496 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1378 



That the memtiers of this council also express 

 their willingness, in the event such a strike is not 

 amicably settled, to wait indefinitely for the pub- 

 lication of the journals of the society. 



THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS ' 



The Institute of Physics was inaugurated 

 at a largely attended meeting in the haU of the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers on April 27. 

 The need has long been felt for a corporate 

 body, analogous to the Institute of Chemistry, 

 which should strengthen the position of work- 

 ers engaged in physics, and form a bond be- 

 tween the various societies interested in the 

 subject. The institute has now been founded 

 by the cooperation, in the first instance, of the 

 Faraday Society, the Optical Society and the 

 Physical Society of London, while the Eoyal 

 Microscopical Society and the Roentgen So- 

 ciety have since decided to participate. In 

 opening the proceedings, the first president, 

 Sir Richard Glazebrook, said that the work of 

 the physicist would become more and more 

 .important in the future, both in pure and ap- 

 plied science, and one of the aims of the insti- 

 tute was to accelerate a recognition of the 

 physicist's position and value. Many develop- 

 ments in physics had been of vital importance 

 during the war, but men who had done im- 

 portant work as physicists could only be given 

 an official status in some cases by being termed 

 research chemists. He added that the mem- 

 bership of the institute was already about 300, 

 and comprised most of the leaders in physical 

 science. Sir J. J. Thomson, who, it was stated, 

 was willing to be nominated as president for 

 the next year, gave a brief address. He said 

 that to one who regarded chemistry as a branch 

 of physics it was rather anomalous that hith- 

 erto there should have been an Institute of 

 Chemistry and not an Institute of Physics. 

 He had been a student of physics for fifty 

 years. At the beginning of that period physics 

 was like an army with great generals but few 

 troops. There were at that time perhaps a 

 dozen laboratories in the country. Opportuni- 

 ties multiplied rapidly, however, and students 

 with them, and salaries also increased so that 

 1 Prom the British Medical Journal. 



physics now offered to every competent man a 

 livelihood though but small hope of a fortune. 

 To-day the demand for competent physicists 

 exceeded the supply. Research was expensive 

 for the student and for the university, and per- 

 haps this fact was not sufficiently recognized, 

 although more money was available for re- 

 search now than ever before. He saw no dispo- 

 sition to neglect or undervalue pure research, 

 undertaken without any thought of an indus- 

 trial application, and he congratulated the 

 institute on representing a profession which 

 not only contributed so largely in various ways 

 to human comfort, but aided the intellectual 

 development of mankind. The Right Hon. 

 A. J. Balfour extended a cordial welcome to 

 the Institute. He had been greatly surprised 

 to learn that there was not already in existence 

 an institute of physics. After all, physics was 

 the most fundamental of all the sciences. 

 Whatever a man's line of research might be, 

 if he could find a physical explanation for the 

 phenomena he was examining, then, and then 

 only, could he hope for something like finality 

 in his investigation. It was certainly sur- 

 prising that in this country, which had not 

 lagged behind any country in the world in the 

 great advances it had made in regard to the 

 physical knowledge of the universe, they had 

 not had an institute of physics before now. 



THE BOSTON MEETING OF THE AMERICAN 

 MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 



The seventy-second annual session of the 

 American Medical Association will be held 

 in Boston, Mass., June 6-10, 1921, under 

 the presidency of Dr. William C. Braisted. 

 The scientific assembly of the association 

 will open with the general meeting to be 

 held at 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 7. The 

 Sections will meet Wednesday, Thursday, and 

 Friday, June 8, 9 and 10 as follows: 



Convening at 9 a.m., the Sections on Prac- 

 tise of Medicine; Obstetrics, Gynecology and 

 Abdominal Surgery ; Laryngology, Otology and 

 Rhinology; Pathology and Physiology; Sto- 

 matology; Ifervous and Mental Diseases; 

 Urology; Preventive Medicine and Public 

 Health. 



