W. F. M. Goss, Clemens Hershel, M. I. Pupin, Charles F. Rand, C. E. Skinner, S. W. Stratton, Ambrose Swasey, Elihu Thomson.

Previous to the appointment of this committee the following letter, dated April 18, 1917, was addressed to the presidents of the American Societies of Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Mining Engineers:

The National Research Council desires to increase its means of serving the government in support of National Defense by enlisting through an engineering committee the services of a group of distinguished engineers drawn from the field of engineering research in each of the four main divisions of civil, mining, mechanical and electrical engineering.

The members of this committee would deal directly with engineering research problems falling within the spheres of their experience, and would serve as representatives of their respective national engineering societies for the calling upon other members of those societies for the services which the societies have offered to the government in connection with problems of defense and other problems that have been referred to the National Research Council.

The National Research Council operates through a number of central committees covering the physical sciences, medicine, hygiene, agriculture and other subjects as described in the pamphlet, enclosed herewith, which gives the scheme of organization of the council as developed up to January 15, 1917.

The engineering committee is a central committee coordinate with the other central committees therein listed.

In addition to services in the field of engineering research the council has need of some general engineering services auxiliary to problems of research, and desires to be in a position to enlist such services in support of the general objects of the council.

These objects are, to bring into cooperation existing governmental, educational, industrial and other research organizations with the purpose of encouraging the investigation of natural phenomena, the increased use of scientific research in the development of American industries, the employment of scientific methods in strengthening the national defense, and such other applications of science as will promote the national security and welfare.

The relation of the National Research Council to

The Engineering Foundation is described in enclosed report by the secretary of The Engineering Foundation.

The relation of the National Research Council to the Council of National Defense is indicated by the following resolution, passed on the 21st of February, by the Council of National Defense:

Resolved, that the Council of National Defense, recognizing that the National Research Council, at the request of the President of the United States has organized the scientific forces of the country in the interest of National Defense and National welfare, requests that the National Research Council cooperate with it in matters pertaining to scientific research for National Defense and to this end the Council of National Defense suggests that the National Research Council appoint a committee of not more than three, at least one of whom shall be located in Washington, for the purpose of maintaining active relations with the director of the Council of National Defense.

The executive committee of the National Research Council would appreciate it if on behalf of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers you would designate two engineers skilled in engineering research, whom the committee may appoint members of the engineering committee of the National Research Council, to render the services outlined in this communication and to serve as a means of calling upon other members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers for services that the National Research Council may need in support of the national objects herein referred to. GEORGE E. HALE,

Chairman, National Research Council,
JOHN J. CARTY,

Chairman, Executive Committee,
GANO DUNN,

Chairman, Engineering Committee

MEDICAL STUDENTS AND THE WAR

THE Medical School Committee of the Medical Board of the Council of National Defense has made the following report:

In your effort to solve the urgent problem before this board and assist the surgeon general in supplying an adequate number of medical officers for the Army and Navy, it is important that this country should not repeat England's blunder at the outbreak of the war in permitting the disorganization of the medical schools either by calling the faculties into active service or sanctioning the enlistment of medical students into any of the line organizations. Ordinary foresight demands that we face the possibility that the war upon which we

have entered may last for years. Medical schools to supply trained men for the future as well as the present emergency must be kept in active operation under any circumstances. While aiding to the uttermost in overcoming the present shortage of men, the necessity of keeping the source of supply open emphasizes the importance of conserving our raw material. Therefore, men now in college looking forward to medicine as a career should be made to understand that it is their patriotic duty to the nation at this time to continue their studies and enroll in the medical school of their choice. Furthermore, no medical student who has not completed three years of medical work should be permitted to give up his course, as the country needs his trained and not his untrained service.

There are, however, ways in which the medical schools can help the present situation. The following suggestions are made for your consideration and action:

1. Medical schools should be prepared to graduate senior medical students promptly in case of need. The faculties should urge all graduates who can be relieved of their obligations as internes in civil hospitals to enroll in the medical corps of the Army and Navy.

2. Medical schools should be encouraged to consider as a form of service, the Italian plan by which base hospital units can be organized through the Red Cross. These military hospitals carry with them the clinical faculty and students as medical personnel. This type of organization meets two ends-practical help can be rendered to the Army or the Navy in time of war and instruction may be continued at the base. This permits the graduation of men directly into the junior grades of the Army after the most practical form of military instruction.

