SCIENCE 



Friday, December 31, 1920 



CONTENTS 

 The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



Twenty-five Years of Bacteriology: Dk. 

 Simon Fleknee 615 



Scientifie Events: — 



Museum of the Buffalo Society of Natural 

 Sciences; Medals of the Boyal Society; The 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences; 

 The New YorJc Academy of Sciences 632 



Scientific Notes and News 634 



University and Educational News 636 



i 

 Discussion and Corxespondenoe : — 



Sigh Temperatures and Emission from 

 Gases: G. M. J. MacKay. A Possible Mela- 

 tion between Mechanical, Electrical and 

 Chemical Quantities: Dr. Gael Heking. Be- 

 quest for Separates: Lester W. Sharp. An 

 Appeal for Publications for CsechoslovaTcia: 

 Dr. Albs Hrdlicka 637 



Notes on Meteorology and Climatology: Dr. 

 C. Le Eoy Meisinger 638 



Special Articles: — 



The CoV.ection of Radium Emanation for 

 Therapeutic Use: S. C. Lind. A Quantita- 

 tive Survey of the Flora of LaTce Mendota: 

 H. W. Eickett 640 



The American Chemical Society: Dr. Charles 

 L. Parsons 642 



.MdS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended foi 

 review ahould be sent to The Editor of Science, Garriaon-on- 

 Hudson, N. Y. 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF BACTERI- 

 OLOGY: A FRAGMENT OF 

 MEDICAL RESEARCHi 



IMMUNITY 



Just a quarter of a century ago, that is in 

 1895, the announcement was made at the 67th 

 meeting of the German Society of Naturalists 

 and Physicians that diphtheria, one of the 

 most severe and fatal diseases of mankind, 

 had been conquered by means of an antitoxin. 

 This great event is a landmark, not alone in 

 the history of medicine, but also in the his- 

 tory of the world, and it provides a high peak 

 of achievement from which the growth of bac- 

 teriology may be viewed. In order that we 

 may follow the growth with understanding, it 

 is necessary, at first, to cast a glance back- 

 ward before we begin on the narrative, the 

 aim of which is to bring us to the state of 

 knowledge of bacteriology existing in our own 

 day. 



Since disease is so universal a phenomenon 

 and communicability from individual to in- 

 dividual so obvious an incident of its epidemic 

 prevalence, the conception of a contagium 

 vivim or animaium and hence of an invisible 

 form of life as the initiator of the condition, 

 can be traced far back in the written records 

 of hmnan events. And yet it was not until 

 about 1850 that a microscopic body, which we 

 would now call a bacterium, was actually de- 

 tected in the blood of a sick animal. The 

 anthrax bacillus, as it has since been ' named, 

 which is now recognized as the inciting 

 microbe of splenic fever, was destined to play 

 a leading part in the development of the 

 future science of bacteriology, but at this 

 early period its full meaning was not per- 

 ceived. When, however, in 1863 Davaine suc- 

 ceeded in communicating splenic fever to a 



1 Address of the president of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, Chicago, 

 1920. 



