390 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1054 



salary? Would it not be better to devote the 

 available money to paying several younger 

 men from 25 to 35 years of age — their more 

 productive years — to devote practically all 

 tbeir time to teaching and research? Fortu- 

 nately for the plan, the men vcho are respon- 

 sible for it recognize that it is an experiment 

 and frankly advise that it be not adopted bj 

 other medical colleges until it has been tried 

 out on Hopkins. 



The fact that such a plan has been seriously 

 proposed by laymen interested in education 

 emphasizes the necessity of a thorough reor- 

 ganization of our scheme of clinical teaching 

 along lines to be determined and agreed on 

 by a committee of our best clinical teachers. 



I should like to add the following comment. 



First, that the Council of Medical Education 

 believes that one of the most pressing needs 

 is that of the reorganization of our clinical 

 departments on a more satisfactory basis. 



Second, the Council of Medical Education 

 has taken the position that this important 

 subject of the reorganization of clinical teach- 

 ing should be submitted to a committee of ex- 

 perts, men who are recognized as great clinical 

 teachers and who are familiar with the prob- 

 lems of clinical medicine. This committee is 

 composed of the following men: Dr. V. C. 

 Vaughan, University of Michigan, President 

 of the American Medical Association ; Dr. Geo. 

 Armstrong, McGill University; Dr. John 

 Finney, Johns Hopkins University; Dr. John 

 Clark, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. W. J. 

 Mayo, trustee of the University of Minnesota; 

 Dr. Geo. deSchweinitz, University of Pennsyl- 

 vania; Dr. Frank Billings, Eush Medical Col- 

 lege, University of Chicago ; Dr. Harvey Gush- 

 ing, Harvard University; Dr. Geo. Dock, 

 Washington University, and Dr. Saml. Lam- 

 bert, Columbia University. 



The committee is at present working on this 

 problem. The Council on Medical Education 

 does not know as yet what the findings of this 

 committee will be. We believe, however, that 

 the report of this committee will be of greater 

 value than would the report on this particular 

 subject of a committee of university presi- 

 dents, professors in the science departments of 



universities, professors of the laboratory 

 branches such as embryology, chemistry or 

 physiology in a medical school, or men who 

 are devoting their lives to the problems of 

 medical research, but who are not in touch with 

 clinical medicine. Would it not be well for 

 university presidents, university trustees and 

 medical faculties who contemplate reorganizing 

 their clinical departments to await the findings 

 of this committee representing the American 

 Medical Association? The subject was dis- 

 cussed February 16, 1915, at the annual con- 

 ference on medical education held in Chicago 

 and the final report will be made to the house 

 of delegates at the June meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Medical Association. 



Arthur Dean Bevan 



soil nitrates 

 To THE Editor of Science: In the reviews 

 of an article^ by Mr. Wright and myself ap- 

 pearing in a monthly bulletin of the Inter- 

 national Institute of Agriculture^ and the 

 Chemical Abstracts of the American Chemical 

 Society,^ the point of view supported by our 

 paper is not fully recognized. One review 

 refers to the malnutrition of citrus trees as 

 resulting from the toxic effects of super- 

 abundant nitrates, and the other refers espe- 

 cially to the production of malnutrition from 

 the denitrification of soil nitrates. We pre- 

 sented the data of our experimental studies in 

 California in some detail in order to draw 

 attention to what we believe to be an impor- 

 tant phenomenon, namely, that probably iden- 

 tical symptoms of malnutrition result either 

 from superabundant nitrates which we regard 

 as one phase of the so-called " alkali " poison- 

 ing and by nitrogen starvation which may re- 



1 "Eelation of Bacterial Transformations of 

 Soil Nitrogen to Nutrition of Citrus Plants," 

 Kellerman, K. F., and Wright, E. C. (Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, U. S. Dept. of Agr.) in Journal 

 of Agricultural Sesearch, Vol. II., No. 2, p. 

 101-13, Washington, D. C, May, 1914. 



2 Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Intelligence 

 and Plant Diseases, Year V., No. 9, p. 1166, Sep- 

 tember, 1914. 



s Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 8, No. 15, p. 2769, 

 August 10, 1914. 



