28o American Societies for Experimental Biology [Jan. 



the chainnan and secretary of the executive committee, in the event 

 of retirement from office in their society, become members of the 

 executive committee for the ensiiing year but in an advisory capacity 

 only. The committee will thus always enjoy the ad vice of the chair- 

 man and secretary of the preceding year, but there is no danger that 

 one society will have at its disposal four votes out of ten in the 

 deliberations of the executive committee of the Federation. 



An Illustration of the independence of the societies forming the 

 Federation is furnished by an action of the Pharmacological So- 

 ciety. This society has a constitutional provision which renders 

 those in the permanent employ-of drug firms ineligible to member- 

 ship. As the other societies have no such clause, it was easily con- 

 ceivable that the spirit of this clause might be violated by the shift- 

 ing of papers from one society to another on the annual program, 

 which the Federation authorizes. In order to emphasize again its 

 own individual position in this matter, and to prevent the possible 

 appearance of papers from commercial interests on its programs, 

 the society passed a resolution recommending that no paper should 

 be transferred to its program without the explicit consent of the 

 secretary of the Pharmacological Society. 



An action of this kind shows quite well that the individuality of 

 a society belonging to the Federation is preserved, and that the Fed- 

 eration itself is merely a working combination, a loose chemical 

 Union, so to say, designed to concentrate the kinetic energy of the 

 individual molecule-societies on one point, in the furtherance of a 

 proper experimental attitude in the biological sciences. Moreover, 

 this loose combination between the components of the Federation is 

 a guarantee that a cleavage of the Federation by the secession of a 

 society desirous of satisfying some more attractive affinity, will be 

 accompanied by a minimal liberation of heat and evolution of gas. 



II. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS OF THE GENERAL SESSIONS OF THE 



FEDERATION 



A. J. Carlson, 



Secretary of the Executive Committee for 1913 



First Session. Jefferson Medical College, Monday, Decem- 

 ber 29, 9.00 a. m. Presiding officer: President of the Physio- 



