^PR-9W1 



April 8, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



•^aWonsA va**'^ 



323 



zations represented on the board. The pres- 

 ent members of the committee are the presi- 

 dent and vice-president of the board, Dr. J. 

 McKeen Cattell and Dr. J. C. Merriam. A 

 member from the journalistic group is yet to 

 be selected. 



The headquarters of Science Service have 

 been provisionally established in the build- 

 ing of the National Eesearch Council, at 1701 

 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D. C. 



As editor the board of trustees has selected 

 Edwin E. Slosson, Ph.D., who for twelve years 

 was professor of chemistry in the University 

 of Wyoming and for seventeen years literary 

 editor of The Independent, New York. He 

 has been associate in the Columbia School of 

 Journalism since its foundation and is the 

 author of " Creative Chemistry," " Easy Les- 

 sons in Einstein," " Great American Universi- 

 ties," " Major Prophets of To-day," lives of 

 Rumford and Gibbs and other scientific and 

 literary ptiblications. 



As manager of the new enterprise the board 

 has selected Howard Wheeler, formerly editor 

 of the San Francisco Daily News, Pacific 

 coast mianager of the Newspaper Enterprise 

 Association, managing editor of Harpers 

 Weekly, and for five years editor of Every- 

 hody's Magazine, war correspondent and 

 author of " Are We Ready ? " 



The editor of Science Service desires to 

 receive advance information of important re- 

 searches approaching the point of publicity 

 in order to arrange for their proper presenta- 

 tion in the press. He also wishes to secure 

 correspondents in every university and center 

 of research who have the time, disposition 

 and ability to write for non-technical jour- 

 nals. He particularly wants to get in touch 

 with young men and women in the various 

 sciences who have literary inclinations and 

 would be willing to submit to a rigorous 

 course of training with a view to making the 

 writing of popular science a part of their life 

 work. 



The manager wants to learn from news- 

 papers and periodicals what sort of scientific 

 news they need. If editors will notify Sci- 

 ence Service by mail or telegraph whenever 

 they want an article on any scientific subject. 



an effort will be made to find the best author- 

 ity to write it. Edwin E. Slosson 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF HOOKWORMS 

 IN THE ZOOLOGICAL REGIONS 



Incidental to the pursuit of some public- 

 health problems in the Orient I observe what 

 seems to me to be a peculiar zoological and 

 geographical distribution of two species of 

 hookworms which parasitize man, Ancylostoma 

 duodenale and Necator americanus and I feel 

 confident that a study of the distribution of 

 these obligate parasites of man will throw 

 some light on problems dealing with the 

 migrations of races of mankind in the past 

 as well as other problems in ethnology. 



Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator ameri- 

 canus parasitize man with equal facility. It 

 is as easy for a white man, Chinese, Poly- 

 nesian, East Indian, Malay or Negro to be- 

 come infected with A. duodenale as with 

 N. americanus and they may become infected 

 with either or both species of worm, but it 

 was rather remarkable to find that just as 

 the races of man were primarily distributed 

 in Urasia, Africa and Oceania so there seems 

 to have been a primary and distinctive distri- 

 bution of A. duodenale and N. americanus for 

 I found that Japanese, East Indians and 

 Chinese from north of say twenty-three 

 degrees north latitude, that is men of the 

 Holarctic region, harbored a very marked 

 predominance of A. duodenale. On the other 

 hand southern East Indians, i.e., Tamils and 

 Malabaris say from south of twenty degrees 

 north latitude as well as Malays from 

 Sumatra, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula and 

 Java, that is to say, men of the Oriental 

 region, harbored a marked predominance of 

 or were exclusively parasitized by N. ameri- 

 canus. 



In studying the hookworm content of an 

 uncontaminated group of Fijians, a mixed 

 Polynesian and Melanesian stock, I found 

 A. duodenale to be entirely absent. N. ameri- 

 canus and a few A. ceylanicum, picked up 

 from dogs, represented the worms harbored. 



In South Africa among Kafiirs from south 

 of twenty-two degrees south latitude and 

 among some tropical natives, that is to say 



