xxviii Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



Dr. LeEoy McMaster presented a paper on "Eadio- 

 activity. ' ' 



Mr. Frank Springer was elected to honorary mem- 

 bership. 



The death of Mr. F. Louis Soldan was reported. 



Apkil 20, 1908. 



President Woodward in the chair; attendance 32. 



The President spoke at length of the bill now pending 

 before Congress to establish a permanent national bison 

 range near Wichita, Kansas. Upon motion the Secretary 

 was instructed to write the Representatives of Missouri 

 urging the importance of prompt action upon the bill. 



Dr. A. C. Eycleshymer read a paper on ' ' Growing Old, 

 and the Attempts to Prevent it." After giving a brief 

 resume of the common theories on how to live to an old 

 age, Dr. Eycleshymer discussed what modern science has 

 learned about the physiological changes which produce 

 senile decay. He demonstrated that the disproportionate 

 growth between the protoplasm and the nuclear cells of 

 the body is responsible for the degeneration of tissue, 

 resulting in old age and death. While nature itself is 

 able to arrest this process, as for instance, when muscular 

 tissue is wounded, science has not succeeded in accom- 

 plishing this restoration. While eventually mental and 

 physical pain will be eliminated, we will always be baffled 

 in the end by death. 



In conclusion the speaker said that, after all, the great 

 work of medical science lay not in overcoming old age, 

 but in increasing the average age, in combating disease 

 and staying the hand of death in this form. Here medical 

 science had demonstrated its strength and given a fore- 

 sight of its possibilities. From this standpoint Dr. 

 Eycleshymer made an appeal for the establishment in 

 St. Louis of an institution for the study of the causation 

 and prevention of disease along the lines of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute in New York, the McCormick Institute in 

 Chicago, and the Phipps Institute in Philadelphia. 



