104 
body of mathematicians representing all countries 
of the civilised world. Much of the success 
attending its labours must be attributed to the 
zeal and energy of the secretary, whose last letter 
to me, written just a fortnight before his death, 
anticipated a new departure which would increase 
the efficiency of the association. 
Throughout his life Dr. Macfarlane was keenly 
interested in educational methods, and at the time 
of his death was Chairman of the Board of Educa- 
tion in Chatham, Ontario. C. G. Knort: 
DR. JULIUS LEWKOWITSCH. 
We regret to announce that Dr. Julius 
Lewkowitsch, the well-known authority on 
fats and oils, died at Chamonix on September 
16, after. a short illness. He was born 
at Ostrovo, in Prussian Silesia in 1857, and had 
a brilliant university career at Breslau. After 
graduating as doctor of philosophy at Breslau, 
Lewkowitsch devoted himself to an academic 
career; he carried out a considerable quantity of 
original investigation under Prof. Victor von 
Richter at Breslau, and subsequently took a posi- 
tion under Prof. Hans Landolt in the chemical 
laboratory of the Berlin Agricultural High School. 
At a later date he became assistant to Prof. Victor 
von Meyer in the University of Heidelberg. 
Lewkowitch’s first published work consisted in 
the study of the action of nitric acid on fatty 
acids; but he soon applied himself to experimental 
work on stereochemistry, which was at that time 
a new and undeveloped subject, and was far from 
assuming the commanding position which it now 
holds. He was the first to develop the method 
given by Pasteur for the resolution of externally 
compensated substances by the action of living 
organisms, and in 1882 and 1883 prepared the 
optically active modifications of tartaric, lactic, 
glyceric, and mandelic acids from the correspond- 
ing racemic substances by the action of penicillium 
glaucum, aspergillus mucor, yeasts, and a 
schizomycetes. At a later date he attacked the 
problem presented by the optical inactivity of 
benzene derivatives, and made many experimental 
attempts to obtain such substances in optically 
active modifications. 
The brilliance of Lewkowitsch’s early experi- 
mental work indicates that, had he continued to 
devote himself to pure science, he would rapidly 
have achieved a foremost place as a teacher and 
investigator. About twenty-five years ago, how- 
ever, he came to this country, became naturalised, 
and, abandoning his aspirations towards a purely 
scientific career, entered upon what proved to be 
his life-work, the development of the industrial 
technology of fats and oils. At the time of ‘his 
death he was the first living authority on the 
vegetable and animal fats and oils; a large 
number of processes which are widely employed 
in the utilisation and valuation of these important 
raw materials were devised by him. His treatise 
on the ‘Chemical Technology and Analysis of Oils 
and Fats” is now in its fifth English edition, and 
NO. 2291, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 25, 1913 
has been published also in French and German; 
his “Laboratory Companion*to Fats and Oils 
Industries’”’ has a wide sphere of usefulness 
in English and in its German __ translation. 
Lewkowitsch wrote the article on oils and fats 
in the “Encyclopedia Britannica” and the articles — 
on oils in the last and the current editions of 
Thorpe’s “Dictionary of Applied Chemistry ” ; his 
writings on his own subject have set a standard 
of precise treatment which has been accepted and 
adopted in later works by others upon this great 
branch of chemical industry. 
Dr. Lewkowitsch served in many capacities 
upon the Councils of the Chemical Society, the 
Society of Chemical Industry, the Institute of 
Chemistry, and the Society of Public Analysts; 
at the time of his death he was the honorary 
foreign secretary of the Society of Chemical 
Industry, and had held the chairmanship of the 
London Section of the society. In 1909 he re- 
ceived the Lavoisier medal as conférencier of the 
Société chimique de France; as a Cantor lecturer 
of the Royal Society of Arts he delivered a course 
of lectures on fats and oils which, in their pub- 
lished form, are of considerable value, and exhibit 
the great mastery which he had acquired over our 
language. ; 
Lewkowitsch was a keen mountaineer; few men 
possessed so intimate and complete a knowledge 
as he had gained of the French and Swiss Alps, 
in sight of which he passed away. He married 
in 1902, and his widow, with a son and daughter, 
survives him. W.. Jeeta 
NOTES. 
Dr. Rovux, director of the Paris Pasteur Institute, 
has been made a grand officer of the Legion of 
Honour. 
Tue death occurred on September 15, at the age 
of fifty-nine, of Dr. Louis Merck, senior partner of 
the firm of E. Merck, Darmstadt. 
Ir is stated in The Lancet that Mr. W. F. Fiske 
has been asked by the Tropical Diseases Committee 
of the Royal Society to investigate the life-history of 
the tsetse flies in Uganda. 
THE Chemist and Druggist for September 20 con- 
tains the reproduction of a photograph of the bronze 
statue of Dr. Ludwig Mond, which was unveiled by 
Sir John Brunner, Bart., on September 13, and was 
alluded to in our issue of September 11 (p. 48). _ 
Tue death is reported, in his sixty-eighth year, of 
Prof. Lucien A. Wait. On graduating at Harvard 
in 1870 he was appointed assistant professor of mathe- 
matics at Cornell University. In 1877 he became 
associate professor, and in 1890 full professor. From 
1895 to 1910 he was head of the department of mathe- 
matics. . 
AccoRDING to Science, a national museum is to be 
established in the city of Santo Domingo for the 
purpose of retaining and preserving in the country 
objects and relics of historical character connected 
with the discovery and developmen: of the country. 
—_—s = 
