Notes and Comment. 233 



one should teach them the elements. The work will be further 

 reviewed as soon as space permits. 



The "cryptogamically minded" botanists (using Dr. Asa 

 Gray's quizzical temi of toleration) were ably represented at the 

 botanical congress at Brussels, and may well congratulate them- 

 selves on having materially contributed to a better understand- 

 ing in matters of nomenclature that have been like the troubled 

 sea casting up mire and dirt for so many years. Specialists in 

 different groups of Cryptogam,s held conferences for the purpose of 

 agreeing upon dates to be taken as "starting points," and their 

 recommendations were adopted by practically unanimous vote 

 of the congress. 



If the study of microbes belongs to botanical science we have 

 to thank the magazines for its popularization to a hitherto un- 

 heard-of extent. Pictures of such uncanny things as flies on 

 the way from a dead fish to the baby's bottle may cause a momen- 

 tary feeling akin to that of seasickness, but it is good for us to 

 be brought face to face with the facts of the case and such heroic 

 measures can hardly fail to produce an impression that should 

 lead to determined action. The August number alone of the 

 Technical World Magazine contains articles on "Campaigning 

 Against the Fly," " Pellagra caused by Gnat," and "Measles and 

 the Mouse." Such things as the "Lady or the Tiger" and other 

 fashionable literature of earlier years, and even the modern sport 

 of muck-raking seem to have taken subordinate rank as thrillers. 

 So staid a journal as the Review of Reviews shows up the bacteria 

 left on a gelatine {;late by a fly's feet, and, with what seems like 

 gusto, pictures a popular fly route from garbage can to dinner 

 table with the words "disgusting but eloquent." Two recent 

 numbers of the National Geographic Magazine have articles on 

 the same subject. In short if people continue to perish for lack 

 of knowledge it will not be because the reporters have failed to 

 get after the laboratory men. 