3. Fourth-year students may be allowed to substitute, in special cases, service in a base hospital for the fourth year in the hospital at home when opportunities are offered for instruction in such military institutions.

4. Medical schools that do not adopt the Italian plan should be prepared to reduce the faculties to the minimum required for routine work and enroll all men so liberated in the Medical Officers Reserve Corps.

To put these recommendations into immediate effect, the committee suggested that the Council of National Defense send a telegram to the deans of all medical schools, urging that all medical students until the fourth year is reached should be discouraged from enlisting at present in any line or

sanitary organization; and another telegram to the presidents of all colleges and universities saying that national safety demands that all undergraduates planning to study medicine should enroll in the medical school of their choice at the earliest possible moment.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

THE following have been elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society: Residents of the United States: William Frederick Durand, Ph.D., Stanford University, Calif.; Pierre Samuel duPont, Mendenhall, Pa.; Carl H. Eigenmann, Ph.D., Bloomington, Ind.; Charles Holmes Herty, Ph.D., New York; Herbert E. Ives, Ph.D., Philadelphia; Waldemar Lindgren, Ph.D., Sc.D., Cambridge, Mass.; Walton Brooks McDaniel, Ph.D., Philadelphia; Winthrop J. V. Osterhout, Ph.D., Cambridge, Mass.; Harold Pender, Ph.D., Philadelphia; Frederick Hanley Seares, B.S., Pasadena, Calif.; George Owen Squier, Ph.D., Washington, D. C.; Charles P. Steinmetz, Ph.D., Schenectady, N. Y.; Oscar S. Straus, LL.D., New York City; Alonzo Englebert Taylor, M.D., Philadelphia; Edwin Bidwell Wilson, Ph.D., Cambridge, Mass. Foreign Residents: Archibald Byron Macallum, F.R.S., Toronto; Sir David Prain, F.R.S., Kew.

SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON has been elected to the honorary fellowship of the American Museum of Natural History, the highest scientific honor which the institution has to bestow. This is in recognition of his Antarctic explorations and his heroic efforts in rescuing the members of his party. Sir Ernest becomes the ninth honorary fellow of the American Museum, the others being: Roald Amundsen, Dr. Bashford Dean, Lieutenant George T. Emmons, U. S. N., Geo. Bird Grinnell, Baron Ludovic Moncheur, Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, U. S. N., Dr. Leonard C. Sanford and Vilhjamur Stefansson.

THE faculty of Wellesley College has awarded the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship for the year 1917-18 to Miss Hilda Hempl, A.B. (Stanford, '14), M.S. (Michigan, '15). Miss Hempl has been studying at the Serum

Institute in Copenhagen, the Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine in London, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and is now at the Pasteur Institute in Algiers. Under appointment as Alice Freeman Palmer Fellow she will continue work in connection with the study of anaërobic wound infection and tropic diseases.

THE board of trustees of the University of Maine has established the following committees at the suggestion of the National Research Council: From the Faculty: J. S. Stevens, Raymond Pearl, C. D. Woods, M. A. Chrysler and C. B. Brown. Representing the Alumni: W. H. Jordan, G. P. Merrill, Allen Rogers, L. R. Cary and H. W. Bearce. Representing the Trustees: S. W. Gould, W. H. Looney and F. H. Strickland.

THE following resignations from the medical faculty and the instructing staff of the college of physicians and surgeons have been accepted by the trustees of Columbia University: Dr. George E. Brewer, as professor of surgery; Dr. Virgil P. Gibney, as professor of orthopedic surgery; Dr. Herman Von W. Schulte, as associate professor of anatomy, and Dr. Homer Fordyce Swift, as associate professor of medicine.

DR. EDWARD CAMERON KIRK, dean of the dental school of the University of Pennsylvania, and Drs. Matthew H. Cryer and Edwin T. Darby, of the faculty, have retired under the university age limit rule of 65 years.

