Januaby 19, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



63 



Messrs. John Wiley, and Sons, Incorpo- 

 rated, write that they supply filing-card an- 

 nouncements of their new books covering sci- 

 entific and technical subjects, in accordance 

 with the plan recommended by Mr. Wilhelm 

 Segerblom in the issue of Science for January 

 5. They will send copies of these cards to those 

 who may be interested. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



The Billings family of Chicago, headed by 

 Mr. 0. K. G. Billings, has given one million 

 dollars to the University of Chicago toward 

 the endowment of the medical school. The 

 money is to be used to provide a hospital in 

 connection with the school. 



The late Mr. John D. Archbold has be- 

 queathed the sum of $500,000 to Syracuse Uni- 

 versity. 



Mr. Jacob H. Schiff has given the sum of 

 $50,000 to New York University toward the 

 fmid of $300,000 for the division of public 

 affairs in the school of commerce. 



The alumni of Harvard University plan to 

 collect a fund of ten million dollars for the 

 permanent endowment fund of the university. 



Professor A. A. ISToyes, director of the re- 

 search laboratory of physical chemistry at the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will 

 spend the next five months at Throop College, 

 Pasadena, Cal., where the new chemistry 

 building will be occupied about February 1. 



Dr. Eoswell Angier, assistant professor of 

 psychology at Tale University, will during the 

 second half year give at Tale University one 

 of the courses given by the late Hugo Miinster- 

 berg. The other courses will be given by 

 Assistant Professor H. S. Langfeld and Dr. 

 L. T. Troland. 



The Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation states that the senate of Queen's Uni- 

 versity, Kingston, Ont., has issued a memo- 

 randum covering its objections to the action 

 of the University of Toronto in deciding to 

 establish in 1918 a six-year academic course in 

 medicine. A conference had been held be- 

 tween representatives of the two universities 



but no other universities interested in Canada 

 had been asked to participate in that confer- 

 ence. Queen's University says that the pro- 

 posals come at a time when there is an unusual 

 demand for the services of medical men from 

 the British and Canadian governments, and 

 that the great need for medical men will not 

 immediately cease when the war is over. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE INFLUENCE OF DISEASE IN THE 

 EXTINCTION OF RACES 



OsBORNi has called our attention to the part 

 disease may have played in the extinction of 

 certain mammalian groups especially. He 

 based his suggestion on the prevalence of cej- 

 tain diseases among modern mammals, such 

 as Texas fever, " rinderpest," biliary fever and 

 the disease transmitted by the tse-tse fly. He 

 says: 



Thus in these diseases we have all the conditions 

 favorable for the wide distribution of insect-borne 

 diseases which in past times may have attacked 

 various types of quadrupeds and resulted in exter- 

 mination before natural immunity was acquired. 



He did not, however, cite any instances in 

 which disease is known to have played a part 

 among the fossil vertebrates, and it is not 

 likely that epidemic diseases of which he spoke 

 should leave an impress on the skeleton. 



The writer^ has already indicated how a 

 study of pathological lesions on fossil bones 

 may show something of the widespread nature 

 of disease in geological time. During the 

 past few months there have been accumulated 

 evidences of at least a score of diseases which 

 are suggested by the lesions found on the 

 petrified skeletal remains. Since the detailed 

 description of these will appear elsewhere, it 

 will only be necessary to say here that disease, 

 as indicated by the above-mentioned lesions, 

 was widespread quite early in the history of 

 the early vertebrates. Pathological bones 

 have so far not been noted in the early or 



1 H. F. Osborn, American Naturalist, Vol. XL., 

 p. 836, 1906. 



2 Science, N. S., Vol. XLIII., No. 1108, pp. 425- 

 426, 1916. American Journal of Science, Vol. XLI., 

 pp. 530-531, 1916. 



