August 18, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



237 



Preliminary steps have been taken by the 

 War Department toward the formation of a 

 Reserve Corps of Engineers for the army, as 

 provided by the National Defense Act of June 

 3 last. By direction of the chief of engineers 

 letters were sent to-day by Lieutenant Colonel 

 E. Eveleth Winslow, of the Army Engineer 

 Corps, to all the district engineer officers of 

 the army throughout the country, paving the 

 way for the creation of these new reserve 

 corps, which will be composed of officers to be 

 commissioned from among the engineers of 

 the country and of an enlisted reserve corps 

 of engineers. The plan for the formation of 

 the new Reserve Corps is set forth in Lieuten- 

 ant Colonel Winslow's letter as follows : " The 

 importance of engineers in time of war is now 

 universally recognized, and during the past 

 few months steps have been taken to arouse 

 the interest of the engineering profession in 

 the national defense. Congress has now pro- 

 vided a means by which the civil engineers 

 can more fully prepare themselves for that 

 highest duty of citizens — the defense of our 

 country. An engineer section of officers and 

 enlisted reserve corps has been authorized, and 

 in the opinion of the chief of engineers there 

 is for the officers of the Corps of Engineers no 

 more important duty than their active assist- 

 ance in making a success of the new corps. 

 All the engineers in the country should be in- 

 formed of the existence of this new corps and 

 those possessing the necessary qualifications 

 should be enrolled as its members. A close co- 

 operation between our engineer officers and the 

 civilian engineers is therefore necessary, and 

 fortunately the first steps in such cooperation 

 have been already taken by the action of some 

 of the most important of the engineering so- 

 cieties in indorsing the campaign for pre- 

 paredness and in urging upon Congress the 

 passage of the Officers' Reserve Corps law. 



The Senate Committee on Public Health 

 and National Quarantine has reported favor- 

 ably the bill to promote the efficiency of the 

 United States Public Health Service. The 

 bill has already passed the House of Repre- 

 sentatives. The bill limits, according to the 

 Journal of the American Medical Association, 



the appointment of the surgeon-general of the 

 Public Health Service to commissioned officers 

 in the service, not lower in grade than sur- 

 geon, and require that the surgeon-general at 

 the expiration of his four-year term of office 

 be carried as an extra number in the grade of 

 assistant surgeon-general, unless he be reap- 

 pointed. As an inducement to physicians to 

 enter the service, the bill provides for the pro- 

 motion of assistant surgeons to the next 

 higher grade after three years' service, instead 

 of after four years as at present. The chiefs 

 of the bureaus of zoology, pharmacology and 

 chemistry in the hygienic laboratory, are to 

 be commissioned by the president, by and with 

 the advice and consent of the Senate, as pro- 

 fessors of zoology, pharmacology and chemis- 

 try, respectively, and are to be entitled to 

 leaves of absence as now provided by law for 

 commissioned medical officers. Provision is 

 made for the appointment of five additional 

 professors, qualified for special work in sani- 

 tary engineering, epidemiology, pathology, 

 anatomy, bacteriology, housing, or other mat- 

 ters that relate to the propagation and spread 

 of disease. Men of this class, the committee's 

 report says, often do not have medical degrees, 

 and under the present system of commissioned 

 service only doctors of medicine are provided 

 for; and the bill will remove this defect and 

 make places for men who are specially trained 

 in these highly technical fields, but who are 

 not graduates in medicine. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



Lafayette College is the residuary legatee 

 of Albert 1ST. Seip, of Washington, D. C, a 

 member of the class of 1862. It is said that 

 the college will ultimately receive not less 

 than $250,000. 



Dr. Robert Bennett Bean, now professor 

 of gross anatomy at Tulane University, has 

 been appointed professor of anatomy at the 

 University of Virginia, to take charge of the 

 courses in gross anatomy and neurology 

 formerly given by the late Dr. Richard H. 

 Whitehead. 



