the general scheme being set forth in a pamphlet issued by the Centenary Committee. The form which the memorial is to take is threefold: (1) To endow a professorship of engineering, to be known as the James Watt chair, at the University of Birmingham, for the promotion of research in the fundamental principles underlying the production of power, and the study of the conservation of the natural sources of energy; (2) to erect a James Watt memorial building to serve as a museum for collecting together examples of the work of James Watt and his contemporaries, Boulton and Murdock, as a meeting place and library for scientific and technical societies, and as a center from which engineers could cooperate in spreading scientific knowledge; and (3) to publish a memorial volume. The success of the memorial will depend upon the response to the appeal for funds, and we are glad to note that assurances of support have come not only from all parts of the British Isles, but also from France and America. As indicated in our issue of May 15, we attach special importance to the foundation of the James Watt chair of engineering, and we can imagine no better memorial to the great engineer than the creation of a school of research so endowed as to attract both a professor of exceptional ability and also the most brilliant students, of whatever class. Such a scheme would require an endowment on a scale altogether greater than that which is usually associated with chairs in universities, but it should be possible to raise the necessary money-especially with the sympathetic help of America, which of recent years has shown not only a ready appreciation of the value of scientific research, but also a 1 From Nature. generosity in its endowment which has been more admired than imitated in this country. It must always be remembered that the vital factor in research is the man, and every possible inducement should be offered to secure the best men, both as directors and students. The commemoration ceremonies are to extend over the three days, September 16-18, and the official program includes a gardenparty at Watt's house (where his workshop can be seen in the state in which he left it in 1819), and visits to Soho Foundry and two of his engines (one of which, the first pumping engine built for sale by Boulton and Watt in 1776, will be seen at work). A degree congregation is to be held by the university at which honorary degrees will be conferred on distinguished engineers and men of science. The committee has issued a short pamphlet. (by Professor F. W. Burstall) in which an appreciation is given of the salient facts in the life of Watt, and of his epoch-making association with his colleagues Boulton and Murdock. MEETING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE Section on Vital Statistics of the American Public Health Association at the Annual Meeting in Chicago in December, 1918, reorganized the Special Committee on Statistical Study of the Influenza Epidemic with three subcommittees on Registration and Tabulation Practise of the Federal Departments (Subcommittee A), the State Departments and Commissions (Subcommittee B) Municipal Boards of Health and of other local Public Heath Agencies (Subcommittee C) and a fourth subcommittee (D) on Pathometry or Mathematical Analysis and Interpretation of the Epidemic. Subcommittee A, B, C have met at various times and will have data ready for the consideration of subcommittee D at a meeting called for 9:30 A.M., September 19, at Columbia University. Sessions wil follow in the afternoon and on Saturday the twentieth. The discussions at the preliminary meetings of the emergency special committee held in Philadelphia last November and in Chicago last December, brought out a rather confusing lack of agreement as to the effects of preventive measures, and of modes of treatment, upon the form of the epidemic wave, and as to the kinds and character of statistical data available. The work and recommendations of the other three registration and tabulation subcommittee will result in bringing before the coming meeting data that are more uniform, and so better adapted to comparative study towards discovering the quantitative relationships which hold in this epidemic and which it holds in common with other epidemics. Towards having epidemiology take another step or two away from qualitative methods and towards quantitative research, an earnest invitation is hereby extended to members of the medical profession, to physical chemists and biochemists, to bacteriologists, to those interested in mathematical statistics and climatology, and others to attend the meetings on September 19 and 20, at Columbia University, and other meetings to be announced, and to participate freely in the deliberations of the committee. Meanwhile the chairman invites correspondence addressed to Pomona, N. Y. Professor Svante Arrhenius pointed out in his Tyndall lectures that "physical chemistry allows us to follow quantitatively the influence of temperature and of foreign substances upon these interesting organic products, which are of the greatest importance in industry, in the physiological processes of daily life, and in diseases and their therapy." In the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, May, 1918, Vol. XI., No, 7, pages 85-132, John Brownlee, M.D., director of statistics, medical research committee, develops a theory in which "the organism producing the epidemic loses infecting power according to the law of a monomolecular reaction." Whether fitting curves to Pearsonian types or to those of immuno-chemistry shall lead to statistical light on influenza remains to be seen. These and other questions remain to be discussed by this committee in a spirit of scientific open-minded search for the truth. CHARLES C. GROVE, Chairman THE NEW ENGLAND FEDERATION OF THE fall meeting of the Federation will be held at Fall River on Friday and Saturday, September 26 and 27, with the Fall River Society of Natural History. The meeting will be in the parish house of the First Baptist Church on Pine Street just below Main. Take cars from the depot to Pine Street. For information in regard to hotels or other local matters write to Mr. Norman S. Easton, Fall River. The Fall River Society will make a large exhibit illustrating the Natural History of the country around the city. Other