636 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1173 



would constitute a most persuasive argtmient 

 for the location of the new institute in Wash- 

 ington — within reach also of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, the Bureau of Standards, the Bu- 

 reau of Mines, the Department of Agriculture, 

 the Geological Survey, the Medical Museum, 

 the Carnegie Institution and the Library of 

 Congress. 



If any combination of circumstances can 

 lead to united practical efforts toward com- 

 mon or related purposes on the part of those 

 who seek a perfecting of the patent system, 

 and those whose interests as scientists and 

 educators extend beyond all current technical 

 applications, it would seem past doubting that 

 notable results must follow promptly. 



In this connection attention is invited to 

 the fact that the Patent Office is now ad- 

 mittedly unable to make an adequate applica- 

 tion even of its present resources. The point 

 here made is not that a surplus from the col- 

 lection of fees is required to be turned over 

 to the federal treasury, while the needs of the 

 office for literature, laboratories, and men re- 

 main unprovided for. It is that the accumu- 

 lation of patent grants has reached to such 

 limits (about one and one quarter million 

 grants), that, in the absence of adequate ap- 

 propriations for the work of reclassification, 

 the office is unable to find the needles in its 

 own haystach. To quote from the current 

 report of the Commissioner of Patents, 

 Thomas Ewing : 



In 1890 there were 189 members of the examin- 

 ing corps, of whom 30 were examiners. The assist- 

 ant examiners (who make the searches) numbered 

 159. Each assistant had to report on 251 appli- 

 cations per year. 



In 1916 the corps numbered 367, of whom 43 

 were examiners and 324 assistant examiners. 

 Each assistant must report on 210 applications 

 per year. 



The extent of the field of search is fairly repre- 

 sented by the United States patents granted and 

 the available foreign patents. In 1890 there were 

 443,000 United States patents and 635,000 avail- 

 able foreign patents, making a total of 1,078,000. 

 At the close of 1916 there were more than 1,210,000 

 United States patents and 1,690,000 available for- 

 eign patents, totaling 2,900,000. 



From these figures it will appear that the num- 



ber of applications to be passed upon by each as- 

 sistant has been reduced since 1890 by seventeen 

 per cent. The number of available patents through 

 which search must be made is now two hundred 

 and forty per cent, of what it was in 1890. The 

 force relative to the work which it has to do is 

 therefore less than fifty per cent, to-day what it 

 was in 1890. 



In order that such a situation may be met at all 

 it is absolutely essential that the best method of 

 classification should be adopted, the classification 

 completed and kept up to date. Yet when I laid 

 all of these facts before Congress and pointed out, 

 as indicated in an earlier section of this report, 

 that at the present rate of reclassification now go- 

 ing on it could not be completed under twenty- 

 five years I succeeded in obtaining no relief what- 

 soever. Every recommendation that I made dur- 

 ing the past year has been refused. 



If there could be established in the national 

 capital an institute devoted to a study of 

 the development of pTxre and applied science, 

 is it not important that, even though incident- 

 ally to other great consequences, there might 

 be created in both the legislative and admin- 

 istrative branches a new appreciation of the 

 work, the responsibilities, and the opportuni- 

 ties, of an existing establishment, charged 

 under the constitution, " to promote the 

 progress of science and the useful arts " ? 

 Certainly those who are now engaged upon 

 the performance of this duty are not all in- 

 sensible of their limitations, nor of the serv- 

 ices of stimulation and cooperation which 

 could be rendered by disinterested and com- 

 petent men of science. 



Bert Eussell 



Washington, D. C. 



A CURE FOR SHOCK? 



At a meeting of the Massachusetts Medical 

 Society on June twelfth in Boston, Professor 

 Walter B. Cannon, Shattuck lecturer in lieu of 

 Dr. E. P. Strong (although both are now in 

 France), detailed the probable physiology of 

 traumatic and surgical shock, and suggested a 

 possible cure. Dr. Cannon sees the essential 

 primary condition in shock to be the vaso- 

 motor trapping of too much of the body's 

 blood by the splanchnic veins — capacious 

 enough to contain all the life-blood of the or- 



