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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



political parties have pledged them- 

 selves to increase the national agen- 

 cies for suppressing disease and pro- 

 moting the public health, and public 

 sentiment will doubtless be further 

 awakened by this congress. 



International scientific congresses 

 are leading to permanent international 

 bureaus. Thus an International Asso- 

 ciation for Cancer Research has been 

 founded at Berlin, to promote the in- 

 vestigation of cancer and the care of 

 cancer patients, the collection and pub- 

 lishing of international cancer statis- 

 tics, and the establishment of an inter- 

 national center of information on all 

 matters concerning cancer research. 

 Other objects of the association are the 

 publication of an international tech- 

 nical organ and the organization of 

 international cancer conferences. So 

 far, thirteen states, including all the 

 great powers except Great Britain, 

 have joined the association, the seat 

 of which will be at Berlin. 



The International Institute of Agri- 

 culture was formally opened on May 

 23 by the king of Italy, who has given 

 it a building and an endowment yield- 

 ing $60,000 a year. The new building 

 in the gardens of the Villa Borghese 

 in Rome is said to be admirably suited 

 to the purposes of such an institution. 

 All civilized nations have joined in 

 this movement, inaugurated three 

 years ago, and it promises much for 

 the promotion of agriculture through- 

 out the world. 



Permanent international bureaus 

 must have a local home, and in addi- 

 tion to the two new institutions noted 

 here there are others in London, Paris 

 and Berlin. There are none in this 

 country, and it is but proper that we 

 do our share. The fisheries and re- 

 search in tuberculosis and propaganda 

 for its suppression would be proper 

 objects for our government to promote, 

 and it may be hoped that the approach- 



ing congresses will lead to the estab- 

 lishment of international bureaus at 

 Washington for one or both of these 

 objects. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We regret to record the deaths of 

 Mr. Henry Lomb, one of the founders 

 of the Bausch and Lomb Optical 

 Company; of Dr. Chamberland, sub- 

 director of the Pasteur Institute ; of 

 Dr. Ostwald Seeliger, professor of zool- 

 ogy at Rostock, and of Dr. Rudolf 

 Credner, professor of geography at 

 Greifswald. 



The Albert medal of the Royal So- 

 ciety of Arts has been awarded to Sir 

 James Dewar. — Sir William Ramsay 

 succeeds Lord Kelvin as a member of 

 the Dutch Academy at Amsterdam. — 

 Colonel W. C. Gorgas, eminent for his 

 work on yellow fever, chief sanitary 

 officer of the Isthmian Canal Zone, has 

 been elected president of the American 

 Medical Association. 



Mr. Henry Phipps, of Pittsburg 

 and New York, has made a large gift 

 to the Johns Hopkins University for 

 the founding of a Psychiatric Clinic. 

 It provides for the construction of a 

 hospital building, together with appa- 

 ratus, and laboratories for the scien- 

 tific investigation of mental abnormali- 

 ties by pathological, chemical and psy- 

 chological methods. Mr. Phipps will 

 provide for the maintenance of a med- 

 ical and nursing staff, including sal- 

 aries for a professor of psychiatry and 

 assistants and other expenses for a 

 period of ten years. The total amount 

 of the gift is withheld in accordance 

 with the wishes of Mr. Phipps, but it 

 is understood that it will considerably 

 exceed half a million dollars. Dr. 

 Adolf Meyer, director ot the Patholog- 

 ical Institute of the New York State 

 Hospitals, has accepted the professor- 

 ship of psychiatry and the directorship 

 of the hospital and clinic. 