exhibits are desired from societies and individuals. The exhibition will be open to the public all day Friday and Saturday. Packages may be sent to the parish house in care of the janitor. Friday evening, September 26, there will be a public meeting at which there will lectures and addresses by several members. Saturday morning there will be excursions into the country for observation and collecting led by local members. Saturday at 2 P.M. there will be a meeting for business, for reports from the societies of the federation and or discussion of the exhibits and the mornings collections. J. H. EMERTON, Secretary 30 IPSWICH ST., BOSTON, MASS. THE MARY CLARK THOMPSON MEDAL THE president of the National Academy of Sciences, on authority of the Council of the Academy, has appointed the following committee to serve as the committee for the award of the Mary Clark Thompson Gold Medal, to be awarded annually for meritorious services in geology and paleontology: John M. Clarke, Chairman, Gano Dunn and Henry Fairfield Osborn. The Academy accepted the gift in the following resolution: That the gift of ten thousand dollars presented by Mrs. Mary Clark Thompson, the income thereof to be applied to a gold medal of appropriate design to be awarded annually by the National Academy of Sciences for high recognition of exceptional service to geology and paleontology, and the medal to be known as the Mary Clark Thompson Gold Medal, be accepted and that the academy express to Mrs. Thompson its appreciation of her desire to reward those interested in researches in geology and paleontology. (Adopted June 24, 1919.) The committee is considering a design for the medal. THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AND THE WAR THE Rockefeller Institute has received the following letter from Merrite W. Ireland, Surgeon-General of the United States Army, commending its war-time activities: During the war which is now happily past, your institute proved to be one of America's strongholds. I am informed that from the beginning to the end of hostilities the entire institution was placed by you at the disposal of the War Department and that you did work of the greatest value, not alone for the Medical Department but for the Chemical Warfare and Air Service; that your hospital as well as your laboratories became in effect as much a part of the army as the hospitals and laboratories established by the War Department in our cantonments. I have also been informed that this great work, extending over the whole period of our participation in the war, was paid for entirely out of your own funds, and was without further support from the government than the routine payment of salaries of such members and assistants of the institute as became part of the Medical and Sanitary Corps. I thank you for your work of patriotism and your generosity in placing so fully at the disposal of the Medical Department your great and productive facilities for research, for teaching, and for the care of the sick. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS PROFESSOR VITO VOLTERRA, who holds the chair of mathematical physics in the University of Rome and is a member of the Italian Senate, will deliver a series of Hitchcock lec tures at the University of California from October 6 to 17. This will be the second series of Hitchcock lectures this semester, Professor W. J. V. Osterhout, of Harvard University, having just completed the first series on the general subject, "Fundamental life processes." Professor Volterra will lecture on "The propagation of electricity" and "Functional equations." PROFESSOR JAMES H. BREASTED, of the University of Chicago, has sailed for Europe in order to lead an archeological expedition to Egypt and western Asia, for which permission has been granted by the British government. Before leaving Professor Breasted arranged for publication in The Scientific Monthly the lectures on the William Ellery Hale foundation entitled "The origins of civilization," which he delivered before the National Academy of Sciences last April. t MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM C. GORGAS, formerly Surgeon-General, U. S. Army, who has been investigating the sanitary matters in Central and South America, has, it is reported, offered to assume technical directorship of the sanitation of Guayaquil, Ecuador, provided the money for the work is supplied by the municipality or the republic. At the request of the Peruvian authorities, General Gorgas is about to proceed to Piura, which is infected with yellow fever. He and his party left Guayaquil for Callao on September 1. THE Duke of Abruzzi has planned an expedition to the upper reaches of the Wady Scebel, a river which, rising in north Italian Somaliland in the outlying spurs of the Abyssinian mountain ranges, joins the Fafan River. He will be accompanied by his aide de camp, Marquis Radicati; a doctor, a photographer, and four naval under-officers who have taken part in his former expeditions. MR. E. HELLER has charge of an expedition sent by the Smithsonian Institution to South Africa to make collections for the National Museum. PROFESSOR A. S. HITCHCOCK, systematic agrostologist in the Bureau of Plant Industry, will leave New York for British Guiana, on September 24. He will study the grasses of that country, returning in about four months. The work will be done in cooperation with the New York Botanical Garden and the Gray Herbarium. GEORGE B. SHATTUCK has resigned the chair of geology at Vassar College for the purpose of joining an expedition to Africa. THE Remington Medal, given annually to a member of the American Pharmaceutical Association, who makes the most notable contribution toward the advancement of pharmacy, was awarded to Professor James P. Beal, dean of the college of pharmacy of the University of Illinois, Chicago, at the sixtyseventh annual meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association held in New York City. DR. M. E. CONNER, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation Commission to Guayaquil. Ecuador, was presented with a gold medal, August 11, in recognition of his services in the campaign against yellow fever. GEORGE R. GREEN has resumed his duties as associate professor of forestry at Pennsylvania State College. Professor Green was employed during the war as wood technologist at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, in charge of all experiments having to do with. wood, glues and fabric, supervision of the dry kilns, and the school for inspectors and wood workers. MR. A. D. GREENLEE, formerly assistant chemist with the food research laboratory, U. S. Bureau of Chemistry, and, during the period of the war, specialist in poultry handling for the same bureau, with office at the Field Station, Indianapolis, Ind., has resigned from this position to become president of the newly organized Greenlee Products Company, at St. Louis. