October 13, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



529 



health departments; officials of the United 

 States and Canadian government health serv- 

 ices ; and in addition to these, many bacteriol- 

 ogists, chemists, sanitary engineers, sociol- 

 ogists and laymen interested in public health 

 work. Within the association are six sections, 

 composed of the members who are peculiarly 

 interested in the special phases of public health 

 work. The various interests thus represented 

 are indicated by the titles of sections: Public 

 Health Administration, Laboratory, Sanitary 

 Engineering, Vital Statistics, Sociology and 

 Industrial Hygiene. At the annual meeting 

 there will be a program of meetings for the 

 general association, and in addition, the sev- 

 eral sections meet for the presentation of 

 papers and discussions on topics relating to 

 their several fields of work. The Cincinnati 

 executive committee, consisting of Drs. E. O. 

 Smith, J. H. Landis and W. H. Peters, are 

 making arrangements to house and entertain 

 1,000 delegates to the annual meeting, and 150 

 delegates to the Municipal Health Officers' 

 Conference of Ohio, which meets at the same 

 time. 



The surgeon general of the army announces 

 that preliminary examination for appointment 

 of first lieutenants in the Army Medical Corps 

 will be held early in January, 1917, at points 

 to be hereafter designated. Full information 

 concerning this examination can be procured 

 upon application to the Surgeon General, U. 

 S. Army, Washington, D. C." The essential 

 requirements to secure an invitation are that 

 the applicant shall be a citizen of the United 

 States, between 22 and 32 years of age at time 

 of receiving commission in the Medical Corps, 

 a graduate of a medical school legally author- 

 ized to confer the degree of doctor of medi- 

 cine, of good moral character and habits, and 

 shall have had at least one year's hospital 

 training as an interne, after graduation. 

 Applicants who are serving this postgraduate 

 interneship and can complete same before Oc- 

 tober 1, 1917, can take the January examina- 

 tion. The examination will be held simul- 

 taneously throughout the country at points 

 where boards can be convened. Due considera- 

 tion will be given to localities from which ap- 



plications are received, in order to lessen the 

 traveling expenses of applicants as much as 

 possible. In order to perfect all necessary ar- 

 rangements for the examination, applications 

 should be forwarded without delay to the sur- 

 geon general of the army. There are at pres- 

 ent two hundred and twenty-eight vacancies 

 in the medical corps of the army. 



The private collection of birds, birds' eggs 

 and mammals made by Mr. George B. Sud- 

 worth, dendrologist of the U. S. Forest Serv- 

 ice at Washington, has just been acquired by 

 the New York State College of Forestry at 

 Syracuse, as a part of the equipment for 

 teaching and investigation in forest zoology. 

 The collection was made largely in Michigan. 

 It is for the most part composed of bird 

 skins which number over 600 specimens and 

 represent nearly 200 species. In addition there 

 are 84 mounted birds. The collection of eggs 

 includes 75 species, belonging to 226 clutches 

 and making a total of 865 specimens. There 

 is one egg of the passenger pigeon and there 

 are two skins of this extinct species. There 

 are 67 mammals. The total number of speci- 

 mens amounts to more than 1,600. Such col- 

 lections are now becoming rare, as most of 

 them have been acquired by the large museums. 



The report for the year 1914-15 of the 

 Board of Scientific Advice for India consists, 

 according to Nature, almost entirely of iso- 

 lated summaries of the work done during the 

 year by the several scientific departments and 

 scientific institutions of the Indian govern- 

 ment. As most, if not all, of these departments 

 and institutions issue independent annual re- 

 ports of their own, it is, to say the least, dis- 

 appointing to find these technical summaries 

 filling the report of a scientific body styled ad- 

 visory ; unless, indeed, the term " advice " be 

 understood in the commercial or notificatory 

 sense as merely indicating the existence in 

 working order of these various departmental 

 instruments of research. The advisory pro- 

 ceedings of the board occupy only thirty-seven 

 lines of the 180 pages of the report, and all the 

 information they afford is that the board ac- 

 cepted the programs of the several scientific 

 departments, but would rather not have them 



