228 



SCIENCE 



I.N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1210 



Innumerable difficulties are involved witli sucli 

 a plan but it is hoped it may be successful. 



"Within the last few months, two small com- 

 mercial concerns have started developing this 

 same branch of the industry. They have con- 

 fined themselves as yet to preparing the more 

 important reagents for which there is con- 

 stant demand and to manufacturing the bac- 

 teriological stains needed so badly in phys- 

 iological work. The prices charged by these 

 firms are necessarily high, in fact so high that 

 they are almost prohibitive to most of the uni- 

 versity laboratories. These prices in the course 

 of time will undoubtedly be lowered and the 

 universities can then devote their energies ex- 

 clusively to compounds required only for sci- 

 entific research. It may be possible in the 

 near future to have cooperation between these 

 firms and the university laboratories, an ar- 

 rangement which would be an advantage to all 

 concerned. 



Whether such small companies can live 

 after the war and expand and so supply the 

 demand for rare chemicals in this country is 

 a question. It seems improbable that they 

 will be able to compete with the foreign sup- 

 plies unless a high tariff is levied. It is hoped 

 however that the present work of these con- 

 cerns may continue not only until the war 

 stops but until such a time as a large chemical 

 manufacturer as the ISTational Aniline & 

 Chemical Co. or the DuPont Co. will be in 

 a position to undertake this branch of the in- 

 dustry in a thorough way and enter the busi- 

 ness, not for profit but to be of real service to 

 the country and to make the United States 

 independent of foreign laboratories in this as 

 well as other chemical lines. It is the present 

 intention, at any rate, at the University of 

 Illinois, to continue the work permanently, 

 so that regardless of the great help that can 

 be given outside, there may be a university 

 where a graduate student in organic chemistry 

 may be drilled in commercial methods before 

 he goes permanently into technical work. 



EoGER Adams 



■University of Illinois 



SHALL WE EAT WHOLE-WHEAT 

 BREAD ?i 



The shortage of wheat and wheat flour, 

 due to the excessive demands of the allied 

 armies and neutral nations, has forced Federal 

 and State Food Administrations to adopt cer- 

 tain policies in regard to the consumption of 

 these very important foodstuffs. For ex- 

 ample, steps have been taken to control the 

 distribution of flour in a manner similar to 

 that applied in the retail distribution of cane 

 sugar. An educational campaign has been in- 

 augurated with the view of educating the 

 people to the consumption of larger quantities 

 of the other cereals such as oatmeal, barley, 

 rye and corn in substitution for wheat prod- 

 ucts. Another suggestion, which has met with 

 some opposition, is that of milling a larger 

 proportion of the wheat berry into flour, mak- 

 ing what is usually termed a whole-wheat 

 flour. The advocates of this idea argued that 

 by milling a larger portion of the wheat 

 kernel into the flour there would be less bran, 

 shorts and middlings to be sold for stock 

 feeds, wheat would go farther as a human 

 food, and the amount saved would be avail- 

 able to assist in meeting the increased demand 

 for wheat. The scientists and administrators 

 supporting this view also contended that whole- 

 wheat flour contained certain nutrients that 

 standard patent flour did not contain and 

 therefore was a better food and on account 

 of the content of bran or "roughage" in the 

 former it possessed a distinct advantage over 

 the standard patent flour on account of its 

 laxative action. 



A counter campaign of education was im- 

 mediately launched by certain of the milling 

 interests represented by Professor Harry Sny- 

 der, formerly of the University of Minnesota. 

 Professor Snyder has maintained throughout, 

 both in public speech and in published articles, 

 that "white bread is the best war bread" on 

 account of the fact that it is more nutritious 

 than the breads made from 82 per cent, ex- 

 traction flour or flour milled from the entire 



1 Address before the University of Minnesota 

 Seetion of the American Chemical Society, Novem- 

 ber 23, 1917. 



