December 19, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



561 



vestigations into the mortality of graduates 

 from America]! colleges for women. Miss 

 Hulst reports tliat she has completed the 

 mortality rates for graduates from Smith and 

 Vassar and that she has nearly completed the 

 tabulation of the records for Wellesley Col- 

 lege. Preliminary results indicate that grad- 

 uates from women's colleges enjoy extra- 

 ordinarily low death rates, consistent with 

 their favorable economic and social status. 

 The research was recommended by Dr. Dublin, 

 under whose direction it is being carried on. 



Medicine 



Four hundred dollars to Dr. Leslie B. Arey, 

 of the ISTorthwestern University Medical 

 School, in support of his study of the origin, 

 growth and fate of the giant cells, or osteo- 

 clasts, usually held responsible for bone dis- 

 solution. It has been found that osteoclasts 

 arise chiefly by the fusion of depleted bone- 

 formative cells, the osteoblasts; they further 

 increase by taking to themselves osteoblasts 

 and bone cells, but ultimately degenerate and 

 disappear. There is no convincing evidence 

 that osteoclasts are the specific agents of bone 

 resorption. That they are degenerating, fused 

 osteoclasts accords better with the known 

 facts. 



Educatio7i 



One hundred dollars to Dr. S. A. Courtis, 

 Detroit, Michigan, toward the expenses of 

 securing a comparison based upon a survey of 

 Boston schools in 1845 with present-day 

 schools from Maine to California. 



Joel Stebbins, 

 Secretary 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AND SCIENTIFIC 

 RESEARCH 



Professor John Perry, treasurer of the 

 British Association, made some remarks be- 

 fore an evening discourse on September 11, 

 at the recent Bournemouth meeting of the 

 association which he summarizes for Nature 

 as follows: 



After paying printing and ofiSce expenses, the 

 funds of the British Association are devoted to 



scientific research. For more than eighty years we 

 have spent more than £1,000 a year on research, 

 long before ordinary people had heard of research. 



Every year we form many research committees; 

 each of them is formed of the foremost men of sci- 

 ence of Great Britain, who receive none of the 

 money themselves, and their accounts for mere out- 

 of-pocket expenses are carefully audited. These 

 researches in the past have created some entirely 

 new sciences, have led directly and indirectly to 

 the creation of many new industries, and they 

 have largely produced the world's present natural 

 knowledge. And now to my point. Yesterday a 

 very prominent member of the association asked 

 me about our finances. I had to admit that even 

 before the war we were meeting with difficulties 

 due to the increased cost of printing, and other 

 things, that since the war we have been behind- 

 hand to the extent of more than £1,000 every year, 

 and that we have never yet asked for the help of 

 moneyed men. The only gift we have ever re- 

 ceived from a moneyed man was a voluntary gift 

 from Sir James Caird, who handed me £11,000 at 

 the Dundee meeting. My questioner said we ought 

 to ask for help, and that he was willing to start a 

 fund with a sum of £1,000. At this moment he 

 does not wish to have his name mentioned. 



I need not dwell on the importance of our re- 

 search work, as' I feel sure that every person here 

 who has himself done original work shares my 

 opinion that when we limit our expenditure on re- 

 search, and especially on pure scientific research, 

 we shall begin to be a bankrupt association — bank- 

 rupt, that is, morally from the point of view of 

 science, if not actually in the financial sense. 



The moneyed men of Great Britain are most 

 willing to help any good object when they get 

 proof that it really is a good object. "We can not 

 complain of want of their help, for they did not 

 know the facts. At the same time, the treasurer 

 of an association with such a record as ours does 

 not feel happy at the prospect of begging for help. 



In the two days of the meeting following that on 

 which I made this statement, the fund was raised 

 to a total of £1,475. I intend to publish in due 

 course a list of names of donors and donations. 



To illustrate by many instances (as I might) 

 our claims as to the importance of our researches 

 would unduly prolong this letter, and any selec- 

 tion of a few examples would be unrepresentative. 

 I will cite a single illustration: The National 

 Physical Laboratory, the scene of researches of 

 which the importance to the nation during the war 

 and earlier can not be overestimated, had its origin 



