148 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1337 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



CHEMICAL RESEARCH IN FRANCE AND 

 ENGLAND 



The Paris correspondent of the Journal of 

 Industrial and Engineering Chemistry writes: 

 " Scientific researcli is at this moment passing 

 through a serious crisis. It is going to lack 

 personnel. The alarm has been sounded by 

 Professor Daniel Berthelot, the son of Mar- 

 cellin Berthelot. In a recent speech he called 

 attention to the utilitarian direction of all 

 scientific research, and more especially chem- 

 ical. We have here in France many schools of 

 chemistry, but they are all schools of industrial 

 chemistry. Almost without exception they are 

 concerned with producing the industrial chem- 

 ist, and, little by little, we are seeing the labor- 

 atories attached to professorships abandoned — 

 la;boratories such as that of Fremy at the Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, which have been the 

 nurseries of the research chemists. The neces- 

 sity which the younger generation feels of 

 earning a living as soon as possible is the cause 

 of this state of aifairs. Add to this that most 

 of the laboratories lack funds and can not bear 

 the costs of theoretical research whose eco- 

 nomic profit may be far distant. The public 

 authorities, however, seem willing to consider 

 these questions, and to-day, for instance, you 

 may see in the French parliament, a deputy, 

 Mr. Maurice Barres, offer one of the arguments 

 which you Americans have so wisely brought 

 to the solution of the social problem : ' It is 

 useless to quarrel with wealth; it is better to 

 use its activity to create more; and in this 

 creation of wealth we chemists have a large 

 duty to fill.' " 



The London correspondent says : " In ap- 

 plied chemistry we are faced in Great Britain 

 with a state of uncertainty and chaos without 

 parallel in the recollection of any of us. No 

 one can form any just estimate of the future 

 supply or price of coal or other fuels; no one 

 has any sure data upon which to base an opin- 

 ion as to the future of the principal metals 

 and other raw materials. Accounts from Ger- 

 many and Austria are singularly conflicting 

 and it is not easy for us to know whether in 

 chemical industry we are to export to those 



countries at a reasonable profit or whether we 

 shall suffer from acute competition from those 

 countries. And in our ovm financial state 

 nothing seems certain beyond the fact that 

 grievous and necessary taxation will continue 

 for a long period and will hamper the develop- 

 ment of business and the starting of new enter- 

 prises. We have recently lived through times 

 infinitely more anxious, and our neighbors in 

 France and Italy have far more difficult prob- 

 lems to solve than we have. Our anxieties are 

 as nothing to theirs and the state of political 

 industrial and financial chaos in Germany, 

 Austria and Eussia is such as to be beyond 

 conception. We are not merely perplexed by 

 this; the aspect continually changes and it is 

 hopeless for us to try and imagine what will 

 happen in the east of Europe. In time some 

 sort of settlement or stability will be achieved, 

 but the details of the process are beyond the 

 wit of man to imagine." 



MEDICAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 



For the twentieth consecutive year the Jour- 

 nal of the American Medical Association pub- 

 lishes this week statistics dealing with medical 

 education in the United States. In all med- 

 ical schools during the last session there were 

 14,088 students, or 1,036 more than during the 

 previous session. These increases are in the 

 first, third and fourth year classes, smaller 

 second year classes following the small fresh- 

 man enrolment in the fall of 1918 caused by 

 war conditions. The increased enrolments 

 have been most marked in Class A medical 

 schools, the number enrolled this year having 

 increased from 87.9 to 89.6 per cent, of all 

 students. The percentage in Class B schools 

 decreased from 8.3 to 4.8, and in Class C 

 schools it increased from 3.8 to 5.6. 



The number of graduates this year was 

 3,047, or 391 more than in 1919. The number 

 of graduates of Class A colleges was increased 

 by 470, while the numbers graduating from 

 Class B schools decreased by 116. Of the 

 Class C colleges, there were 37 more graduates 

 than in the previous year. The number of 

 graduates holding degrees from colleges of 



