76 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [ April, 
the least advantage in all grades of summer sea-side laboratories is the contact 
with other workers and the new acquaintances formed ; influences are there 
generated which go into the next year’s work and make it lighter and pleas- 
anter for the teacher and far more valuable to his pupils. 
O 
Obituary.—We have learned with very great regret of the death of Wm. 
T. Bruce, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins University, at Cairo, Egypt, Feb: 115 
1887. Dr. Bruce graduated three or four years ago at Princeton College. 
After graduation he was elected to a fellowship in biology at Johns Hopkins 
University, and was one of the most active morphological workers of the 
laboratory under the efficient guidance of Dr. W. K. Brooks. Last year he 
was made Lecturer upon Mammalian Anatomy at that institution, and was 
actively engaged in the duties of his lectureship when his health failed from 
overwork, and he went abroad for rest and change. He was on his way to 
Japan at the time of his death. 
Dr. Bruce has contributed several important original embryological papers 
to science upon Limulus and also upon the Lepidoptera, and he gave prom- 
ise of a very active career in scientific study. The ranks of zoology can ill 
afford to lose a man so well prepared and so full of enthusiasm for the cause. 
oO 
The St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, in its department of 
Microscopy, under the editorship of Dr. Frank L. James, contains, in the 
February number, the first of a series of articles upon Chemical Microscop- 
ical Technology. The article referred to is introductory; directions for 
arranging the work-room or work-table, with specifications ; many details, 
such as arrangement of light, the table, apparatus, and reagents. From the 
series of ar ticles just Gnicnee by Dr. James we feel very confident i in expect- 
ing a most valuable treatment of this subject from him. 
NOTES. 
The Radula of Cephalophorous mollusks was the title of a paper by B. B. Wood- 
ward at the January meeting of the Western Microscopical Society of Great Britain. 
He said in effect that the organ consists of muscular masses working upon cartilages, 
over which is stretched a hort ny membrane bearing on its upper surface numerous teeth 
disposed in rows. The teeth are hook-shaped, and the points curve backward. As 
those in front are worn away they are replaced by fresh ones developed at the poste- 
rior end of the organ. The organ is so distinctive of mollusks that its occurrence 
in Neomania and Chzetoderma furnishes one strong reason for regarding these worm- 
like creatures as of Molluscan affinity. The radula attains its greatest length, 3 inches, 
in the limpets. In the edible snail (/7e/ix Pomatza) its length 1 is less than its breadth,. 
about 4% inch. In this case, however, it contains 21,000 teeth, and in Limax maximus 
27,000. Only a partial classification of the Mollusca on the ‘ radula’ is possible. 
Sanitation is engaging a very great deal of attention in the State of Michigan and is 
likely to be made even more of. Ata meeting of the State Board of Health, on Jan- 
uary 11th, Dr. Vaughan remarked upon the necessity of establishing a laboratory for 
the scientific investigation of sanitary problems, also to be an educational centre in 
hygienic subjects. He refers to what has been done for public health by intelligent 
study in this direction, cites the case of Munich, where, after the establishment of such 
a laboratory, the ty phoid fever death rate fell from 24.2 in 10,000 to only 1.4 per 
10,000. Typhoid fever is only one preventable disease ; diphtheria, scarlet fever, and 
cholera also are preventable by attention to sanitary precautions. The municipal lab- 
oratory at Paris, for a small fee, tests any sample of food or drink for adulterations, 
Without this all legislation against adulteration is more or less helpless. 
