724 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 725 



have four wards for the tuberculosis patients, 

 who have hitherto been housed in small 

 wooden buildings along the river front. These 

 will be abandoned, as well as the building out- 

 side the hospital grounds which has been used 

 for maternity cases. 



The Journal of the American Medical As- 

 sociation states that Dr. John Gorrie was the 

 first to invent a practical ice-making machine. 

 It continues : The point in regard to Dr. 

 Gorrie's invention which does him most honor 

 is that it was made for the comfort and wel- 

 fare of his fever patients. In 1845, when Dr. 

 Gorrie was practising in Apalachieola, that 

 town, though the most important Florida sea- 

 port, being the outlet for all the cotton grown 

 in the Chattahoochee valley in Georgia and 

 Alabama, was seriously hindered in its growth 

 by the prevalence of various fevers in the 

 summers. Dr. Gorrie found it almost im- 

 possible to treat fever patients successfully 

 during the hot weather. He realized that 

 cooling the patient's room would undoubtedly 

 be of benefit, and he, therefore, set himself to 

 devising various methods of cooling air and 

 water. In 1850 he succeeded in producing 

 small blocks of ice about the size of the ordi- 

 nary building brick. A French cotton buyer, 

 M. Eosan, residing in Apalachieola, saw the 

 machine in operation and induced the inventor 

 to give a public demonstration at the leading 

 hotel. Ice made with the machine, which was 

 placed on a table in the dining-room, was 

 served to all those present at a banquet. M. 

 Eosan later returned to Paris and is known to 

 have been in intimate association with M. 

 Carre, whose process of making ice was not 

 perfected until 1855. There seems no doubt 

 then that the Frenchman was spurred to re- 

 newed efforts, if not actually prompted to the 

 idea of his invention, by the news of the suc- 

 cessful experiment made by the American 

 physician. 



PRESIDENT ELIOT'S RESIGNATION 



After a football mass meeting in the Har- 

 vard Union the students went in a body to 

 President Eliot's house and he made to them a 



brief address which is reported in the Tran- 

 script as follows : 



This is a great surprise, and I greatly appre- 

 ciate your coming. Yesterday I was asked to talk 

 upon the reasons for my resignation, but I refused. 

 To-night I think I should like to say a few words 

 to you on the subject. 



I have heard a number of reasons suggested as 

 the explanation of my resigning. Now I am not 

 sick, I am not tired, and I am in good health so 

 far as I am aware. My faculties and health are 

 still good, I am glad to say. My resignation is 

 meant to precede the time when they may cease 

 to be so. When a man has reached the age of 

 seventy-four it is time to look for rest and retire- 

 ment. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, used to say that a 

 man was no longer fitted to be headmaster of a 

 public school when he could not come up the steps 

 two at a time. Now I can still do that. 



I don't like to have my coming retirement 

 spoken of with regret. It is touching to find that 

 feeling, but I think it is something to be looked 

 forward to with hope. We must all set to work 

 to find some young, able, active man for the place. 

 He can be found; we shall find him. We need a 

 man who will take up this extremely laborious 

 and extremely influential position with untiring 

 energy and carry this university to a higher plane 

 than it now occupies. It has been the foremost 

 American university for 270 years. 



The occupation which has been mine for a life- 

 time has been a most pleasant one, and I regret 

 that it is about to terminate. Forty years of 

 service has been given me in the pursuance of a 

 profession that has no equal in the world. This 

 university has grown into great proportions. It 

 is now the task of all of us to find a man who 

 can enlarge it still more and make it still greater. 

 Good-night. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Dr. Eichard G. MacLauein, for the past 

 year professor of mathematical physics in 

 Columbia University and previously professor 

 of mathematics in the University of New 

 Zealand, has accepted the offer of the presi- 

 dency of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology. 



The appropriation by the New York City 

 Board of Estimate and Apportionment of more 

 than $586,000 for the maintenance of the City 

 College next year, of which amount $404,000 



