Mat 5, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



467 



work in various lines. Plans for the new 

 building had been exhibited at this session of 

 the academy. This building will cost about 

 $1,300,000, this money being provided by the 

 Carnegie Corporation, and $200,000 had been 

 provided by a score of private donors for the 

 purchase of the ground. The edifice will be 

 worthy of standing in the group of patriotic, 

 philanthropic, international and memorial 

 structures, and here the National Academy of 

 Sciences and her daughter, the National Re- 

 search Council, may live together in peace and 

 happiness. 



The president then asked Dr. William H. 

 Welch to speak on the new School of Hygiene 

 and Public Health founded at Johns Hopkins 

 University and endowed with sis millions 

 from the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Welch 

 said that the prevention of disease in communi- 

 ties as distinct from the cure of disease indi- 

 vidually was comparatively a new profession. 

 The beginning of the public health work may 

 be traced back to the seventeenth century, when 

 three great discoveries were made. One was 

 Captain Cook's success in preventing scurvy in 

 his long voyage in the Pacific by the use of 

 vegetable vitamines. The second was the dis- 

 covery of the cause of "Devonshire colic," 

 which was found to be due to lead poisoning 

 from the drawing of eider through lead pipes. 

 The third was the introduction of vaccination 

 for smallpox. The Napoleonic wars set back 

 work in this direction as in others, but in the 

 gieat reform year of 1848 the English Parlia- 

 ment passed the Public Health Act. Then 

 began a campaign directed against filth and 

 for sanitation, water supply and sewage dis- 

 posal. Now with our new knowledge of the 

 causes of infection and epidemics, public health 

 can be guarded as never before. Yellow fever 

 has been swept from its old haunts, malarial 

 fever can be controlled and typhoid has become 

 so rare that it is difficult to teach it for want of 

 cases. In Baltimore last year a single death 

 from typhoid aroused gi'eat excitement among 

 the students who were eager to attend the 

 autopsy as the only opportunity they had to 

 become acquainted with this disease. The new 

 school is to be composed of men and women 

 who are to make the prevention of disease the 



primary aim of their life work. There are four 

 members of the National Academy of Sciences 

 in the faculty of the School of Hygiene and 

 Public Health. 



At the close of the evening Dr. Hendrik 

 Anton Lorentz, of the University of Leiden, 

 was asked to speak and responded with charac- 

 teristic geniality. He recalled his visit to the 

 United States sixteen years ago and told how 

 glad he was to accept the invitation of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington and the 

 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 

 where he has been lecturing. Now on the eve 

 of departure he expressed his gratitude for the 

 kindness that had been showered upon him in 

 various parts of the United States which was, 

 he felt, more than he deserved and was, as he 

 had discovered in some cases, due to the fact 

 that he was taken for the Viennese surgeon, 

 Dr. Lorenz. Everywhere he found earnest 

 young men engaged in research which prom- 

 ised great things for the future of science in 

 America. He found nothing to criticize, but 

 took the opportunity of suggesting that per- 

 haps the strenuous life and feverish activity of 

 Americans might be benefited by somewhat of 

 the Dutch restfulness of his own land. 



Edwin E. Slosson 



THE EDWARD C. PICKERING 

 MEMORIAL 



The wonders of the sky present such a 

 fascinating appeal to the general public that 

 large numbers of telescopes are sold each year 

 to the amateur who with keen delight views the 

 marvels of Saturn's rings, the everchanging 

 appearance of Jupiter and his satellites, and 

 the glories of the nebula of Orion. These and 

 many other objects are observed with the gi'eat- 

 est of eagerness, and books on descriptive 

 astronomy are bought and are read with great 

 avidity. The pleasures brought by the new 

 telescope are all the more enjoyed if the instru- 

 ment arrives during the summer season. Then 

 it may be taken out into the garden or on to 

 the roof top and the pleasure is unalloyed by 

 biting winds, cold hands or freezing feet. With 

 the coming of autumn and winter the telescope 

 is used less frequently, and the warmer weather 

 of spring and summer is looked forward to 



