September 29, 1905.1 



SCIENCE. 



403 



accepted by all codes of zoological nomen- 

 clature. 



In a preliminary introduction to the Fauna 

 jai^onica entitled ' Coup d'ceil sur la faune des 

 lies de la Sonde et de I'empire du Japon/ 

 published in 1837, and issued in the fourth 

 fascicule of the work, which also contained 

 the Japanese snakes, Temminck briefly diag- 

 nosed the Japanese deer, on p. xxii, as a new 

 species under the name of Gervus nippon. In 

 1844, seven years later, in the second decade of 

 the mammals of the same work, a plate illus- 

 trating this deer was published as Cervus sikd. 

 The text describing it more in detail under the 

 latter name did not appear until many years 

 later, probably not until 1852 or 1853. The 

 diagnostic features given are essentially the 

 same as indicated in the preliminary discourse 

 of 1837. 



The Japanese deer must, therefore, in the 

 future stand as Cervus nippon Temminck. 



Leonhard Stejneger. 

 U. S. National Museum, 

 September 7, 1905. 



THE POSSIBILITY OF ABSORPTION BY HUMAN BE- 

 INGS OF NITROGEN FROM THE ATMOSPHERE. 



The physiological value of nitrogen is to 

 provide the staging or framework for the 

 support and functional efficiency of the con- 

 struction and nutritive processes at work in 

 the living animal organism. The absorption 

 of nitrogen by the animal organism has lately 

 been regarded as resulting from the inter- 

 mediary action of the vegetable world — a mode 

 of nature-economy which there would be no 

 reason for limiting to compounds of nitrogen, 

 but should be extended to the entire range of 

 animal-mineral absorption. 



From this point of view, which seems to be 

 based on close scientific observation, there has 

 lately been extended a good deal of apparently 

 well-qualified criticism with regard to the 

 efficacy of the animal body-tissue to absorb 

 and assimilate drugs derived from the mineral 

 kingdom. Thus the administering of iron, 

 strychnine, arsenic and other mineral tonics 

 has been vigorously and justly condemned, 

 not only by lay students, but also by the more 



advanced students in the medical profession 

 themselves. 



Yet, in the light of still more recent re- 

 searches, it has been ascertained that the true 

 reason for condemning certain drug medica- 

 tion does not lie in the assumed failure of 

 the mineral compound to yield to absorption, 

 but rather in the fact that such absorption is 

 really possible. For, while the power of the 

 mineral to generate changes in the animal 

 organism largely proceeds on a mechanical 

 basis, the fact remains that the changes 

 wrought, let us say, by arsenic in the hemo- 

 globin of the blood can be rationally explained 

 only by admitting an action due to processes 

 of physiological chemistry. 



To discover the character of the forces and 

 conditions at work in these processes of ab- 

 sorption has recently been the aim of some 

 eminent French and German scientists. Thus, 

 in his extensive studies of the character and 

 genesis of nitrifying bacteria. Dr. Wohltman, 

 of the Agricultural Institute in Bonn-Popels- 

 dorff, Germany, has brought to light some 

 highly interesting points with regard to the 

 relations existing between nitrogenous com- 

 pounds and organic substances. Among other 

 observations he has found that the action of 

 certain bacteria, hitherto considered indis- 

 pensable in the elaboration of the nitrogen 

 molecule for its absorption by the vegetable, 

 is so only under certain conditions. In his 

 300 experiments with the soil in the valley of 

 the Rhine, Dr. Wohltman ascertained that 

 wherever the soil is rich in nitrogenous fer- 

 tilizers, preferably ammonium nitrate, the 

 leguminous plants are found to grow and ab- 

 sorb nitrogen without the presence of bac- 

 teria. From this fact Dr. Wohltman draws 

 the conclusion that the ' association of the 

 plants with the bacteria is not a necessity, but 

 an expedient, and whenever there is a rich 

 supply of nitrogenous elements in the soil, 

 they (the plants) dispense with the bacteria 

 and with the free nitrogen, which the latter 

 make available, by directly secreting it from 

 the chemical combination of soil or air in 

 which it is held suspended.' 



From this fact, it would certainly be justi- 

 fiable to draw the inference, that whatever 



