SCIENCE 



Friday, Majbch 14, 1913 



CONTENTS 



The Segulation of Neutrality in the Animal 

 Body : Professor L. J. Henderson 389 



The Physiological Significance of some Sub- 

 stances used in the Preservation of Food: 

 Professor John H. Long 395 



The Thomas Pennant Collection 404 



The Population of New YorTc State 405 



Scientific Notes and News 406 



University and Educational News 409 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



Belativity in Electromagnetic Induction: 

 Professor A. L. Kimball. Scientific 

 Method: Professor Charles A. Ellwood. 

 "More Little Beasts": President David 

 Starr Jordan 411 



Scientific BooTcs:— 



LydeTclcer's The Horse and its Belatives: 

 Professor Richard Swann Lull. Star- 

 ling's Electricity and Magnetism for Ad- 

 vanced Students: Professor S. J. Bar- 

 NETT. Parmelee's The Science of Human 

 Behavior: Professor R. S. Woodworth . . 413 



Botanical Notes: — 

 Fighting the Chestnut Blight; Notes: Pro- 

 fessor Charles E. Besset 417 



The Age of Pithecanthropus Erectus: Dr. 

 Edward W. Berry 418 



Special Articles: — 



Some Selations between Hoot Characters, 

 Ground Water aiid Species Distribution: 

 Dr. W. a. Cannon. Inorganic Colloids and 

 Protoplasm: Professor Max Morse 4 



Societies and Academies: — 



The American Philosophical Society. The 

 Biological Society of Washington: D. E. 

 Lantz 4i5 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 rcTiew should be sent to Profesnor J. McKeen Cattell, Ga 

 On-HudsOD, N. Y. 



THE BEGULATION OF NEUTRALITY IN 

 THE ANIMAL BODY ^ 



It was a favorite figure of Cuvier's, re- 

 curring again and again in his works,^ to 

 compare life with a vortex into which 

 molecules continually enter, from which 

 they continually depart ; meantime the vor- 

 tex remains, and thus the form of a living 

 thing appears to be more important than 

 the substance. Cuvier's analogy, though 

 almost forgotten, is quite as valid to-day 

 as a century ago, but I suspect that the 

 modern physiologist will be disposed to 

 see in such a view a justification of the 

 study of conditions rather than a claim for 

 morphology. What, indeed, is the impor- 

 tance of the anatomy of a whirlpool in 

 comparison with the dynamics thereof? 



Now it is the study of conditions within 

 the organism which physical chemistry has 

 contributed to physiology — solution, sur- 

 face tension, the colloidal state, osmotic 

 pressure, ionization, alkalinity or neutral- 

 ity — and these are dynamical equilibria 

 rather than in any sense morphological 

 elements. To such conditions Cuvier's 

 figure exactly applies, and provides, more- 

 over, the very best means for their sys- 

 tematic investigation ; while the conditions, 

 in turn, most fully reveal that which was 

 partly made clear to Cuvier by the imag- 

 ination of genius, and, in spite of it, quite 

 certainly in part unknown to him. 



The right working of physiological proc- 



^ Read in the j oint meeting of Section K of the 

 American Association, the American Physiological 

 Society and the American Society of Biological 

 Chemists at Cleveland. 



= See Merz, ' ' A History of European Thought 

 in the Nineteenth Century," Vol. I., p. 129. 



