July 28, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



105 



ceiitical preparations from the class of 

 fraudulent nostrums described is a most 

 difficult undertaking. This perplexing 

 problem forced itself from year to year on 

 the attention of the board of trustees in 

 the effort of the board to keep the advertis- 

 ing pages of the Journal free from un- 

 ethical advertisements. In order to have 

 thorough protection and to make no unjust 

 discrimination, the board has established 

 the council on pharmacy and chemistry to 

 make the necessary investigations. The 

 council is composed of pharmacists and 

 chemists of national and international repu- 

 tation. It will be the aim of the council 

 to publish in book form, a list of the prep- 

 arations which are not officinal, yet which 

 conform to the proper ethical standard. 

 The work of the council will be similar to 

 that of the Committee on Revision of the 

 United States Pharmacopeia. 



The magnitude and importance of this 

 work is such that I desire to direct attention 

 to it here, and to commend it to the mem- 

 bers of the association as deserving every 

 possible aid and advancement. It is the 

 only practical way to deliver the profession 

 from one of the greatest curses that ever 

 came on it. 



It has been my endeavor on this occasion 

 to outline the plans of the founders of the 

 association, briefly to trace the evolution of 

 those plans throughout half a century of 

 progress, and to recount some of the pur- 

 poses that invite our active exertions at the 

 present time. From a small body of dele- 

 gates our association has increased until 

 it is now the largest medical organization in 

 the world. It owns valuable property, has 

 accumulated a considerable fund, and has 

 a large annual income, all of which belongs 

 to, and is subject to the control of, the 

 members who through their delegates select 

 the board of trustees to manage their funds. 



The possibilities of the work before us 



are almost beyond calculation. In acting 

 as the representative and agent of the 120,- 

 000 physicians of the United States, the 

 association is assuming great responsi- 

 bilities, which will increase from year to 

 year. It will require administrative and 

 executive ability of the highest order to 

 meet these demands; but there is both 

 prophecy and proof in the work already 

 accomplished that men will appear as 

 needed to discharge the supreme duties of 

 a great profession in behalf of science and 

 humanity. 



Lewis S. McMurtry. 

 Louisville, Ky. 



THE RELATION OF PHYLOGENESIS TO 

 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



Few persons would be so bold as to 

 offer serious objection to the great thesis 

 of evolution, to the theory of common 

 descent or to that of the competitive strug- 

 gle of individuals and species for exist- 

 ence and its selective results, ■ so ably 

 enunciated by Darwin half a century ago. 

 It is, nevertheless, true that of late years 

 there has been an increasing distrust of 

 the theory of the origin of species by nat- 

 ural selection which he therewith proposed, 

 and which was long universally accepted 

 with even less reserve than the author him- 

 self expressed. This distrust is especially 

 felt in endeavoring to apply the latter 

 theory to certain lines of paleontological 

 investigation. A number of selected facts 

 are stated at some length on following 

 pages which show abundant reason for re- 

 garding that theory unfavorably in such 

 cases. It is there shown that genera, fam- 

 ilies, orders and classes of animals and 

 plants have, during geological time, usu- 

 ally originated with such comparative 

 rapidity as to make it necessary to infer 

 that species have originated suddenly ; that 

 the ratio of progressive development in 

 the different f aunal and floral divisions 



