B.— CHEMISTRY. 53 



and in the sciences subsidiary thereto in the time available, and this 

 problem will become more acute as knowledge increases. It has been 

 suggested that we should revert to the older method by which a student 

 was instructed in, say, three sciences without any special training in anv 

 one of them, and doubtless this method was a good one for the require- 

 ments of those times. But the day of the universalist is past, and general 

 scientific culture has become a luxury of the leisured classes. It is only 

 by the aid of the specialist that, nowadays, we can hope to obtain advances 

 in knowledge either in the sciences or in the sciences applied to industry. 

 It seems that the best method to attack problems in the borderland 

 subjects is by co-operation between two types of trained investigators. 

 In the case of biochemistry, for example, by the provision of trained 

 students of two kinds, the one trained in physiology but with a sufficient 

 knowledge of organic chemistry to promote sympathy with and knowledge 

 of the chemist's point of view, and the other trained as an organic chemist 

 with a similar knowledge of the methods and requirements of the 

 physiologist. The former would be a trained physiologist who would 

 devote his final year to organic chemistry, the latter an organic chemist 

 who would devote his final year to a study of physiology. This is, of 

 course, no new idea, but one which is being carried out in at least one 

 institution in this country in connection with other borderland subjects. 

 But it is the absence of any real attempt to approach biochemical problems 

 from the chemical side that renders it particularly desirable that the need 

 for some such scheme should be emphasised. It is true that the fault is 

 largely on the side of the organic chemists, who, for the most part, seem 

 appalled by the difficulties attaching to the study of natural processes. 

 The difficulties are indeed great, but not insurmountable. We are far 

 from gaining any insight into the meaning of life, but it is not unlikely 

 that we shall, in the near future, obtain some information regarding the 

 mechanism of the action of the enzyme, the important agent in the non- 

 living transformation of living matter into chemical products. It may 

 be that organic chemists are waiting to see how Willstiitter, who has 

 already made great progress in enzyme chemistry, will surmount the 

 difficulties confronting him, and it may well be that this great organic 

 chemist will introduce new methods of attack which will open up fresh 

 fields for investigation. ' 



Analytical, 



Except for the substitution of gas for charcoal, it cannot be said that 

 the ordinary methods of analysis employed by the organic chemists have 

 changed much since the days of Liebig. They have been modified, 

 notably by Dennstedt, and more recently some have adopted the micro- 

 chemical methods introduced by Pregl, but the older methods, for example 

 the long and tedious process for the estimation of halogens by the method 

 of Carius, are still in vogue in many of our laboratories and are taught 

 to the students. In any case the usual operations entailed by the estima- 

 tion of carbon and hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and the halogens require 

 considerable time, which has not been materially shortened by the intro- 

 duction of the less cumbersome methods due to Dennstedt. Pregl's 

 methods, in which a very small quantity of material is used requiring 



