Mat 19, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



541 



European conference in which Soviet Russia 

 and Soviet Ukraine were represented. The 

 conference drew up a general report of the 

 situation, and the lines were laid down for a 

 series of sanitary conventions, which are now 

 being negotiated between the states of central 

 and eastern Eurape as a first defence against 

 epidemics. Einally, the conference prepared a 

 detailed plan for an anti-epidemic campaign in 

 Russia and in the border states, and recom- 

 mended that the conduct of this campaign 

 should be entrusted to the League of Nations 

 health organization and the epidemics com- 

 mission. The conference requested the Council 

 of the League to transmit its recommendations 

 to the Genoa conference, on the ground that 

 the latter was to deal with the economic recon- 

 struction of Europe, and because an epidemic 

 campaign in eastern Europe was in its opinion 

 the indispensable preliminary to the work of 

 economic reconstruction. It is hoped that the 

 Genoa conference will dceide upon the measures 

 to be taken with reference to the anti-epidemic 

 campaign, and whether they shall be carried 

 out by the health organization of the League of 

 Nations. This health organization consists of, 

 fii-st, a committee appointed by the Council of 

 the League, which acts as the executive body 

 of the organization; second, the Office National 

 d'Hj'giene Publique in Paris, a body in exis- 

 tence before the war, which, though not a 

 League organization, acts in close cooperation 

 with the latter, and in practice serves as its 

 general committee, drawing up draft conven- 

 tions and laying down general lines of policy; 

 third, a secretariat, which forms the health sec- 

 tion of the Secretariat-general of the League. 

 The epidemics commission — originally, as has 

 been said, an independent body — is now also 

 attached to the health section, and is therefore 

 really a part of the health organization. An 

 epidemiological intelligence service has been 

 organized to keep the health authorities of all 

 nations informed as to the incidence of epi- 

 demic diseases, and a monthly bulletin is being 

 issued containing statistics and charts of the 

 incidence all over the world of cholera, typhus, 

 dysentery, small-pox, and other infectious dis- 

 eases. Another branch of the work of the 

 health organization was the conference held in 

 London in December, 1921, on the standardiza- 



tion of serums and serological tests, when, as 

 reported at the time, a program of inquiry and 

 research was elaborated, to be carried out by 

 the various laboratories and centralized in the 

 Copenhagen Institute. The results will be ex- 

 amined at a forthcoming conference to be held 

 at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. — The British 

 Medical Journal. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE DOMESTIC FOWL AS A SOURCE OF 

 IMMUNE HEMOLYTIC SERA 



During the last three j^ears we have ob- 

 tained abundant evidence which refutes Cit- 

 ron's^ claim that the chicken is one of the best 

 adapted animals for the production of hemolytic 

 sera. Citron gave no evidence to justify the 

 inclusion of the domestic fowl among the spe- 

 cies best adapted to produce hemolytic sera 

 and so far as known to me, none exists. In 

 point of fact, we find this animal one of the 

 poorest hemolysin producers that has come 

 within our experience. 



It was known to Bordet-, Sachs', Metch- 

 nikoff*, and P. Miiller' long before the 

 appearance of Citron's book, that a diffi- 

 culty was involved in demonstrating the sen- 

 sitizer or amboceptor content of the serum of 

 this animaP, and Citron's unsupported 

 claim should have been regarded with sus- 

 picion. In spite of this fact, the statement 

 from Citron is still taken at its face value. 

 Thus, Guyer and Smith^ have recently made 



1 Citron, J., 1912, Immunity. Translation by 

 A. L. Garbat. 



" Bordet, J., 1899, ' ' Agglutination et dissolu- 

 tion des globules rouges," Ann. de I'Inst. Pas- 

 teur, 13: 273. 



3 Sachs, Hans, 1902, Berl. Min Wochen, Nos. 

 9 and 10. 



* Metchnikoff, E., 1907, Immunity in infective 

 Diseases, Cambridge Press. 



» Miiller, P., 1901, Uber Anti-lidmolysine Cen- 

 tralbl. f. Baht. u. Parasitenkunde, 29: 175. 



6 Hyde, K. E., 1921, "The reactivation of the 

 natural hemolytic antibody in chicken serum, ' ' 

 Am. J. Hygiene, 1: 358-362. 



= Guyer, M. P., and Smith, E. A., 1918, "Some 

 prenatal effects of lens antibodies," J. Exper. 

 Zool., 26: 65-82. — 1920, "Transmission of induced 

 eye defects," lUd., 171-215. 



