August 16, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



215 



times in an endeavor to find in it the promised 

 "rectification," but without success. It is 

 obvious, hovcever, that, in the letter referred 

 to. Professor Loew announced a particular 

 text, then read into it miscellaneous matters 

 that were off the subject and next proceeded to 

 belabor the men of straw his imagination in- 

 troduced to the reader. 



Professor Loew began the letter as follows: 

 A statement on page 452 of Science of March 

 22 requires a' rectification in the interest of the 

 unprejudiced reader. 



The sentence in question reads as follows: 

 " These results show conclusively that mag- 

 nesium sulphate in proper dilution is beneficial to 

 the growth of seedlings, and that any inhibitory 

 effects are due to the presence of excessive 

 amounts, thus controverting Loew's theory that 

 magnesium salts when alone in solution are al- 

 ways injurious to plant growth." 



This quotation from the abstract of Miss 

 Burlingham's communication at the last meet- 

 ing of the Biological Section of the American 

 Chemical Society was followed, in Professor 

 Loew's letter, by the remarks quoted below 

 (1-6), to each of which I have appended a 

 brief reply from our own standpoint, the per- 

 tinence of which the reader, having the above 

 quoted sentence before him, will have no diffi- 

 culty in determining: 



" Permit me," Professor Loew went on, " the 

 following remarks regarding this remarkable 

 sentence " (the one quoted above) : 



1. It is not a theory that magnesium salts act 

 poisonously on plants; it is a fact. 



Miss Burlingham did not say it is a 

 "theory that magnesium salts act poisonously 

 on plants " ; she herself witnessed such poison- 

 ous action repeatedly, and wrote as follows 

 about this very "fact " in her abstract, 

 although Professor Loew has not seen fit to 

 quote it : " Magnesium sulphate ... is usually 

 toxic in strengths greater than m/8,192 (0.003 

 per cent.)"; anhydrous, 0.0014Y per cent. 



2. Not only Loew, but also others have observed 

 the same fact. Loew has merely furnished an 

 explanation well in accord with certain observa- 

 tions. 



Miss Burlingham did not intimate that 

 Professor Loew was the only investigator who 



had " observed the same fact," i. e., that 

 " magnesium salts act poisonously on plants." 

 She knew quite well there were others, among 

 them herself, as is indicated in the above 

 quotation from her abstract that Professor 

 Loew failed to notice. She did not allude to 

 Professor Loew's " explanation that is well in 

 accord with certain observations." She re- 

 ferred, however, in the words indicated, to 

 " Loew's theory that magnesium salts when 

 alone in solution are always injurious to plant 

 growth." Professor Loew did not discuss the 

 latter point in his letter, however, although he 

 might well have done so to the exclusion of 

 the matters he introduced without warrant. 

 Why did he refrain from correcting the essen- 

 tial point in his quotation ? Are " magnesium 

 salts when alone in solution always injurious 

 to plant growth " ? 



3. The doses at which magnesium salts, applied 

 alone, are poisonous for plants can impossilily be 

 called excessive, since even at 0.02 per cent, a 

 poisonous action of magnesium salts on algae can 

 be observed, while calcium nitrate is not in the 

 least injurious for algte at even 1 per cent. 



"Excessive" is, of course, a relative term 

 and Miss Burlingham used it as such. In 

 the abstract from which Professor Loew 

 quoted the " remarkable sentence " which, ac- 

 cording to him, " requires rectification in the 

 interest of the unprejudiced reader," but which 

 he proceeded aggressively to misconstrue, re- 

 gardless of what the " interest of the un- 

 prejudiced reader required," Miss Burlingham 

 wrote as follows : " It was found that while 

 magnesium sulphate is usually toxic in 

 strengths greater than m/8,192 (0.003 per 

 cent.), it produces decided stimulation in 

 to/16,384, reaches a maximum stimulation at 

 dilutions from m/32,768 to m/131,072 (0.00075 

 per cent, to 0.00018 per cent.), then beyond 

 this point gradually diminishes in action. . . . 

 Seedlings allowed to grow for several weeks in 

 a dilution of magnesium sulphate which was 

 ,at first slightly toxic finally developed strong 

 lateral roots and attained a root growth far 

 beyond the control." It is obvious that Miss 

 Burlingham used the term " excessive " to 

 apply to "strengths greater than to/8,192 



