500 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 796 



in session at the University of Illinois on 

 March 23 and 24. Those in attendance and 

 the pai)ers that they read at this conference 

 were : Dean Davis, of Nebraska, " Incentives 

 to Scholarships " ; Dean Jones, of Missouri, 

 " Systems of Grading " ; Dean Hoffman, of 

 Indiana, ''What can he done for the Fresh- 

 men " ; Dean Tovmsend, of Illinois, " Faculty 

 Advisers " ; Dean Reed, of Michigan, " What 

 should be done with Large Classes"; Dean 

 Downey, of Minnesota, " Group Requirements 

 for the A.B. Degree " ; Dean Greene, of Illi- 

 nois, " The Future of the A.B. Degree " ; Dean 

 Templin, of Kansas, " The College and the 

 Professional Schools " ; Dean Birge, of Wis- 

 consin, " The Building of a Faculty." Assis- 

 tant Deans Rawles, of Indiana and Meyer, of 

 Illinois, were also in attendance. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Haverford College has completed the col- 

 lection of a fund for pensions amounting to 

 about $150,000. 



Sm FR.4NCIS Galton has made a further do- 

 nation of £500 for the maintenance of the 

 Francis Galton Laboratory for the Study of 

 National Eugenics in the University of Lon- 

 don during the year 1911-12. 



VivLVN A. C. Henmon, A.B. (Bethany), 

 Ph.D. (Columbia), now professor in the Uni- 

 versity of Colorado and dean, has been 

 elected associate professor of educational 

 psychology in the University of Wisconsin. 



R. M. Ogden, A.B. (Cornell), Ph.D. (Wiirz- 

 burg), has been promoted to a professorship 

 of philosophy and psychology in the Univer- 

 sity of Tennessee. 



Dr. a. G. G. Richardson has been elected 

 professor of veterinary medicine of the 

 Georgia State College of Agriculture. Dr. 

 Richardson was in the United States Bureau 

 of Animal Industry for a number of years. 



Dr. a. O. Shaklee, assistant in physiology 

 and pharmacology of the Rockefeller Institute, 

 has accepted the position of associate professor 

 of pharmacology in the Philippine Medical 

 School, Manila. Mr. Elbert Clark, associate 



in anatomy in the University of Chicago and 

 Rush Medical College, has been appointed as- 

 sistant professor of anatomy at Manila. 



Professor Willum Moore, of Cornell Uni- 

 versity, has received an appointment to a chair 

 in the faculty of the British Agricultural Col- 

 lege in the Transvaal. 



Sir Alfred Keogh, K.C.B., who has been 

 elected rector of the Imperial College of Sci- 

 ence and Technology, London, retired last 

 year from the post of director-general of the 

 Army Medical Service. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



FRACASTORIUS, ATHANASIUS KIRCHER AND THE 



GERM THEORY OF DISEASE 



In Science for February 18, Dr. WiUiam 

 A. Riley gives a clear and interesting account 

 of the relation of Athanasius Kircher to the 

 germ theory of disease. In connection with 

 this paper it may be of moment to note that, 

 as Osier has pointed out,' the true author of 

 the germ theory is neither Kircher nor Hiero- 

 nymus Mercurialis, but Fracastorius, a Ver- 

 onese physician of the fifteenth century, whose 

 chief title to fame has been hitherto that 

 " most popular " of medical poems, if least 

 savory in theme, " Syphilis, sive morbus 

 gallicus " (1530). Geronimo Fracastorio, 

 born in 1484, studied medicine at Padua, led 

 a tranquil, easy life as physician and poet in 

 the countryside near the Lago di Garda, and 

 died in 1553. His work "De contagione et 

 contagiosis morbis et curatione," published 

 at Venice in 1546, contains the first scientific 

 statement of the true mature of contagion, of 

 infection, of disease germs and the modes of 

 transmission of infectious diseases. The 

 latter he divides into (1) diseases infecting 

 by immediate contact (true contagions), (2) 

 diseases infecting through intermediate agents 

 like fomites, (3) diseases infecting at a dis- 

 tance or through the air, of which class he 

 instances phthisis, the pestilential fevers, a 

 certain kind of ophthalmia (conjunctivitis), 



^Proceedings of the Charaka Club, New York, 

 1906, II., 8-11. 



