704 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1435 



furnishes evidence that the Y-ehromosome type 

 of inheritance occurs in man as well as in 

 fishes. 



W. E. Castle 

 BussET Institution, 

 June 3, 1922 



THE VOCABULARY OF METABOLISM 

 I wish to suggest in the columns of Science 

 the following new terms in the vocabulary of 

 metabolism: (1) Eubolism, a condition of 

 normal bodily metabolism; (2) PathoboUsm, a 

 condition of perverted metabolism of a diseased 

 nature, as, for example, diabetes; (3) Dysbol- 

 ism, a condition of disturbed metabolism not 

 necessarily of a diseased nature, as, for ex- 

 ample, alkaptonuria. I believe that these terms 

 will supply a want in the terminology of meta- 

 bolism. 



Mas Kahn 

 Beth Israel Hospital, 

 New York 



SALARIES OF PROFESSORS IN POLAND 



I TAKE the following item from the weekly 

 news release of June 7 of the Polish Bureau of 

 Information : 



Because of the impOTtanee attached to their 

 role in the life of the nation, the university pro- 

 fessors of Poland have been granted salaries 

 greater than those to which their official rank 

 would entitle them. [The official rank of full 

 professors in Polish universities is considered 

 equivalent to that of major generals.] 



If they have been in service fifteen years and 

 are supporting families, they are to receive 

 monthly salaries of 139,000 marks. This approxi- 

 mates the salaries of cabinet ministers, who re- 

 ceive about 160,000 marks monthly, and is slightly 

 in excess of those of vice-ministers, who receive, 

 including representation funds, about 137,000 

 marks. 



These salaries for professors have been made 

 possible by a special provision in the state budget, 

 appropriating 357,906,966 marks for professors' 

 salaries and 87,625,761 marks for the salaries of 

 assistants, a total of nearly half a billion marks. 

 [For the value of a Polish mark in American 

 money to-day, consult the morning newspaper.] 



Vernon Kellogg 

 Washington, D. C. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE SPIRAL TREND OF INTESTINAL 

 MUSCLE FIBERS 



In the Anatomical Record for May, 1921 

 (Vol. 21, pp. 189-215), Professor Carey pub- 

 lished his "Studies on the Structure and Func- 

 tion of the Small Intestine." These were re- 

 printed, in part, with the title, "Studies on the 

 Anatomy and Muscular Action of the Small 

 Intestine," as the opening article of volume 1 

 of the Journal of Gastro-Enterology (July, 

 1921). The first conclusion, and the only one 

 on which comment is here to be made, is this : 



The inner muscle coat of the small intestine is 

 not composed of circular or annular rings contigu- 

 ously placed, but is a continuous muscular sheet 

 wound into a close hehx. One complete turn is 

 made in every 0.5 to 1 mm. or less (Anat. Bee, 

 p. 193; Jov.rn. Gastro-Ent., p. 9). 



Professor Carey characterizes the conception 

 that the inner muscular coat is composed of 

 discrete muscular rings with a certain degree 

 of connection, as "a faulty anatomical heir- 

 loom" — an "erroneous idea which arose with 

 the inception of the microscope and has since 

 been accepted unchallenged." There is, how- 

 ever, a neglected anatomical heirloom, with 

 which perhaps the author was unfamiliar, in" 

 the form of "A Discourse concerning the 

 Spiral, instead of the supposed Annular, struc- 

 ture of the ribres of the Intestins; discover'd 

 and shewn by the Learn'd and Inquisitive Dr. 

 William Cole to the Royal Society" {Phil. 

 Trans., 1676, Vol. xi, pp. 603-609). This dis- 

 course, not now readily accessible, is so admir- 

 ably confirmed by Professor Carey's repetition 

 of the work as to repay examination. 



At the time of Dr. Cole's studies, Willis, in 

 his Pharmaceutice rationalis, published two 

 years previously, had described the interior 

 fibers of the muscular coat as "annular, every- 

 where girdling in close-set ranks the cavity of 

 the intestines, and inserted into the edge of the 

 mesentery as in a tendon." Overlying these, 

 and "crossing them at right angles," he found 

 straight or longitudinal fibers, and believed 

 that the sinewy outer layer wrapped around 

 them served them in place of tendons. (Earnest 

 efforts were made by the early anatomists to 



