i86 Federation of American Biological Societies [March, 



metals on the isolated heart. — C. W. Greene, L. R. Boutwell and 

 /. O. Peeler: An analysis of the action of digitalin on the cardiac 

 inhibitory centre and on the cardiac muscle. — W. H. Schultz: A com- 

 parative study of the influence of the solvent upon the toxicity of 

 thymol. — W. H. Schultz: The reaction of hookworm larvae to cer- 

 tain chemicals. — A. E. Colin: A further Observation on the "T- 

 wave " when digitalis is given. 



Executive proceedings. New members : F. C. Becht, Univ. 

 Chicago; W. H. Brown, F. L. Gates, Rockefeller Inst. 



Officers-elect : President — Torald Sollmann; Secretary — 

 John Auer; Treasurer — Wm. deB. MacNider; Additional members 

 of the Council — Worth Haie, D. E. Jackson. Membership Commit. 

 — 5". /, Meltser (term expires 1917). 



General comment. Among the topics discussed during the 

 business meetings, was one especially which is of general interest. 

 Several members expressed marked dissatisf action with the present 

 arrangement of holding the annual meetings during the Christmas 

 holidays. They suggested that practically any other time would be 

 better. Their arguments, briefly, were as follows : The Christmas 

 sessions always break the holidays as a family festival for members 

 who live at some distance from the place of annual meeting; it has 

 not been uncommon for members to spend Christmas day on the 

 train. Secondly, if the meetings were held in June or July,^ more 

 time would be available for the completion of work started at the 

 beginning of the academic year, so that it could be reported to the 

 Society. In the third place, a meeting in June or July would mean 

 equable cHmatic conditions during the sessions, and the attending 

 members would be less likely to experience in a few days, more or 

 less unprepared, samples of all the seasons as at present during the 

 Christmas holidays. 



There are, of course, objections to this suggested change. The 

 gravest one, perhaps, is the fact that most of the Societies forming 

 the Federation have clauses in their constitutions which fix the annual 

 Session in the last week of December and the first week of January. 

 Now, without losing time in deploring the tendency to regulate and 

 direct every manifestation of life in a Society by constitutional pro- 



1 The Easter holidays are not suitable as a meeting period because not all 

 Colleges and universities give a vacation, nor do the vacations coincide in time. 



