322 



NA TURE 



[March 9, 1922 



common focus : one of them is circular and turns 

 under the control of the others, which are fixed. 



Sir Alfred Ewing went on to show that with these 

 models it is possible to imitate known features in 

 the magnetic behaviour of metals, including effects 

 of stress and temperature, and also effects due to the 

 presence of non-magnetic atoms in a ferromagnetic 



substance, whether these were impurities or were 

 present in combination with the metal. It was 

 pointed out that the new model preserves all the 

 advantages in this respect of his model of 1890 and 

 at the same time escapes the quantitative discrepancy 

 which had made it necessary to amend the former 

 theory. 



The Profession of Chemistry. 



AT the forty-fourth annual general meeting of the 

 Institute of Chemistry held on March i the presi- 

 dent, Mr. A. Chaston Chapman, presented the first 

 Meldola medal to Dr. Christopher Kelk Ingold. The 

 medal, which is the gift of the Society of Maccabseans, 

 has been instituted as a memorial to Prof. Raphael 

 Meldola, a past-president of both the Institute and 

 the Society, and is awarded for meritorious original 

 work in chemistry conducted by British subjects 

 under thirty years of age. 



In the course of his piesidential address Mr. 

 Chaston Chapman said that owing to a variety of 

 causes — foremost among which must be placed the 

 intensive educational effect of the great war — 

 the importance of chemistry to the national well- 

 being was daily becoming more- widely and more 

 clearly recognised, and with that recognition had come 

 a great development of the work of the Institute. The 

 roll of members had increased during the past twelve 

 months by 371 to more than 3540, and the students 

 by 84 to 883. The organisation of the profession 

 of chemistry was thus being steadily effected. The 

 older members had the satisfaction of seeing the 

 Institute placed on a sure foundation and its position 

 as the body truly representing professional chemistry 

 in this country, acknowledged aUke by chemists, 

 by the general public, and by the Government. 



Referring to the scheme recently inaugurated 

 under arrangements made with the Board of Educa- 

 tion for the award of National Certificates in chemistry 

 to students in technical schools in England and Wales, 

 the president remarked on the advantage of bringing 

 such students at an early age into touch with the 

 professional quaUfying body. Later, when the scheme 

 was in operation, the council of the Institute would 

 consider whether, and to what extent, the certificates 

 should be allowed to rank towards the fulfilment of the 

 conditions required for admission to the examination 

 for the Associateship of the Institute. 



In an open and comparatively young profession 

 such as chemistry it was necessary that the public 

 should understand clearly the nature of the work 

 in which the members were engaged. He did not 

 believe that any single cause had contributed so 

 greatly to retarding in the past the progress of the 

 profession of chemistry in this covin try as the mis- 

 application of the word chemist. In no other country 

 was there any confusion between the person who 

 practised chemistry and the person who followed 

 the profession of pharmacy, and continental chemists 

 often expressed their inabiUty to understand what 

 they no doubt regarded as one of our many national 

 peculiarities. For the present the members had to 

 be content to express the hope that their friends the 

 pharmacists, without relinquishing their rights, would, 

 wherever possible, refer to their ancient, important, 

 and very honourable calling by the word woich more 

 accurately defined and described it. The power — 

 he might say the tyranny — of a word was often very 

 great, and he appealed to the press, as a very im- 

 portant factor in the enlightenment of the general 

 public, to assist, so far as it could, by employing 

 the terms chemist and pharmacist respectively in 

 the correct signification. It was to be deplored when 



NO. 2732, VOL. 109] 



such confusion was the unfortunate consequence of 

 the poverty of a language ; but, in this instance, the 

 correct and distinctive words were readily available 

 and the confusion was, therefore, easily avoidable. 

 If chemists themselves used the word without 

 quaUfying adjectives, it would be an effective step 

 towards estabUshing the proper meaning of the word. 

 The war had proved a very powerful factor in 

 informing the pubhc of the activities of the chemical 

 profession, which occupied a position in the public 

 esteem sucn as he (the president) would not have 

 thought possible in his own hfetime ; but every 

 member should help to the best of his abiUty to 

 consohdate the position they had gained, and to keep 

 aUve in the pubhc mind the enormous national 

 importance of the profession. Whether we regarded 

 chemistry as a subject of study, essential to an under- 

 standing of the world in which we hved, as an agent 

 which had done so much to transform the life of 

 man, as one of the most powerful factors in the 

 creation of material wealth, or, finally, as that depart- 

 ment of natural knowledge on which our national 

 prosperity and our national security so largely 

 depended, its supreme importance was equally 

 manifest. 



Commenting on the production of British laboratory 

 glassware, porcelain, and fine chemicals, the president 

 said that the view taken by the council of the Institute 

 and by many others who were desirous of seeing 

 those industries firmly established in this country 

 was that it would be a mistake of the first magnitude 

 to revert to the position of dependence on foreign — 

 and possibly enemy — nations. The whole chemical 

 industry (including those essential to successful 

 conduct of war) , the prosecution of scientific research 

 with all that it impUes, and the practical teaching of 

 science in schools and universities, all depended upon 

 a supply of laboratory glassware, porcelain, and 

 chemicals, adequate in quantity, suitable in quaUty, 

 and reasonable in price. On national grounds, it 

 was obviously desirable that the country should be 

 ever directing its activities to production and to the 

 increasing development of its internal resources. 

 There was, moreover, the further consideration, 

 which was much in the minds of the council, that 

 the establishment of these essentially chemical 

 industries demanded the services of properly quaUfied 

 chemists. British manufacturers had made great 

 progress under difficult circumstances, and there 

 appeared to be no good reason why we should not 

 be self-supporting in all the requirements of the 

 profession. 



After complimenting the local sections of the 

 Institute on their activity and acknowledging the 

 help they had given to the council in connection 

 with the work of the Institute, the president com- 

 mented on the fact that, at a time of almost un- 

 paralleled industrial depression, less than two per cent, 

 of the members were without employment. He 

 thought they might draw from this the comforting 

 inference that employers were looking more and 

 more to science to help them in overcoming technical 

 difficulties and in improving their manufacturing 

 operations. He concluded his address, however, with 



