344 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 924 



tenth congress at Halle, Germany, in 1915. 

 The officers elected were : President, Dr. Alfred 

 Denker, of Halle; Vice-president, Dr. Alex- 

 ander B. Eandall, of Philadelphia; Secretary 

 and Treasurer, Dr. Henry 0. Reik, of Balti- 

 more. 



Me. James B. Brady, of New Tork, has, it 

 is reported, given the sum of $220,000 to the 

 Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, for the 

 establishment of a ward for the treatment of 

 diseases of the kidney. 



The annual meeting of the Association of 

 Military Surgeons of the United States will be 

 held in Baltimore, from October 1 to 5, under 

 the presidency of Surgeon Charles P. Werten- 

 baker, U. S. Public Health Service. 



UNIVEBSITT AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



The new physics building at the University 

 of Iowa, costing $225,000 exclusive of equip- 

 ment, is now completed and will be used from 

 the opening of the college year. 



Dr. Shadworth Hollway Hodgson, the dis- 

 tinguished philosophical author, who died on 

 June 3, aged eighty years, has bequeathed his 

 philosophical laboratory to Corpus Christi Col- 

 lege, Oxford, and his general library to Rugby 

 School. He bequeathed £500 to each institu- 

 tion to defray the cost of incidental expenses. 



M. E. SoLVAY will give $2,000 a year for 

 three years to the Laboratory of Physical 

 Chemistry of the Berlin University to assist 

 the researches on which Professor Nernst is 

 engaged. 



Ira D. Cardiff, Ph.D., professor of botany 

 in Washburn College, has resigned to accept 

 the position of professor of plant physiology 

 in the Washington State College at Pullman. 



Dr. Sabrazes, associate professor at the 

 laboratory of the Faculte de medecine de Bor- 

 deaux, has been appointed professor of pathol- 

 ogy and anatomy at the same school, in place 

 of Dr. Coyne, who has retired. 



Professor Lucien Cayeux, formerly pro- 

 fessor of general geology at the National 

 School of Mines at Paris, has been elected to 

 the chair of " The Natural History of Inor- 

 ganic Bodies " at the College de Prance, left 

 vacant by the death of Michel-Levy. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



A REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE 



To THE Editor of Science : In your issue of 

 August 9, an article by Professor J. S. Kings- 

 ley announces various changes in the rules of 

 zoological nomenclature proposed by certain 

 Austrian and German zoologists, and to be 

 submitted to the next zoological congress for 

 approval. He inferentially asks the signa- 

 tures of those interested in zoology as a back- 

 ing for the proposed changes. In view of the 

 total demoralization of zoological nomen- 

 clature which would follow the adoption of 

 these changes (and I do not see the name of a 

 single expert in such matters among those 

 cited in their favor by Professor Kingsley) I 

 feel bound to offer some comments. 



I may incidentally remark that it is the 

 past modification in a similar manner of the 

 original British Association rules by over 

 hasty and ill-informed action, that is respon- 

 sible for ninety-nine out out of every hundred 

 of the present difficulties. Moreover, my own 

 experience in my own field of study leads me 

 to believe it probable that Professor Kingsley's 

 communication greatly exaggerates the diffi- 

 culties for professional naturalists of the 

 present state of affairs. The people who find 

 themselves in trouble are not the men who 

 really do modern work in systematic zoology, 

 but are men of a past generation who are an- 

 noyed by unfamiliar names, teachers relying 

 on out-of-date text-books, some amateurs 

 without access to recent literature and the 

 body of anatomists, morphologists and others, 

 not systematists, who do not like to be bothered 

 by nomenclature at all, but wish to get names 

 for their material without working for them 

 or asking some one who is by way of know- 

 ing. 



I would be the last to deny that there are 

 some real difficulties, and that it would be wise 

 to remedy them, but the authors of this out- 

 cry have not indicated the right way to bring 

 it about. On the contrary, in some respects 

 it is calculated to increase the difficulties ten- 

 fold, to undo good work that is already ac- 

 cepted by the generality of students (for I 

 take it for granted that the new laws are in- 

 tended to be ex post facto), and to introduce 



