SCIENCE 



Friday, June 18, 1915 



CONTENTS 

 Before and After Lister: Dr. W. W. Keex. 8H1 



The Twentieth Anniversary of the New Yorlc 

 Botanieal Garden 891 



The Cornell Medical Society of New YorJ; 

 City 892 



Sotel Reservations for the San Francisco 

 Meeting of the American Association 892 



The Scripps Institute for Biological Besearch. 893 



Scientifio Notes and Neivs 894 



University and Educational Neios 895 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



The Hall of Fame: Propessok Edward C. 

 Pickering. A Method for imbedding Small 

 Objects: Dr. Paul Ashley West. Some 

 Seasons for saving the Gemis: Dr. Francis 

 B. Sumner. The Problem of the Pribilof 

 Islands: George Archibald Clark. A Safe 

 Method of using Mercury Bichloride for 

 the Antisepsis of Wounds of Large Surface : 

 Dr. Reginald E. Fessenden. A Solar 

 Halo: Proeessor Horace Clark Eichards. 897 



The Conditions of Industrial Accidents .... 905 



Scientific Books :— 



Wheeler on the Ants of the Baltic Amber: 

 Professor T. D. A. Cockeeell. Holde on 

 the Examination of Hydrocarbon Oils: Pro- 

 fessor Charles F. Mabery 906 



The Adoption of the Missouri System of Gra- 

 ding at Gaucher College: Professor Wm. 

 E. Kellicott 909 



Special Articles: — 



A Safe Portable Lamp Battery: Professor 

 Yandell Henderson. A Simple Device for 

 demonstrating the Tempered Scale: L. B. 

 Spinney. Three Strawberry Fungi which 

 Cause Fruit Bots: Professor F. L. Stevens. 910 



Societies and Actidemies : — 



The Botanical Society of Washington: Dr. 

 Perley Spaulding. The Biological So- 

 ciety of Washington: Dr. M. W. Lyon, Jk. 913 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc.. intended for 

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 on-Hudson. N. Y. 



BEFOBE AND AFTEM LISTEB, 

 LECTURE II., AFTEE LISTER 



Yesterday the dominant note was one of 

 despair and defeat. To-day the dominant 

 note shall be one of joy and victory. 



Instead of hospitals reeking with pus and 

 emptied by death, of operation after opera- 

 tion, when the roll was called, reporting a 

 mortality of 40 per cent., 50, 75, 90, and 

 even 100 per cent. — we have hospitals of 

 immaculate whiteness and emptied by quick 

 recovery, while the roll-call of operations 

 reveals very few mortalities exceeding 10 

 per cent. ; most of them having fallen to 

 5 per cent., 2 per cent., 1 per cent., and 

 even small fractions of 1 per cent. 



The story of Lister's work as recorded 

 in his successive papers^ is one of the most 

 fascinating in all surgery. His earliest 

 studies, from 1853 to 1863, were in physiol- 

 ogy and pathology. Next he took up his 

 researches on putrefaction (or as we should 

 now say infection and suppuration) which 

 led to his devising the antiseptic system. 

 He was influenced to make these observa- 

 tions and experiments, which he applied 

 with such signal success to surgical prob- 

 lems, by Pasteur's earlier researches. He 

 always cheerfully acknowledged his debt 

 to the eminent Frenchman. When a stu- 

 dent in Paris in 1865 I knew Pouchet fils 

 and was an interested spectator in the fight 

 between Pasteur and Pouchet's father as 

 to spontaneous generation. Lemaire's book 

 on "Acide Phenique" (carbolic acid) was 

 published in that same year. 



Bacteriology did not exist as a science, 

 but Pasteur, Lister and a few of the elect 



1 Lister's Collected Papers, 2 vols., Oxford, 

 1909. 



