SCIENCE 



Friday, March 27, 1914 



CONTENTS 

 The Action of Vital Stains belonging to the 

 Benzidine Ch-oup: De. Heeseet M. Evans 

 AND De. Wernee Schulemann 443 



Comparative Begistration Statistics: Pro- 

 fessor Eddolp Tombo 454 



Arthur Henry Pierce: H. N. G 456 



The Fairport Biological Station: Propessoe 

 Egbert E. Cokee 457 



A National Association of University Pro- 

 fessors 458 



Scientific Notes and News 459 



University and Educational News 462 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



Small Aerials and the Strength of Wireless 

 Signals: De. C. W, Waggoner. A Simple 

 Apparatus for Washing Small and Delicate 

 Objects for Sectioning : S. I. Kornhauser. 

 Tlie Correspondence of Linnaeus : Dr. Aksel 

 G. S. JosEPHSOisf. Exhibition of the Eoyal 

 Photographic Society: Dr. C. E. K. Mees. 463 



Scientific BooTcs: — 



Guthe's Definitions in Physics: Professor 

 Heney Crew. Finlay on Igneous BocTcs: 

 De. Joseph P. Iddings. Garrison's His- 

 tory of Medicine: J. P. McM. Bluemel on 

 Stamimering : Peofessoe Stevenson Smith. 465 



Special Articles:— 



Tilted Shorelines of Ancient Craigton EaTce: 

 George D. Hdbbaed 470 



The American Society of Zoologists. II: 

 Professor Caswell Geave 471 



The Association of American Geographers: 

 Professor Isaiah Bowman 478 



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

 review should be sent to ProfeSBOr J. McKeen Cattell, Garriaon- 

 on-Hudson, N. Y, 



THE ACTION OF VITAL STAINS BELONG- 

 ING TO THE BENZIDINE GBOUPi 



The brilliant advances in our knowledge 

 of the chemistry of aniline dyes, brought 

 about naturally by the enormous commer- 

 cial importance which the dyes possess, has 

 been brought to bear, and will in the fu- 

 ture be brought to bear, we believe, in the 

 solution of some important problems in bi- 

 ology. The dyes possess peculiar advan- 

 tages; especially is tliis true in the ease of 

 those of them which undergo little or no 

 chemical transformation when injected in- 

 to the living body. To this class of dyes, 

 as we hope to show later, belong the ben- 

 zidine or substantative dyes. It might be 

 inquired immediately whether vastly more 

 important results could not be secured 

 from the study of dyes which, on the con- 

 trary, are known to suffer definite chemi- 

 cal changes within the body, for it might 

 be supposed, for instance, that valuable 

 light could be thrown on oxidative or re- 

 ductive processes peculiar to certain cells 

 or tissues. It was, of course, with motives 

 not far removed from these, that Ehrlich 

 first seriously attempted the use of dyes to 

 solve the problem of the relation between 

 pharmacological action and chemical con- 

 stitution in his classical essay on this 

 thesis in 1902. When we insist, however, 



1 Read at the session of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, Baltimore, November 18, 1913. From the 

 Anatomical Laboratory, Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity and the Kgl. chirurgisches Institut, Breslau. 

 The study is a preliminary report of observations 

 vphioh will be presented in full in the Memoirs of 

 the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research 

 and which were rendered possible by grants from 

 the Rockefeller Institute and the Robert Koch 

 Stiftung, Berlin. 



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