Mat 28, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



789 



Bureau had to be in a position 'to examine the 

 product as it was made experimentally. In 

 July, 1914, a practical glassmaker was added 

 to the force of the bureau. He is a college 

 graduate of scientific training but skilled in 

 the manipulation of furnaces, and is the sort 

 of a man to make progress at the present stage 

 of the work. Small furnaces were built and 

 melts of a few pounds of ordinary glass were 

 made in order to become more familiar with 

 the technical side. A larger furnace has just 

 been completed which will handle melts of 25 

 to 50 pounds. The bureau is now making 

 simple glasses according to definite formulas, 

 studying the methods of securing it free from 

 bubbles, and other practical points. This is to 

 be followed by an investigation of the method 

 of annealing. Several glass manufacturers 

 have visited the bureau already for sugges- 

 tions as to the equipment for the manufacture 

 of optical glass. 



In connection with the election of a new 

 president it is stated editorially in the British 

 Medical Journal that the Eoyal College of 

 Physicians of London has had ninety-seven 

 presidents since Henry VIII., in the tenth 

 year of his reign, granted a charter of incorpo- 

 ration. In granting this charter he said that 

 his main reason was to check men who pro- 

 fessed physic rather from avarice than in good 

 faith, to the damage of credulous people; ac- 

 cordingly, after the example of other nations, 

 he had determined to found a college of the 

 learned men who practised physic in London, 

 in the hope that ignorant and rash practition- 

 ers might be restrained or punished. The 

 charter was granted to John Chamber, Thomas 

 Linacre, Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and 

 others. The college so constituted first exer- 

 cised its privilege of electing a president by 

 choosing Thomas Linacre for that office in 

 1518. Dovm to 1876, when Sir George Bur- 

 rows ceased to be president and was succeeded 

 by Sir James Eisdon Bennett, a graduate of 

 Edinburgh, the president had always been a 

 graduate of Cambridge or Oxford. Since the 

 spell was broken the presidents have all been 

 graduates of the University of London, with 

 the exception of Sir Andrew Clark, who was a 



graduate of Aberdeen, and Sir William 

 Church, who is a graduate of Oxford. The 

 new president. Sir Frederick Taylor, elected 

 March 29, the day after Palm Sunday, accord- 

 ing to the statutes, is a graduate of London, 

 having taken the degree of M.D. in 1870. He 

 became a fellow of the college in 1879, was an 

 examiner at various periods from 1885 to 1896, 

 was on the council from 1897 to 1899, and was 

 censor in 1904, 1905 and 1910. He has been 

 the representative of the college on the senate 

 of the University of London since 1907. He 

 gave the Lumleian lectures in 1904 on " Some 

 Disorders of the Spleen," and was Harveian 

 orator in 1907. He is physician to Guy's Hos- 

 pital ; his predecessor, Sir Thomas Barlow, was 

 physician to University College Hospital. Sir 

 Eichard Douglas Powell, who was president 

 from 1905 to 1910, was physician to the Mid- 

 dlesex Hospital; his predecessor. Sir William 

 Church, was physician to St. Bartholomevy's 

 Hospital; Sir Samuel Wilks, who preceded 

 him, was physician to Guy's Hospital. Sir J. 

 Eussell Eeynolds, who was president from 

 1893 to a few months before his death in 1896, 

 was physician to University College Hospital; 

 Sir Andrew Clark, who preceded him, was 

 physician to the London Hospital; and his 

 predecessor, Sir William Jenner, was physician 

 to University College Hospital. At the present 

 time the treasurer, the Harveian librarian and 

 the registrar are members of the staff of St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital. The longest tenure 

 of the office of president was that of Sir Henry 

 Halford, who was president from 1820 to 1844. 

 The office is an annual one, but is, as a rule, 

 held for five years. 



The proposed expedition to Paris of the 

 University of Pennsylvania unit of physicians 

 and nurses who will devote July, August and 

 September to work in the American Ambu- 

 lance Hospital, will sail early in June for 

 France. Headed by Dr. J. William White, 

 the party will be made up as follows : Surgeon, 

 Dr. James P. Hutchinson; neurologist, Dr. 

 Samuel J. McCarthy; assistant surgeons. Dr. 

 Edmund P. Piper, Dr. Walter S. Lee, Dr. Ar- 

 thur G. Billings and Dr. Peter McC. Keating; 

 bacteriologist, Dr. Samuel Goldschmidt Gir- 



