Februaky 10, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



157 



years can still be received up to the date of 

 publication. ^._ ^ ^^^^^^^ 



Secretary of the Bay Society 

 1, Mount Park Crescent, 

 Ealing, London, "W. 5, 



QUOTATIONS 



THE NEW CHEMISTRY 

 The service, at onee scientific and humani- 

 tarian, of Dr. Charles Baskerville, who died 

 last week, is illustrative of what the science of 

 chemistry is undertaking for the alleviation of 

 human suffering. Dr. Baskerville's special re- 

 searches had to do with the causes and preven- 

 tion of occupational diseases and with the 

 purifying of ether as an anesthetic. These are, 

 however, but suggestive of the innumerable re- 

 searches in which his brother chemists of every 

 land in this new age of their science are seek- 

 ing not only to heighten industrial produc- 

 tivity, but to promote and conserve the health 

 and strength of human bodies. 



During the war, when it became necessary to 

 use poison gas to fight poison gas, the ablest 

 American research chemists were called to the 

 country's defense. The recent action of the 

 Washington conference gives hope that chok- 

 ing and wasting vapors will not again sweep 

 over fields or stain the skies, and that such 

 another service as these chemists were called 

 upon to give will never again be asked of a 

 benign science that will now have freedom to 

 devote its entire attention to benefiting men, 

 women and children. 



That this is more than a vague, visionary 

 hope is intimated by the recent report of a 

 committee of the American Chemical Society, 

 under the chairmanship of Dr. Charles H. 

 Herty. It is a clarion siunmoning of the 

 chemists to come to the battle against disease. 

 In the war the development of means of de- 

 fense was not left to haphazard discoveries by 

 isolated chemists. The best-trained workers in 

 sj'stematic research were brought together and 

 were kept in dailj' — almost hourly — confer- 

 ence, where they were joined by pharmacolo- 

 gists and experimental pathologists, until the 

 problems upon which the fate of nations de- 

 pended were solved. But while war claimed 

 its sacrifice in millions of lives, "disease each 



year claims its tens of millions." The new 

 problems give this science a more urgent, 

 poignant call. And the committee, contem- 

 plating the ravage of disease, puts this ques- 

 tion: "Can we not bring to these problems the 

 same methods so successfully employed in the 

 solution of the means of making war?" 



Several centuries ago the chemist and the 

 physician cooperated. Then they separated, 

 the chemist turning toward industrial produc- 

 tion. Now it is being realized that, though the 

 bacteriologists and pathologists have accom- 

 plished wonders, they have "definitely reached 

 a point where they must turn to the chemists 

 for the solution of many of their most im- 

 portant problems." Not only are the chemists' 

 medicaments needed for the cure or alleviation 

 of certain specific diseases, but their advice is 

 needed as to the acceleration or retardation of 

 chemical reactions that take place in the body. 

 The myriad battles with avoidable or prevent- 

 able disease there go daily on. The lesson of 

 the war intimates what victories may be ex- 

 pected in these battles from the cooperation, 

 under ideal conditions of time and research, 

 on the part of those whose science touches these 

 very issues of life. 



Dr. Baskerville, not only by his own re- 

 searches, but also and especially by develop- 

 ing and equipping what was perhaps the best 

 series of chemical laboratories in the United 

 States and by organizing a department which 

 has given tuition to hundreds of young men 

 for service in this science, made his lasting 

 contribution, though his studies and researches 

 and teaching here are over. It will be remem- 

 bered, however, that but a few weeks before 

 his death, after years of intimate study of the 

 atom, he said that "there is something that 

 cannot be explained on a purely materialistic 

 hypothesis." So the quest goes on. — The New 

 York Times. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



A CONVENIENT METHOD OF DETERMINING 



THE BRIGHTNESS OF LUMINESCENCE 



Having recently had occasion to measure 

 the brightness of various fluorescent substances 

 I tried out for this purpose an optical 

 pjTometer. 



