October 13, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



409 



doctors with a kindliness, a tolerance and large 

 understanding, the skill of hand, the skill of 

 mind and the resourcefulness of a past genera- 

 tion. Where are the successors of van Swieten, 

 John Hunt«r and Benjamin Rush or, in more 

 modern terms, of Neusser, Osier and Billings'? 

 The Greek world sank as it grew in democratic 

 principle — not in the abstract principle of 

 democracy but in the concrete expression of it 

 which substituted for its earlier rulers, pro- 

 ficient in ithe arts and sciences, the ever 

 increasing number of non-productive Athenian 

 traders. Is the efficiency of modern medical 

 practice riding to a similar fall.? Let us be 

 honest with ourselves. If medicine fails it can 

 not be ascribed to our stars, for our 'time, as all 

 ages before it, in the hour of sickness and death 

 cries as did Jeremiah: "Is there no balm in 

 Gilead; is there no physician there?" 



Martin Fischer 

 College op Medicine, 

 University of Cincinnati 



ALEXANDER SMITH 



From Edinburgh, Scotland, his birthplace, 

 comes the news of 'the death of Professor Alex- 

 ander Smith, lately head of the chemistry 

 department at Columbia University. While 

 this termination of the long and insidious 

 illness which clouded his latter days was not 

 unexpected, his loss is a heavy one for chem- 

 istry. 



His circle of influence was perhaps wides.t 

 as a text-book writer. Someone has remarked 

 that a pre-eminent elementary text-book in any 

 science appears but once in a generation. In 

 his generation, Alexander Smith's elementary 

 text^books have been the pre-eminent ones in 

 this country, and, in their various foreign 

 translations, have become well known abroad. 

 When Smith was president of the American 

 Chemical Socieity in 1911, an after-dinner 

 speaker referred in his retmarks to Smith's clear 

 and sparkling eye, which, as those who knew 

 him will recollect, was a very conspicuous and 

 characteristic feature of his. Now, the same 

 two epithets, clear and sparkling, might very 

 properly 'be applied to his texjt-books in part 

 explanation of their unrivaled position in the 

 text-book field. 



Smith's teaching work in this country was 

 begun at Wabash College, whence, in 1894, he 

 went to Chicago, at w'hich place his teaching 

 methods were chiefly developed. He was 

 intensely active here also in administrative 

 work both within, and, as dean of the junior 

 college of science, beyond his own department; 

 but had stUl abundant energy in reserve to 

 continue investigative work. The researches 

 on sulfur and on vapor pressures, for which, 

 in 1912, he was awarded the Keith Prize by 

 the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh, will recur to 

 the minds of most chemists. In 1911 he mi- 

 grated to Columbia University as head of the 

 department of chemistry, which he proceeded 

 to reorganize very fundamentally, energizing 

 progress' with his overflowing vitality until 

 forced by illness to desist. 



Truly, his spark was a brilliant one, but all 

 too short-lived. 



Alax W. C. Menzies 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 

 THE COST OF RESEARCH WORK 



The report of the British Scientific and 

 Industrial Research Department for the year 

 which ended on July 31 last has been published. 

 According to an abstradt in the London Times, 

 it is divided into two sections, the first, which 

 is signed by Lord Balfour, being the report of 

 the committee of the Privy Council for Scien- 

 tific and Industrial Research, and the second, 

 signed by the administrative chairman. Sir 

 William S. McCormick, that of the Advisory 

 Council. 



The first section is largely concerned with 

 financial detail. The total expenditui-e of the 

 department during the financial year was 

 £525,584, made up of £273,193 from the Ex- 

 chequer, £65,358 interest on the capital fund of 

 one million for the formation of research asso- 

 ciations, £86,355 from the same fund, and 

 £100,677 from fees for tests and special inves- 

 tigations carried out for outside bodies, from 

 the contributions of the shipbuilding industry 

 for research in the Froude tank, and from re- 

 payments by the fighting services for research 

 undertaken directly for them. Deducting the 

 last item and also the grants from the million 

 capital fund, the actual net expenditure of the 