WE learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that with the close of this term Italy loses from her teaching force, on account of the age limit, three well-known professors, C. Golgi, professor of general pathology and histology at the University of Pavia, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of the nerve cell; G. F. Novara, professor of clinical surgery at the University of Genoa, and G. Roster, professor of hygiene at the University of Florence.

DR. CHARLES W. PILGRIM, president of the New York State Commission in lunacy, has been appointed superintendent and medical director of the Manhattan state hospital for the insane, to succeed the late Dr. Mabon, and

Dr. Walter G. Ryan, medical inspector of the State Hospital Commission, has been appointed superintendent and medical director of the Hudson River State Hospital at Poughkeepsie.

THE Canadian government has recently appointed Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, F.R.S.C., to be consulting zoologist, in addition to his duties. as Dominion entomologist and chief of the entomological branch of the Department of Agriculture. The duties of the office will be to advise in matters relating to the protection of birds and mammals and the treatment of noxious species.

D. W. BLAKESLEE, formerly assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Arkansas, and now engaged in industrial work, has received his commission as first lieutenant in the Engineer Section, Officers' Reserve Corps of the army.

DR. ISAAC F. HARRIS, formerly director of the Lederle Antitoxin Laboratories of New York and later director of the Arlington Research Laboratories of Yonkers, New York, has moved from Bronxville, N. Y., to New Brunswick, N. J., where he is head of the department of biochemistry in the research and biological laboratories of E. R. Squibb & Sons.

PROFESSOR EDWIN OAKES JORDAN, chairman of the department of hygiene and bacteriology at the University of Chicago, is at present engaged in investigations in Argentina.

ASSISTANT SURGEON GENERAL HENRY R. CARTER, U. S. Public Health Service; Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, statistician of the Prudential Life Insurance Company; Dr. Oscar Dowling, Shreveport, president of the state board of health, and Dr. William H. Seemann, New Orleans, state bacteriologist, began a tour of Louisiana on April 9, to make a survey of the malaria conditions. The survey will include thirty-five towns and cities and will be ended April 19.

THEODOOR DE BOOY, of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, has returned to New York after a six months' archeological survey of the Danish West Indies, now the American Virgin Islands. A large num

ber of pre-Columbian specimens were excavated in aboriginal village sites and the results of these investigations showed that the Indian inhabitants of the Virgin Island group did not belong to the same race as the inhabitants of Porto Rico, as has always been thought. Skeletal remains of contemporary animals were found in the kitchen-middens and were of the greatest zoological interest, among the finds being the remains of a flightless bird hitherto unknown from this region.

AFTER spending a considerable time in Alaska as head of the John Wanamaker expedition of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Louis Shortridge has sent a report of his acquisitions to the museum. Mr. Shortridge was formerly a chief of the Chilkat tribe of Indians of Alaska, and is familiar with their language and mode of life. He reports having acquired three sacred war helmets, said to be the last in Alaska, a large collection of dishes, baskets, tools, boxes and sacred bundles, used by the medicine men. All these will be on display at the museum.

DR. FREDERICK H. GETMAN lectured before the chemical department of the Johns Hopkins University on April 17 and 18, on "Allotrophy and the Metastability of the Metals."

PROFESSOR R. G. AITKEN, of the Lick Observatory, gave a lecture before the department of astronomy at Smith College on April 31, entitled "Unity of the Universe."

AT the bimonthly meeting of the Society of Sigma Xi, Duluth, held on April 17, Dr. E. L. Tuoby addressed the members on the subject "Why People Die." The usual dinner pre

ceded the address.

PROFESSOR MADISON BENTLEY, of the University of Illinois, lectured before Wilson College, Chambersburg, on April 14. His subject was "Orientation in Man and Animals."

PROFESSOR ARTHUR GORDON WEBSTER, of Clark University, gave a lecture at Wellesley College last week on "Physics and War."

THE services of the late Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, for many years a member of the board of trustees of the University of Pennsyl

vania, distinguished as a man of science, a man of letters and physician, are to be commemorated by the placing of a memorial tablet in the reading room of the university library.

Dr.

A SPECIAL memorial service in memory of the late Professor H. W. Conn was held at Wesleyan University on April 29. Shanklin presided and addresses were made by Professor C. E.-A. Winslow, of the Public Health Department of the Yale Medical School, who spoke on the work of Professor Conn for the welfare of the public and Professor W. N. Rice, who spoke of Professor Conn's thirty-three years' service to Wesleyan.

