RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 129 



of careful trial, succeeded in isolating adrenaline from the 

 extracts in question. That adrenaline-like effects are not 

 restricted to adrenal extracts is further shown by Fulk and 

 MacLeod (Amer. Journ. Physiol, vol. xxxix.), who find such 

 effects yielded by acid extracts of the retro-peritoneal 

 chromaphil tissue of man and other animals. 



Jansen [Arch. Neerland, vol. iii. B) has investigated the 

 formation of urea from amino-acids by the liver. He finds 

 that the reaction is not reversed even when the concentration 

 of urea in the blood is ten times the normal. 



Synergy between spleen and liver is pointed out by L. Asher 

 (Biochem. Zeitschr. vol . lxxii .) . It is found that extracts of spleen 

 which are, themselves, almost devoid of haemolytic action 

 markedly increase the haemolytic effects of liver extracts. The 

 constituent responsible for this is destroyed by boiling. Splenic 

 extracts also increase the hsemoglobin-spitting effects of liver 

 extracts by means of a thermo-stable substance, which is not 

 a lipoid. Haemoglobin was broken down beyond the haematin 

 stage, but not so far as to yield un-masked iron. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. By A. G. Thacker, A.R.C.Sc. 

 Whatever may be the faults of Germany and Austria, those 

 countries have no superiors, and few equals, in the laborious 

 pursuit of science. It was reported in the English newspapers 

 about a year ago that it had occurred to Austrian anthropolo- 

 gists that they possessed in the luckless Russian prisoners of war 

 interesting and abundant material for anthropometric in- 

 vestigations. During the great Russian retreats in Galicia and 

 Poland last summer, it was inevitable that a considerable 

 number of prisoners should be captured by the Austro-Hun- 

 garian Army, and as these men hailed from many different parts 

 of the Tsar's Empire, they were of much interest to anthropolo- 

 gists. The investigations have been in the hands of leading 

 scholars of the Anthropologische Gesellschaft of Vienna, and 

 a fairly long summary of the results is now published in the 

 Mitteilungen of that society for November 191 5 (Band 45, 

 Heft 6). The examinations followed the lines of the elaborate 

 scheme set forth in the new text-book by the Swiss scholar, 

 Martin, and the men whose physical features were thus minutely 

 described came, as already stated, from many distant regions, 

 Vilna, Orenburg, Perm, Tomsk, Tobolsk, Turkestan, and many 

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