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SCIENCE 



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



falls to most American teachers. In this way the 

 retiring allowance will contribute directly to 

 research. 



The abuses which, it is intimated, have led 

 to the withdrawal of the service pension, seem 

 to have been on the whole far less serious than 

 has been assumed. The forcing of professors 

 of long service to resign their positions has 

 generally carried with it such danger to the 

 president's own tenure of office that it has 

 rarely been undertaken. There has been addi- 

 tional difficulty in that an aged professor 

 whose efficiency had been impaired would be 

 left without adequate financial support though 

 fully deserving of rewards upon the basis of 

 his earlier work. With the service pension 

 provision withdrawn it will now be incumbent 

 upon university presidents to retain upon their 

 staffs all professors not physically disabled up 

 to the age of sixty-five, no matter what may be 

 their efficiency as teachers. It can hardly be 

 doubted that the effect will be to lower the 

 efficiency of teaching in the universities. 



Wm. Herbert Hobbs 

 Univeesity of Michigan, 

 March 15, 1910 



SCIBNTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Oxidases and other Oxygen Catalysts 

 concerned in Biological Oxidations. By 

 J. H. Kastle. Hygienic Laboratory Bul- 

 letin No. 59, December, 1909. 

 The bulletins issued by the Hygienic Labo- 

 ratory at Washington constitute a most inter- 

 esting and valuable series of contributions 

 which reflect the greatest credit upon the 

 organization and spirit of this important de- 

 partment of the Public Health and Marine 

 Hospital Service. For the most part these 

 publications consist of experimental researches 

 dealing with topics of timely interest to physi- 

 cians and biologists in general, while some of 

 them are of the nature of resumes of the lit- 

 erature and the condition of our knowledge in 

 regard to special problems. The bulletin to 

 which attention is called here belongs to this 

 latter class. It contains an elaborate and 

 thorough review of the history and present 

 status of the difficult and complex subject of 



oxidations particularly as they occur in living 

 things. Since this review is vrritten by one 

 who himself has been a distinguished con- 

 tributor to the experimental investigation of 

 the subject it possesses the additional value of 

 being an authoritative presentation which 

 other biologists may use with a feeling of con- 

 fidence in its accuracy. Professor Kastle 

 modestly disclaims any pretention to com- 

 pleteness as regards the literature consulted 

 in the preparation of the bulletin, but it wiU 

 be noted that four hundred and sixty-seven 

 references are given in the appended bibliog- 

 raphy, and those who read the contribution 

 wiU be impressed with the fact that the author 

 writes out of an unusual fullness of knowledge 

 of the subject in its chemical as well as its 

 biological bearings. After the discovery of 

 oxygen by Lavoisier the history of the at- 

 tempts made to disclose the nature of the 

 processes involved in the physiological oxida- 

 tions of plants and animals may be divided, 

 according to Kastle, into three periods. The 

 first of these deals with the bluing of guai- 

 acum, especially by extracts of plant tissues. 

 The names that are important in this connec- 

 tion are Planche, Taddei and particularly 

 Schoenbein. The last-named observer studied 

 the subject from many sides and arrived at a 

 clear understanding of the fact that plants 

 and animals contain special substances, de- 

 stroyed at temperatures below that of boiling 

 water, which have the property of combining 

 with atmospheric oxygen and activating it so 

 that it is capable of effecting the wonderful 

 oxidations characteristic of living things. 

 Schoenbein himself believed that these sub- 

 stances render the oxygen active by ozonizing 

 it, but this view has not been confirmed by 

 subsequent work. The second period is con- 

 nected with the work of Traube, who was 

 responsible for emphasizing the importance of 

 hydrogen peroxide in all oxidations, including 

 those of living things. His peroxide theory as 

 developed later by Bach, Engler and others 

 does not assume that hydrogen peroxide itself 

 is formed in the processes of physiological 

 oxidations, but that the organic substances 

 which combine with the oxygen, designated 



