570 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 130S 



" prospect " would become interested in tlie 

 chemical subjects discussed; and consideration 

 of tbis view and the results of its own inquiry 

 convinced the committee that, to accomplish 

 the purposes desired, the reading courses 

 should have a very definite publicity plan 

 behind them. 



In carrying out its work, the committee has 

 prepared the manuscripts for a series of 

 circulars which, it is thought, will make men 

 want to read chemical literature. In order to 

 accomplish that result, the committee has 

 written lively and appealing essays, of about 

 1,500 words each, on elementary chemistry, 

 household chemistry, general and physical 

 chemistry, inorganic and analytical chemistry, 

 organic and biological chemistry, industrial 

 inorganic chemistry, industrial organic chem- 

 istry, and techno-chemical analysis, all of 

 which have been divided into appropriate para- 

 graphs, worded so as to bring out the impor- 

 tance of the subject and so as to impress the 

 reader with the national essentiality of the 

 chemical profession. Carefully selected books 

 are mentioned casually in the texts of the 

 courses, usually to conclude the paragraphs. 



These courses should now be made available 

 for the use of librarians who wish to reach 

 ambitious persons who have the intelligence to 

 follow a course of chemical study. They 

 should, to serve the intended purpose, be pub- 

 lished in attractive booklet form for distribu- 

 tion at libraries to persons who are engaged 

 in chemical work or interested in the specific 

 subjects of the various courses, and to persons 

 who are as yet only casually engaged or inter- 

 ested, but who may think of becoming well- 

 informed on chemical subjects. 



It is therefore recommended that the com- 

 mittee be authorized to furnish Mr. Joseph L. 

 Wheeler with copies of the manuscripts, in 

 order that he may endeavor to arrange for 

 their publication in toto, and that the present 

 committee be designated to cooperate with Mr. 

 Wheeler in that undertaking and in stimula- 

 ting interest in chemistry through the media 

 of libraries. It is also recommended that the 

 courses be published by the society in The 

 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chem- 

 istry. 



The committee is grateful for the privilege 

 of rendering this public service, for, as in 

 Carlyle's time, " the true university is a collec- 

 tion of books," expertly selected and properly 

 used. 



W. A. Hamor 

 Mellon Institute, 

 Pittsburgh, Pa., 

 August 29, 1919. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



AN UNEXCELLED MEDIUM FOR THE 

 PRESERVATION OF CADAVERS 



One can not contemplate the history of 

 human dissection without a profound sense 

 of gratitude for the discovery of three chem- 

 icals, the use of which in embalming has com- 

 pletely transformed the laboratory of gross 

 anatomy. Could they have been introduced 

 earlier, human dissection long since would 

 have lost its forbidding aspect. Although 

 Scheele discovered glycerin in 1779, it was not 

 used for the preservation of anatomical mate- 

 rial until 1868, almost a century later. This 

 was not until a year after formaldehyde had 

 been discovered by Hoffman and, although the 

 antiseptic properties of the latter were not 

 revealed till twenty years later, this event 

 soon was followed by its introduction into 

 histologic and gross anatomic technique in 

 1890 by Blum, junior and senior respectively. 

 The earlier discovery of phenol by Runge in 

 1834, with the subsequent relation of its anti- 

 septic properties by the revolutionary usage of 

 it in surgery by Lister in 1867, and its appli- 

 cation in the preservation of anatomic mate- 

 rial by Laskowski in the same year, or even in 

 1864, completes the trinity of substances so 

 largely responsible for freeing dissection of 

 the human body from the noisome burden 

 previously imposed by post mortem decay. 

 An occasionally delayed necropsy still can 

 suggest to present-day medical students just 

 what this freedom meant to anatomists and 

 students of anatomy of the past. Surely 

 nothing has been a greater boon to human 

 anatomy and anatomists than the miracle 

 wrought by these and other chemicals, the 

 proper use of which bids fair to make our 

 anatomical laboratories practically odorless. 



