90 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1387 



the general field of experimental biology and 

 medicine. Abstracts of the papers presented 

 will appear in the Proceedings of the parent 

 society. 



The graduate women in the science depart- 

 ments at Cornell University have recently or- 

 ganized a sorority under the name of Sigma 

 Delta Epsilon. The membership is primarily 

 limited to women engaged actively in research 

 work ; honorary membership has been extended 

 to several women who have gained recognition 

 in the scientific world. The society will have 

 a house at which the members may live while 

 at Cornell. The organization at present con- 

 sists of twenty-five active members and eight 

 honorary members. The officers are: Adele 

 Lewis Grant, president; Katherine Van 

 Winkle, vice-president; Josephine Overton 

 Souders, secretary; Hazel Elizabeth Branch, 

 treasurer. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



About $400,000 of the $500,000 appropriated 

 for building purposes at the University of 

 Iowa by the last general assembly is to be ex- 

 pended for the erection of the first units of a 

 new chemistry building. When completed the 

 building will cost $1,000,000. 



Dr. C. L. Metcalf, for the past seven years 

 professor of entomology in the Ohio State Uni- 

 versity, has resigned to accept the position of 

 professor of entomology and head of the de- 

 partment of entomology in the university of 

 Illinois. 



Herschel C. Smith, formerly deputy state 

 highway engineer of Oklahoma, has been ap- 

 pointed assistant professor of highway engi- 

 neering and highway transport at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, from which institution 

 he graduated in 1913. 



Dr. Alfred H. W. Povah, assistant profes- 

 sor of forest botany and pathology in the New 

 York State College of Forestry since 1918, 

 has resigned to accept the position of asso- 

 ciate professor of plant pathology and asso- 

 ciate pathologist in the Alabama Polytechnic 

 Institute. 



Cleveland P. Hickman, M.A. (Michigan), 

 has been appointed instructor in zoology in 

 West Virginia University. 



Dr. John Howland, professor of pediatrics 

 at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and 

 pediatrician-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital, has declined the ofier of the Medical 

 School of Harvard University to become pro- 

 fessor of children's diseases at that institution. 

 He will remain at Johns Hopkins. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



A LIVING GALVANOMETER 



That differences in electrical potential are 

 produced by protoplasmic activity is a well- 

 knoviTi fact. This is especially true of muscu- 

 lar activity. The existence of electrical cur- 

 rents in tissues was proved by Schweiger in 

 1824 and by Nobili, who discovered the gal- 

 vanometer. The string galvanometer was first 

 used to detect these currents, although it was 

 reasonably believed that such currents were 

 present before the galvanometer was discov- 

 ered. Such evidence was correctly given in 

 a more rudimentary way by Galvani and 

 Volta. With the introduction of the various 

 kinds of galvanometers these electrical cur- 

 rents were easily demonstrated. At the pres- 

 ent the various modifications of Einthoven's 

 galvanometer are used in detecting electrical 

 currents produced by the activity of various 

 muscles and especially the heart and in ob- 

 taining electrocardiograms. In fact it is a 

 very accurate method of obtaining a clinical ■ 

 picture of the condition of the heart in man. 



The discussion and demonstration of the 

 production of electrical currents by living or- 

 ganisms and especially man, never fail to 

 fascinate students, however teachers have 

 found themselves handicapped by the lack of 

 a suitable galvanometer. In laboratory ex- 

 periments of this kind, such as Galvani's ex- 

 periment and the rheoscopic frog experiment 

 an outside stimulus is necessary to demonstrate 

 this. In the experiment where the sciatic 

 nerve of a muscle nerve preparation is laid 

 across the beating heart, the results are very 



