378 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. Vn. No. 168. 



In 1892 Parker paid a visit to Europe, 

 returning in good health the following year. 

 Family bereavement in the death of his 

 wife then overtook him and laid the found- 

 ations of an illness from which he never re- 

 covered. Complicated by repeated attacks 

 of influenza, this resulted in death, and 

 during his long period of suffering and 

 anxiety the like of which has killed many 

 a man, he worked on undaunted, leav- 

 ing unfinished an elementary book to 

 have been entitled ' Biology of Beginners,' 

 and some observations .upon a series of 

 ' Emen Chicks,' including those collected 

 by Professer E. Semon during his recent 

 sojourn in the Australian bush, which he 

 was investigating in conjunction with Mr. 

 J. P. Hill, the renowned discoverer of the 

 allantoic placenta of Perameles. With 

 these and other plans for future work well 

 matured he has been cruelly torn from us, 

 but while his memory will be a lasting her- 

 itage to those who knew and loved him, to 

 the scientific world at large there has just 

 been issued his final completed work, viz. : 

 a general Text- Book of Elementary Zoology 

 of some 4,000 pages in two volumes, upon 

 which during the last 5 years he was en- 

 gaged, together with his staunch friend and 

 colleague. Professor W. A. Haswell, F.E..S. 

 of the Sydney University. In this book, 

 rich in original anatomical drawings, his 

 influence will endure ; and he will always 

 be remembered as an earnest, loving man 

 who performed his duties with a skillful 

 hand, intent only on good work, the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge and the conse- 

 quent betterment of the human race, an 

 anatomist for whose life the world may be 

 said to have been the richer and his fellow 

 creatures the happier. 



Parker was a Fellow of the Eoyal So- 

 ciety and a D. Sc. of London. He was also 

 an Associate of the Linntean Society of 

 London and member of other scientiflc so- 

 cieties at home, in the Colonies and on the 



Continent of Europe. He took a pioneer's 

 part in the literary undertakings of the 

 Royal Microscopical Society, and in his 

 public life by his miscellaneous addresses 

 and speeches he aroused to admiration and 

 friendship all with whom he came in con- 

 tact. 



G. B. H. 



A COMSIISSION OF PUBLIC SEALTH* 

 Be it enacted by the Senate and Souse of 

 Representatives of the United States of America 

 in Congress assembled, That there shall be es- 

 tablished a commission of public health, to 

 be under the supervision of a commissioner 

 of public health, who shall have the aid of 

 an advisory council consisting of a repre- 

 sentative from each State and Territorial 

 board of health, from the Department of 

 Justice, and ft-om the Medical Corps of the 

 United States Army and Navy, the duties 

 of which shall be to collect and diffuse in- 

 formation upon matters affecting the public 

 health, including statistics of sickness and 

 mortality in the several States and Terri- 

 tories; the investigation by experimental 

 and other methods of the causes and means 

 of prevention of disease ; the collection of 

 information with regard to the prevention 

 of disease ; the collection of information 

 with regard to the prevalence of infectious, 

 contagious and epidemic diseases, both in 

 this and other countries ; also the causative 

 and curative influences of climate upon the 

 same ; the publication of the information 

 thus obtained in a weekly bulletin ; the 

 preparation of rules and regulations for se- 

 curing the best sanitary condition of vessels 

 from foreign ports, and for prevention of 

 the introduction of infectious or contagious 

 diseases into the United States, and their 

 spread from one State into another ; which 

 rules, when approved by the President of 



* Abstract of a bill introduced in the House of 

 Eepresentatives, February 17, 1898, by Mr. Otjen, 

 Eepresentative from Milwaukee, Wis. 