DR. EPHRAIM CUTTER, the microscopist and food expert, died on April 25, at West Falmouth, aged eighty-five years.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association announces the death of D. Vitali, formerly professor of pharmaceutic chemistry at the University of Bologna, aged eighty-five years; of L. Penix, professor of pharmaceutic chemistry and toxicology at the University of Bologna, aged fifty-five years, and of A. Corona, professor of experimental physiology at the University of Parma, aged sixty-five

years.

WE learn from Nature that Dr. J. O. Hesse, director of the Associated Quinine Factories of Zimmer and Co., for many years the leading authority on the chemistry of quinine and

other cinchona alkaloids, died at Feuerbach, near Stuttgart, on February 10, in his eightysecond year.

THE permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has sent us the following statement of the registration at the New York meeting: The actual registration was 2,136, including 103 members of the affiliated societies, according to the following geographical distribution: Alabama, 3; Arizona, 2; Arkansas, 2; California, 16; Colorado, 3; Connecticut, 73; Delaware, 6; District of Columbia, 156; Florida, 3; Georgia, 16; Idaho, 0; Illinois, 54; Indiana, 24; Iowa, 18; Kansas, 16; Kentucky, 3; Louisiana, 5; Maine, 17; Maryland, 77; Massachusetts, 240; Michigan, 36; Minne

sota, 20; Mississippi, 2; Missouri, 21; Montana, 3; Nebraska, 3; Nevada, 1; New Hampshire, 16; New Jersey, 133; New Mexico, 0; New York (including 450 from New York City), 703; North Carolina, 19; North Dakota, 4; Ohio, 96; Oklahoma, 0; Oregon, 2; Pennsylvania, 170; Rhode Island, 15; South Carolina, 8; South Dakota, 2; Tennessee, 12; Texas, 15; Utah, 1; Vermont, 6; Virginia, 27; Washington, 1; West Virginia, 10; Wisconsin, 23; Wyoming, 5; Germany, 1; England, 1; France, 1; Canada, 35; Argentina, 2; Brazil, 1; Japan, 2; Switzerland, 2; Hawaii, 1.

THE Earl of Derby, British secretary of state for war, in moving recently in the House of Lords the second reading of the bill to review military exemptions, stated that in the battle of the Somme alone over 400 doctors had been either killed or wounded, and that at the present time the army was, if not critically, at least lamentably, short of medical men.

ACCORDING to the Journal of the American Medical Association the quota necessary to fill the present vacancies and requirements of the Army Medical Corps will be drawn from among those who graduated in 1912 to 1916. The total number that would be included in such a list would be approximately 19,000. The list of graduates in the five years mentioned, and also for 1917, is as follows:

a hospital after graduation; the Navy, however, is not now insisting on this, but is recognizing 1917 graduates.

RESEARCH work in physics during the summer has of recent years grown to such proportions at Cornell that the physical laboratory is a busier place in June, July and August than during the term. To assist and encourage these workers, not by the offering of courses of instruction, but rather by occasional advice and council, arrangements have been made to have a member of the staff regularly in residence during this period who shall have no other duties. This work is entirely independent of the summer session. The arrangement is especially intended for former graduates who desire to return for a summer of investigation and for other working physicists. The member of staff in residence this summer will be Professor E. L. Nichols.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

By the will of the late John G. Johnson, one of the most noted lawyers in America, the University of Pennsylvania will ultimately receive a very large bequest; the exact amount can not now be stated, but it is estimated at from five to ten million dollars.

THE Minnesota legislature which adjourned on April 19, appropriated for the University of Minnesota for the biennum 1917-19, a total of $3,735,500. This is an increase of $435,550 over the current appropriations. The sum made available for buildings and equipment is less than for 1915-17, but the maintenance funds have been increased by $225,000 per annum, or $450,000 for the biennum.

THE University of Washington will have from the legislature and from other sources about eight hundred thousand dollars a year during the next two years.

DR. FREDERICK C. FERRY, dean of Williams College, has been elected president of Hamilton College.

DR. ALEXANDER PETRUNKEVITCH, assistant professor of zoology at Yale University, has