NOVEMBEE 10, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



539 



under the referendum to restrict the activities 

 of the health authoriities -with respect to the 

 sanitary and hygienic control of the public 

 schools. The foes of scientific medicine, among 

 them those who even deny the existence of 

 disease, procured the passage of an act in 1921 

 granting to parents the privilege of fonbidding 

 examination of their children in school by the 

 health autliorities. The public heaJth forces of 

 the staite, recognizing the danger to public 

 health inherent in this measure, have procured 

 its submission to the people, and it -will be 

 voted on, November 7. The demand for this 

 uncivilized legislation was presumably due to 

 recognition, by the enemies of medical science, 

 that medical mysticism and quackery can not 

 thrive in a community enlightened with respect 

 to modern medicine, and that the pulblic schools 

 eonatitute the great channel through which the 

 people can be enlightened and future genera- 

 tions gain from the past. In fact, opposition 

 •to the rejection of this measure is an attempt 

 to des'troy one of the most effective methods of 

 teaching facts concerning disease, namely, bj- 

 their active ajxplication in school administra- 

 tion. 



In California, members of two of the cults 

 that now infest the medical underworld are 

 fighting through the initiative to free them- 

 selves from oontix)l. The liberal and fair- 

 minded provisions for licensing their practi- 

 tioners do not satisfy them. Chiropractors 

 have been defying the law, and, when convict- 

 ed and sentenced, have gone to jail raither than 

 pay fines, thus posing as martyrs. Appar- 

 ently neither cult will be satisfied by any 

 measure that does not allow it to pursue its 

 own course at its own sweet wUl. 



The medical profession must see that no 

 ground is lost to the enemies of scientific medi- 

 cine and particularly of preventive medicine. 

 The debt of the physician to his patient and 

 his community can not be discharged by proxy. 

 Personal service, intelligently, energetically and 

 loya'lly rendered, is absolutely essential to suc- 

 cess, if the results of the contest are to he cer- 

 tain and complete. Every physdciau in each 

 of the communities now laboring under the 

 threat of this dangerous legislation should de- 



vote an hour or two each day between now 

 and election to enlightening his patients and 

 friends, to informing them as to what is right 

 and to urging them to act on behalf of the 

 right. Thus he will not only be doing his 

 proper part as a true physician but also as a 

 good citizen. — Journal of the American Med- 

 cal Association. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Applied Colloid Chemistry: General Theory. 

 By Wilder D. Bancroft, professor of phys- 

 ical chemistry at Cornell University. First 

 edition (1921), International Chemical Se- 

 ries. H. P. Talbot, consulting editor. 

 McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New 

 York. 



In this volume Professor Bancroft professes 

 to deal with the general theory of colloidal 

 solutions in a new way; he says, "I have 

 written this book deductively." By this one is 

 led to understand that the author sets out to 

 deal with general principles which later may 

 be applied to the particular case involved in 

 the. study of colloidal solutions. One should 

 not, then, object that colloidal solution is hardly 

 mentioned in the first third of the .book. 



In carrying out his plan, the author devotes 

 the first three chapters — or considerably more 

 than one third of the book — to the treatmeiit of 

 the phenomena of absorption in all its phases. 

 This subject is dealt with in the encyclopedic 

 manner so frequentlj' found in German texts, 

 but the style is illuminated and made interest- 

 ing by that piquancy of suggestion and com- 

 ment which makes Professor Bancroft's lec- 

 tures and papers especially attractive. Un- 

 doubtedly there is here a valuable summary of 

 the present state of our knowledge of absorp- 

 tion; if any criticism is to be offered, it is tiiai 

 some of the matters dealt with, while im- 

 portant from the point of view of general ab- 

 sorption phenomena, seem to have very little 

 application to the study of colloidal solutions: 

 as, for example, the outlines of various com- 

 mercial chemical operations at the end of 

 the fii-st chapter. 



The fourth chapter is devoted to surface 

 tension and the Brownian movement. After 



