Juty 9, 1914] 
The officers of the commission, provisionally elected 
at the first meeting, were confirmed as follows :— 
President, Mr. Duddell; vice-president, Mr. Wien; 
general secretary, Mr. Goldschmidt; assistant secre- 
tary, Mr. R. Braillard. 
THE RESEARCH DEFENCE... SOCIETY. 
HE annual general meeting of the Research 
Defence Society was held last week at the Royal 
Society of Medicine. About 160 persons were present, 
among them Sir William Osler, Sir John Tweedy, Sir 
David Ferrier, Prof. Cushny, Sir James Reid, Sir 
Charles Dalrympie, Sir John Brunner, Sir Hugh Bell, 
and Sir Francis Champneys. Expressions of regret for 
non-attendance were received from Mr. Waldorf Astor, 
Mr. Arthur Balfour, Lord Bath, the Dean of Canter- 
bury, Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Cromer, Sir Francis 
Darwin, Lord Faber, Lord Farrer, Bishop Frodsham, 
Mr. Walter Guinness, Lord Claud Hamilton, Sir John 
Prescott Hewett, Lord Kilmorey, Sir Norman Lockyer, 
Mr. Walter Long, Prof. Howard Marsh, Lord North- 
brook, Sir Gilbert Parker, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir 
William Ramsay, Lord Rayleigh, Sir Henry Roscoe, 
Lord Salisbury, Lord Sheffield, Sir Edgar Speyer, the 
Bishop of Stepney, Sir Frederick Treves, and Mr. 
Henry S. Wellcome. The chair was taken by the 
president, Lord Lamington. 
Lord Knutsford, chairman of committee, presented 
the reports of the society. He referred to the Dogs 
Protection Bill, pointing out that such a Bill might 
have prevented the discovery of a cure for distemper ; 
and he directed attention to the educational work of 
the society. ‘‘We are trying, trying, to make the 
truth understood.” 
The president then gave his address. After a refer- 
ence to his predecessors in office, Lord Cromer and 
the late Sir David Gill, ‘‘Our society,” he said, ‘‘is 
really a protecting guard for science, in its noblest 
form, against those who, whilst we can respect their 
feelings and desires, are led by their emotions rather 
than by their reason.’’ We should look around, to 
see what other nations were doing. All nations were 
engaged in research involving experiments on animals, 
and that, in most instances, without any legal restric- 
tion. ‘‘That is a system of which I am sure this 
country would not approve. Our desire is to reduce 
human and animal suffering, and on no account to 
encourage any practice which could possibly tend to 
permit callousness or indifference to the pain suffered 
by others. I cannot help thinking that it is this idea 
which is at the back of the mind of anti-vivisectionists : 
it is the dislike of seeing human beings engaged in 
any undertaking involving pain, and the fear of its 
thereby hardening or debasing human character. It 
is not merely the fact of pain being inflicted upon the 
animal, but the fear of the reactive effect on the mind 
of the person who inflicts the pain. For instance, we 
should term a farmer, who chose a pet lamb to be 
killed, rather than one out of his flock, a man of 
brutal character; yet the pain to the animal would be 
alike in either case.”’ 
Speaking of pain in the animal world, ‘‘I may be 
wrong,” he said, ‘‘but I am honestly convinced that 
it is not physical pain that causes the greatest amount 
of suffering to animals; it is when their instinct of 
self-preservation takes alarm that they suffer. Any- 
one who has seen wounded wild animals must have 
noticed how, when unalarmed, they appear indifferent 
to their wounds. It is only when their instinct of self- 
preservation is aroused, and they become aware of 
their disablement, that they seem to suffer... . 
‘“T wish here to say, most emphatically, that the 
chief business of our society is not mere fighting. It 
NO. 2332, VOL. 93]| 
NATURE 
491 
is the quiet, steady educating of public opinion as to 
the true character and method of experiments on 
animals in this country, and the great advantages 
which these experiments give, not only to human life, 
but to the life and health of the higher domestic 
animals.’’ 
A vote of thanks was proposed by Sir Reginald 
Talbot, seconded by Dr. Sandwith. After the meeting, 
there was a demonstration with the kinematograph of 
living germs of cholera, typhoid, sleeping sickness, 
eles 
DHE, SYNTHETIC POWER ..OF 
PROTOPLASM.} 
PrOM the point of view of the biological chemist 
the phenomena of life are manifestations of inter- 
actions of colloidal and crystalline materials in a 
peculiarly organised solution; over and above this 
every form of protoplasm, existent in any organism, 
is stereochemically ordered in specific relationship to 
that organism, so that the products of synthesis have 
an impressed structure and manifest optical activity. 
It has been suggested by Prof. Armstrong that the 
protoplasmic complex may be regarded as built up of 
a series of associated templates which serve as patterns 
against which change takes place in the various 
directions necessary for the maintenance of vital pro- 
cesses. This view is based on the well-known rela- 
tionship between an enzyme and its hydrolyte; the 
synthetic enzymes, it may be supposed, serve as pat- 
terns for the elaboration of complex materials of 
definite pattern from the simple units. 
In speculating on the origin of organic life from 
inorganic material Prof. B. Moore has ignored this 
stereochemical aspect of the question. His use of the 
well-known synthesis of formaldehyde from carbon 
dioxide and water in presence of an inorganic catalyst 
—in his case a colloid—can lead only to optically 
inactive material, and there is no justification even 
for the mention of the term life until evidence of 
directed synthesis is adduced. 
The stereochemical hypothesis enunciated has been 
advocated by Prof. Reichert, of Pennsylvania, in his 
researches on haemoglobin, in which he showed that 
this substance is modified in specific relationship to 
genus and species. He now extends the hypothesis 
to the study of starch, expecting that the peculiarities 
of the protoplasm in different species of plants will 
occasion the formation of different types of starch. 
The variations in the starch granule with origin are, 
of course, well known, and they are of industrial 
importance. They are now shown to be absolutely 
diagnostic in relation to the plant and to constitute 
a strictly scientific basis for the classification of plants. 
In addition to recording the microscopic characters 
of the starches an attempt has been made on a large 
scale to characterise them chemically, and although 
these tests are admittedly crude and leave much to 
be desired, they do mark a great advance in the 
treatment of the subject. 
It may be regarded as established that starches of 
different origin vary both visibly and in chemical pro- 
perties; moreover, plants of closely’ allied species 
contain starches with similar properties, and 
it is logical that such variations must be 
attributed to the differences of protoplasmic influence 
under which the starch granules are formed. It must 
not be overlooked, however, that starch granules are 
made up of three kinds of substances, namely, the true 
1 “ The Differentiation and Specificity of Starches in Relation to Genera, 
Species, etc.” Stereochemistry Applied to Protoplasmic Processes and 
Products, and as a Strictly Scientific Basis for the Classification of Plants 
and Animals. By Prof. F. ‘1. Reichert. In two parts. Pp. xvii+goo+roz 
plates. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1913 ) 
