1913] Editoriais 507 



wade through or pay for Journals in which he is not interested, and 

 the zoologists and botanists are such proHfic gentlemen that the Journal 

 might be swamped with their productions. The Assoc, of Amer. 

 Pathol. and Bacteriol. already has an excellent Journal, the Jour. of 

 Med. Research, which it partly supports, and which might serve as a 

 nucleus for further expansion, I do not doubt that you would have 

 very considerable financial support from societies like the New York, 

 Philadelphia, and Chicago Pathological Societies, if a good Journal 

 were published under the auspices of the Biolog. Soc'y in which their 

 proceedings could appear. We have at present in this country no Jour- 

 nal which can afford to take important papers with many illustrations 

 on purely morphological pathology, and the time is coming when we 

 shall need a good abstract Journal on physiology, pharmacology, bac- 

 teriology, and pathology ; but there would be absolutely no profit in it 

 and it would be very expensive to run. The German Situation is, as 

 you know, perfectly hopeless. New Journals are appearing every few 

 months and no one can afford to subscribe for them all. Many of the 

 articles published are of poor quality and, as the good ones are scat- 

 tered through many Journals, it is almost impossible to have access to 

 them all except through a library. 



Anything which would lead to a fusion of Journals, and increase the 

 interest in society meetings would meet with my hearty approval. Any- 

 thing which would lead to the establishment of new Journals paralleling 

 those already in existence would, I think, be distinctly a step backwards, 

 and would postpone the time when America can stand on its own feet 

 in those special phases of biology such as experimental pathology, bac- 

 teriology, and pharmacology. 



Robert W. Yerkes, Harvard Univ. I have read with keen interest 

 both your letter and the Mathews plan for the Organization of an 

 Amer. Biolog. Soc'y. Some three or four years ago I discussed this 

 general subject with Dr. Mathews and at that time, as now, I was enthu- 

 siastically in favor of attempting to do something in the directions indi- 

 cated by your circular. 



I desire to express myself as eager for the carrying out of some 

 such plan as Dr. Mathews has outlined, and I should hope that we 

 might go even further than he has suggested in that we should organize 

 a scientific press for the handling of our biological Journals. I stand 

 ready to subscribe thirty dollars ($30) a year at any time as member- 

 ship dues, and I think I might be willing to pay even fifty dollars ($50), 

 supposing that all of the Amer. biolog. Journals were supplied and I 



