154 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1285 



The starting materials for this synthesis 

 cost $250, "so that," says Fischer, "it has 

 not yet made its appearance on the dining 

 table!" 



These glorious researches were still in 

 full blast in 1902 when Fischer was 

 awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry. 



There seems to be some foundation for 

 the fact that the opening up of our Rocke- 

 feller Institute in New York City gave 

 German scientists some very unpleasant 

 moments. They were afraid that an insti- 

 tute, devoted entirely to research, and 

 manned by talent second to none, would 

 soon outstrip any university, where of 

 necessity teaching, aside from research, 

 required much attention. This led Ost- 

 wald, Nernst and Fischer to start an agita- 

 tion for the endowTiient of some similar 

 institute in Germany, with the result that 

 the research institute in Berlin-Dahlem 

 was founded. 



Fischer's researches into the carbohy- 

 drates, purines and proteins, is of such 

 enormous importance that, at the repeated 

 requests of the scientific public, they were 

 published in book form in three bulky 

 volumes, the first, "Untersuchungen ilier 

 Amino-Sauren, Polypeptide und Proteine" 

 (1899-1906), dealing with the proteins, 

 the second, "Untersuchungen in der Purin 

 Gruppe" (1882-1906), with the purines, 

 and the third "Untersuchmigen iiber Kohl- 

 enhydrate und Fermente" (1884r-1908), 

 with the carbohydrates and enzymes. It 

 is certain that in organic chemistry no 

 three volumes of such far-reaching in- 

 fluence have ever before been published. 



Fischer's most recent work dealt much 

 with the tannins, substances that play an 

 important part in leather manufacture. 



Fischer's work, his influence as teacher 

 and inspirer of men, raised the Berlin 

 Chemical Laboratory to the first position 

 among the chemical laboratories of the 



world. His fame attracted students from 

 every quarter of the globe, and these 

 flocked in such numbers to him that they 

 soon counted in the hundreds, and special 

 privat-docenten had to be appointed to 

 take care of them. It thus came about 

 that many of the men who had gone to 

 Berlin to work under Fischer in reality 

 worked under some of Fischer's privat- 

 docenten, and, outside of the lectures, 

 probably did not see Fischer himself more 

 than two or three times during their three 

 or four years in the German capital. At 

 one time or another H. Gideon "Wells, that 

 excellent pathologist of Chicago Univer- 

 sity, T. B. Osborne, of the Connecticut Ex- 

 periment Station, and the foremost author- 

 ity on vegetable proteins, and P. A. 

 Levene and W. A. Jacobs, the well-known 

 physiological chemists of the Rockefeller 

 Institute, were his students. Of his many 

 pupils Fischer considered Emil Abder- 

 halden, now the professor of physiology at 

 Halle University, a Swiss by birth, the 

 most gifted. 



Fischer's death is an irreparable loss to 

 science. He is so much of our generation 

 that one hesitates to use superlatives, but 

 one is sorely tempted to speak of him as 

 the greatest organic chemist of all times. 

 Benjamin Habeow 



Columbia University 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



DESTRUCTION OF ELEPHANTS IN CAPE 

 COLONY 



A SPECIAL correspondeiit of the London 

 Times writes that the provincial cotmcil of 

 the Province of the Cape of Good Hope has 

 passed a decree authorizing the; destruction of 

 the herd of elephants in the Addo Bush Forest 

 Reserve. Unless this Union government take 

 action promptly, this hitherto carefully-pre- 

 served remnant of a species that once ranged 

 all over South Africa will be utterly destroyed. 

 The last elephant in Zululand, an old male, 

 was recently killed. The elephants of South- 