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS THE University of Redlands, Redlands, California, has completed a campaign for funds for a program of expansion. In excess of $50,000 was raised by popular subscription in the city and a similar sum was secured by subscription outside. In addition to these amounts, special gifts for buildings aggregate $100,000, construction on two of these, a science hall, and a new men's dormitory, to begin during the present summer. The university will also receive a large sum from the Baptist Church Fund. AT Tufts College a research fellowship has been established for work on the physiological problems in surgery, under the direction of Professor A. H. Ryan, of the department of physiology and Professor F. H. Lahey, of the department of surgery. THE trustees of the Western Reserve University have voted an increase of twenty per cent. to the salaries of the entire full-time instructing staff of the medical school. DR. EMIL GOETSCH, associate professor of surgery in Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed professor of surgery at the Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y. PROFESSOR E. I. TERRY, for some time connected with the Colorado School of Forestry, has been appointed professor of forestry at Middlebury College, Vermont. He will be supervisor of the 25,000 acres of forest land recently bequeathed to the institution. DR. E. J. MOORE, associate professor of physics in Oberlin College, has been appointed professor in charge of physics at the University of Buffalo. DR. J. F. DASHIELL, assistant professor of psychology in Oberlin College, has been appointed associate professor in charge of psychology in the University of North Carolina, succeeding in that capacity the president elect, Dr. H. W. Chase. order to accept the professorship of horticulture in West Virginia University. L. R. HESLER, assistant professor of plant pathology in the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, has been appointed professor of botany and head of the department of botany at the University of Tennessee. NEW appointments in Colorado College include in biology: R. J. Gilmore, Ph.D. (Cornell), professor; A. E. Lambert, Ph.D. (Dartmouth), assistant professor, and Florence Brumback, instructor. In chemistry: F. W. In chemistry: F. W. Douglas, Ph.D. (Cornell), of Albion College, associate professor. In philosophy and psychology, A. E. Davies, Ph.D. (Yale), recently professor of philosophy in Ohio State University, professor. Ar the University of North Dakota Howard E. Simpson, associate professor of geology and physiography, has been promoted to a professorship of geographic geology, and Leonard P. Dove, now instructor in geology at Northwestern University, has been appointed assistant professor of geology. Ar the Michigan Agricultural College Mr. C. W. Bennett, graduate assistant in botany, has been appointed instructor to succeed Miss Rose M. Taylor, who died last December. Mr. H. C. Young, absent for a year on leave on account of military service as lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps, has resumed his position as research associate in plant physiology. MME. CURIE has been appointed professor of radiology in the Warsaw University. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE OPISTHOTONOS PAST events can only be interpreted in the light of recent phenomena, and to this rule, first so clearly outlined by Sir Charles Lyell, the writer was adhering when he proposed the interpretation that the attitude of fossil vertebrates often suggested spastic distress and induced an inquiry into the causes of 1 Am. Naturalist, LII., pp. 369–394. their death. Bashford Dean especially has criticized this interpretation and suggested an alternative, voicing not only his sentiments, but the sentiments of the large majority of paleontologists, for on a recent trip through the east the writer found many of them opposed to this interpretation. The causes for this opposition were puzzling in the extreme until it was learned that one chief cause was that opisthotonos is regarded as a phenomenon restricted to the human race, and on rereading my paper I find I owe my readers an apology. It now becomes necessary to say that the phenomena, opisthotonos, pleurothotonos and emprosthotonos are extremely common among modern vertebrates of all classes, and these phenomena are so commonly seen in medical laboratories as to be well known to sophomore medical students. Captain Weed told me that cats inoculated with cerebrospinal meningitis often died during the night in the opisthotonic position and were found fixed in this attitude by the rigor mortis. Rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, frogs and other laboratory animals frequently exhibit the phenomena. The phenomena occur among modern vertebrates in the order of frequency named as they do also among fossil vertebrates. It was the similarity of these occurrences which first suggested that these phenomena might indicate disease among fossil vertebrates. Dr. Dean is quite right in saying: It would trouble one to find recorded cases of it (opisthotonos) in reptiles or birds, amphibia or fishes: even in mammals collectively the percentage of deaths following opisthotonos would evidently be microscopically small. There is no medical literature bearing on this problem, partly because the phenomena are so commonly seen that medical writers have not deemed it worth while. However, Cushny in his text-book of pharmacology has figured a rabbit in opisthotonos, and most medical works on nervous diseases mention the phenomena, but to date none have discussed it. It is difficult to see the logic of Dr. Dean's reasoning that the pull of the ligaments in dry 2 SCIENCE, N. S., XLIX., No. 1267, pp. 357, 1919. |