136 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1180 



The Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation states tliat tlie Academy of Medicine 

 of Toronto has adopted a resolution calling for 

 one united medical service in Canada to take 

 the place of the present arrangements of a Ca- 

 nadian Army Medical Corps and a Canadian 

 Hospitals Commission. The academy urges 

 that medical care of all soldiers be placed di- 

 rectly under a surgeon general, to be known 

 as Surgeon General of Canada, who should be 

 directly responsible to the minister of militia, 

 who should have a seat in the militia council. 

 He will perform the duties of director of med- 

 ical services, invalids and be chief medical 

 officer of the hospitals commission and of its 

 executive. The academy recommended Sur- 

 geon-General John Taylor Fotheringham, 

 C.M.G., Toronto, recently returned from over- 

 seas, for this position. 



The emperor of Austria, according to the 

 Journal of the American Medical Association, 

 has organized a new state department, the chief 

 of which is to be known as the minister of 

 hygiene and social welfare. 



The yacht Arhton Dohrn, of the department 

 of marine biology of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington, has been offered to and ac- 

 cepted by the United States Navy for the 

 period of the war. 



The board of managers of the I^ew York 

 Botanical Garden announces plans to expend 

 $500,000 in developing the garden. Three of 

 the largest works projected are the construc- 

 tion of a museum laboratory wing which will 

 cost $100,000, the building of a wing to the 

 east museum to cost $100,000, and a central 

 display greenhouse to cost $75,000. An orchid 

 greenhouse will cost $24,000, and a like sum 

 will be spent in building an economic plant 

 greenhouse. Two tropic plant greenhouses, a 

 garden school greenhouse, experimental and 

 investigation greenhouses also are to be con- 

 structed. In a report of the garden's endow- 

 ment committee it is announced that a con- 

 tribution of $2,000 has been made by Mrs. 

 Robert E. Westcott for the construction of the 

 new rose garden stone stairway, and a gift of 

 $4,000 has been made by Mrs. Frederick F. 

 Thompson for the construction of the school 



garden shelter on the eastern bank of the 

 Long Lake at the southern end of the new 

 school garden. 



The fourth meeting of the Conjoint Board of 

 Scientific Societies of Great Britain was held 

 on June 13 at the Royal Society, with Sir J. J. 

 Thomson, F.R.S., in the chair. The report of 

 the executive committee for the past half year 

 showed that a number of questions of scientific 

 and industrial importance have come before 

 the board. Among these are the need for an 

 anthropological survey of the British people, 

 the maintenance of the international catalogue 

 of scientific literature and the desirability or 

 otherwise of adopting the metric system 

 throughout the British Isles. 



An opportunity for research work in sociol- 

 ogy with some time for other graduate work if 

 desired awaits a suitable applicant at the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago and for this $1,200 has been 

 set aside for each of the two years it is ex- 

 pected the investigation will require. By this 

 announcement it is hoped to secure some one 

 already specializing in sociology. Inquiry for 

 further details may be addressed to Professor 

 Albion W. Small, University of Chicago, or to 

 Dr. E. E. LeCount, Rush Medical College, 

 Chicago. 



The Bureau of Economic Geology of the 

 University of Texas has just issued a report 

 on the Thrall Oil Field by J. A. Udden, H. P. 

 Bybee, E. P. Schoch and W. T. Read. This 

 field was discovered three years ago, in Wil- 

 liamson County, and it proves to be unique for 

 the United States, the greater part of the pro- 

 duction coming from a metamorphic chlorite 

 derived from an extremely basic igneous rock. 

 This rock apparently represents a submarine 

 eruption in the Cretaceous sea. 



The Medical Becord states that the Rocke- 

 feller Institute for Medical Research, through 

 tlie research work of Dr. Carroll G. Bull and 

 Miss Ida W. Pritchett, will undertake to 

 supply the allied armies with a serum which 

 is believed to be an effective antitoxin for the 

 gas bacillus producing gangrene. Cultures of 

 the gangrene bacillus were obtained in Europe 

 last year and these investigators have experi- 



