280 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 790 



THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 195tli meeting was held at the George 

 Washington University Lecture Hall on Thursday 

 evening, January 13, 1910, President Failyer pre- 

 siding. The attendance was forty-two. The report 

 of the treasurer was read, showing a balance of 

 $162 on hand. The secretary reported that during 

 the past year the society had lost 71 members 

 and had received 65 new members. The society 

 granted a waiver of jurisdiction to the American 

 Chemical Society over all of Virginia, except 

 within a radius of twenty-five miles from Wash- 

 ington. Twenty-nine of the members lost to the 

 society during the past year were within this 

 jurisdiction. The total membership was reported 

 as 240. Twenty-three papers were read during 

 the year, fourteen of which were scientific and 

 nine technical in character. 



The following papers were read: 



" Nitrification in Soils," by K. F. Kellerman, 

 E. R. Allen and I. G. McBeth. 



"Availability of lodophenin in the Separation 

 of Acetanilid and Acetphenetidin," by W. 0. 

 Emery. 



" The Translocation of Plant Food during the 

 Germination of Wheat," by J. F. Breazeale and 

 J. A. LeClerc. 



Dr. Kellerman showed that the modern view- 

 point is that the soil must be considered alive, a 

 matrix supporting various definite groups of 

 microorganisms, and suggests the possibility that 

 bacteriological diagnoses may determine the crop- 

 producing power of different soils and the causes 

 thereof. Although this work is yet in its infancy, 

 during the last few years it has been shown that 

 the action of the diff'erent groups, and especially 

 the nitrifying bacteria in soil samples, correlates 

 fairly well with the productiveness of the soils 

 under field conditions. 



Dr. Emery showed that it was possible to 

 determine phenacetin in the presence of acetanilid. 



In the last paper, Mr. Breazeale showed that 

 during germination the little plantlet absorbed 

 96 per cent, of the nitrogen, potassium and phos- 

 phorus within the first ten days of germination, 

 but that the potassium was absorbed at a much 

 faster rate than were the nitrogen and phosphorus. 



President Failyer appointed V. K. Chesnut 

 chairman of the committee on communications, 

 and C. L. Alsberg, chairman of the entertainment 

 committee. 



J. A. LeCleec, 



Secretary 



THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



On the evening of January 21 President Nichols, 

 of Dartmouth College, was to have addressed the 

 American Philosophical Society, but in conse- 

 quence of an attack of grip, was unable to be 

 present. Dr. W. W. Keen, therefore, took his 

 place, reading a paper on " Modern Antiseptic 

 Surgery and the Role of Experiment in its Dis- 

 covery and Development." He described the la- 

 mentable condition of surgery prior to Lister's 

 epoch-making discoveries, then quoted chiefly from 

 Lister the experiments both chemical, bacterio- 

 logical, and finally those upon animals which gave 

 Lister such a convincing proof of the value of his 

 method that he then tried it upon man. Lister 

 began with compound fractures, passing through 

 abscesses, accidental wounds and finally making 

 extensive purposeful wounds, i. e., operations on 

 the human body. This was followed by a state- 

 ment of the condition of surgery at the present 

 time, as contrasted with the pre-Listerian days. 



The paper is one of the series being published 

 by the Council on the Defense of Medical Research 

 of the American Medical Association and will be 

 published in full hereafter in the Journal of the 

 American Medical Association. 



On the evening of February 5 Professor Francis 

 G. Benedict, of the Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory 

 in Boston, read a paper on " The Infiuenoe of Mental 

 and Muscular Work on Nutritive Processes." The 

 paper described a series of metabolism experiments 

 with a respiration calorimeter at Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity, Middletown, Conn. The infiuenoe of the 

 sustained mental eflfort accompanying the taking 

 of regular college mid-year examinations was 

 studied. Twenty-two men spent three hours inside 

 the chamber, during which time the water vapor- 

 ized, carbon dioxide produced, oxygen consumed 

 and heat produced were carefully measured. Com- 

 pared with twenty-two control tests with the same 

 individuals no changes in the gross metabolism 

 attributable to mental effort were noted. A pro- 

 fessional bicycle rider using a special form of 

 bicycle ergometer inside the respiration chamber 

 showed that mechanical efSciency of man was 

 about 21 per cent. The resting energy output 

 of 92 calories per hour was raised during severe 

 exhausting work to over 600 calories per hour, 

 of which 116 calories were transformed into 

 efi'ective work. 



The Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution of Washington in Boston is equipped with 

 special apparatus for studying similar problems 

 in metabolism. 



