Makch 18, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



465 



dresses and the abstracts of all the papers, as 

 well as serving as a clearing house for scien- 

 tific thought. The objection may be raised 

 that publishing all the papers would make 

 the Transactions too expensive. The answer 

 to this is that the present fee should cover the 

 general expenses and Science only,, while the 

 Transactions should be sold by subscription; 

 each member subscribing for the Transac- 

 tions of those sections in which he may be 

 interested. 



This plan would provide more time for the 

 presentation of papers; provide meetings at 

 which matters of somewhat local interest 

 could be discussed; allow the sections a choice 

 as to the place of meeting, and provide a place 

 where all papers could be found instead of 

 having them scattered through many period- 

 icals. The economy of this plan as to both 

 time and money would probably check the 

 formation of new societies and also lead to 

 the abandonment of many now organized; 

 which are ends much to be desired. 



Arthur H. Ford. 



our future 'public analysts.' 

 The era of scieniifvc investigation and pro- 

 tection of our food products and standard 

 drugs, in distinction to the medico-political 

 attempts of the past twenty years, is appar- 

 ently at hand, and, as time will undoubtedly 

 demonstrate, in proper hands. To be sure a 

 certain few boards of health and food com- 

 missioners have at various times accomplished 

 much in partial food inspection and one or 

 two, notably the Massachusetts Board of 

 Health, through its efficient secretary, Dr. 

 Abbott, have rigidly inspected both foods and 

 drugs for many years, bringing the universal 

 fifty per cent, adulteration of those foods, etc., 

 that can be adulterated, as shown by investi- 

 gation statistics in other states, down to 

 about fifteen per cent, and keeping it there. 

 In these few widely separated states the legisla- 

 tures will no doubt ' let well enough alone,' 

 and, if appreciative at all of what has been 

 accomplished, will increase the appropriation, 

 which in nearly every case is absurdly small 

 at present. In the forty odd states as yet 

 unawakened or only partially awakened to a 



realization of our national negligence in this 

 great economic question, it is gradually be- 

 coming apparent that the state experiment 

 stations are, or soon will be, the logical and 

 most appropriate institutions to entrust the 

 collection, investigation and subsequent de- 

 fined inspection work to ; the ' food commis- 

 sioner ' (if that be what he is called) being 

 merely a prosecuting officer, which in general 

 is the arrangement (and doubtless a satisfac- 

 tory one) in Connecticut at present. 



There are several gradually developing and 

 well-founded reasons why we must begin to 

 consider these well-organized, federal and state 

 supported, scientifically equipped branches (in 

 their chemical work) of the Bureau of Chem- 

 istry at Washington in this light. In the 

 first place, there is very little adulteration of 

 food products harmful from a hygienic stand- 

 point. Physicians of course must be able to 

 depend upon the strength of the drugs they 

 prescribe, but otherwise the whole subject is 

 really an economic one, closely related to 

 agriculture, horticulture and animal industry, 

 the three most important lines of experiment 

 station work. Secondly, the Bureau of Chem- 

 istry, under Dr. Wiley's direction, already has 

 charge of the examination of imported food 

 products and, as soon as the long-delayed 

 federal food law becomes effective, will have 

 charge of the interstate commerce aspect of 

 the question, thereby greatly assisting the 

 states in their necessary local work. In sev- 

 eral states, notably Connecticut, Pennsylvania 

 and Kentucky, the experiment stations already 

 carry on the state investigation and food in- 

 spection analysis work. Thirdly, these sta- 

 tions are financially and scientifically able to 

 carry on research work upon the composition, 

 nutritive value, utility, etc., of new or little- 

 understood foods, simultaneously with official 

 inspection work; and finally the chemists of 

 these stations in their official association, com- 

 monly spoken of as the A. O. A. C, have re- 

 cently studied, compiled and published pro- 

 visional official methods of food analysis (at 

 present, however, better adapted to investiga- 

 tion work rather than to rapid inspection and 

 legal work), -and defined the standards that 

 legally pure food products should conform to. 



