54 Biochemical News, Notes and Comment 



make life less anxious and more eiijoyable for multitudes o£ human 

 beings, mitigate or abolish ancient agonies and dreads o£ the race, 

 and promise for it a happier future. Science: 191 5, xlii, p. 920. 



The progress of biochemistry and bacteriology has already 

 enabled civiHzed governments to do much for the protection of their 

 people from injury by foods not fit for consumption and by aduUer- 

 ated drugs. This is a branch of the public-health Service which is 

 capable of large extension hereafter. The efficiency of the methods 

 now used will be greatly increased; and tliey will be used in new 

 fields. Science: 191 5, xlii, p. 923. 



Biologists are nozv realizing that biochemistry nmst furnish the 

 fundamental knowledge of the processes which incessantly go on in 

 the healthy body, and must also provide the exact knowledge of 

 those changes in the normal processes zvhich lead to disease and, 

 death. The physician and the sanitarian have become accustomed 

 to the beneficial use of remedies and defenses which chemistry at 

 present can neither analyze nor synthesize; such, for example, as 

 diphtheria antitoxin ; but they are aware that this condition of their 

 art is unsatisfactory and ought not to be permanent. The animal 

 body consists of well-known chemical substances, and its functions 

 depend on chemical reactions. Digestion is largely a chemical proc- 

 ess. The animal body consists of innumerable cells in great variety, 

 each of which acts under chemical and physical laws. Hence the 

 belief of the biologist of today that chemistry — analytical, struc- 

 tural and physical — can and will come to the aid of the science and 

 art of medicine in the large sense, and will ultimately enable biolog- 

 ical science to comprehend the vital processes in health and disease, 

 and to penetrate what are now the secrets of life and death. Sci- 

 ence: 1915, xlii, p. 929. 



Dr. C. W. Eliot on pure science and applied science. The 

 pure scientist often feels, and not infrequently expresses, contempt 

 for applications of science and for the men that make them. Some- 

 times the seeker for valuable applications of scientific knowledge 

 feels no interest whatever in researches of which no industrial ap- 

 plication seems feasible or probable, and confesses publicly this lack 

 of interest. The facts seem to be that all such feelings are narrow 

 and irrational; that no mortal can teil how soon a practical applica- 



