464 



SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XXV. No. 6;!8 



titative determination of compound pro- 

 teins in tissues. 

 Determination of Acetanilide in Headache 



Powders: Atheeton Seidell. 



The method consists in boiling the weighed 

 sample of powder with 20 per cent, or 

 stronger hydrochloric acid for about five 

 minutes, by which treatment the acetanilide 

 is converted into aniline hydrochloride. 

 On titrating the hot or cooled solution con- 

 taining a large excess of acid with standard 

 potassium bromate solution a flocculent 

 precipitate of aniline tribromide separates 

 and as soon as an excess of the bromate 

 solution is added the yellow color of the 

 liberated bromine indicates the end of the 

 reaction. Experiments showed that such 

 substances as caffeine, salol, inorganic salts, 

 etc., do not interfere with the accuracy of 

 the titration, but that the presence of 

 phenaeetine or of antipyrine renders the 

 method inapplicable. 



Most of the papers presented at the meet- 

 ings will be published later in the different 

 chemical journals. 



The meetings were well attended, and 

 owed much of their success to the trustees 

 and faculty of Columbia University. A 

 unanimous vote of thanks was tendered to 

 them and the Chemists' Club, to the Col- 

 lege of the City of New York and to the 

 different industrial establishments which 

 the visiting chemists had been invited to 

 inspect. 



This report has been transmitted through 

 Professor Charles L. Parsons, Secretary of 

 Section C. C. E. Waters, 



Press Secretary. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Inheritance in Poultry. By C. B. Davenport, 

 Director of Station for Experimental Evo- 

 lution. Publications of the Carnegie In- 

 stitution of Washington. No. 52, 1906. 

 The important and extensive series of ex- 

 periments with poultry, carried out by Bate- 



son and Saunders and Hurst in England have 

 shown the general application of Mendelian 

 principles to inheritance in this group. These 

 authors have demonstrated the relation of 

 dominance and recession of many of the char- 

 acters of poultry, showing, for example, the 

 dominance of rose comb, white plumage, extra 

 toe, feathered shanks, white and blue shanks, 

 crested head, brown egg color, and broodiness ; 

 and the recession of leaf comb, single comb, 

 black plumage, buff plumage, normal foot, 

 clear shanks, uncrested head, white egg color, 

 and non-broodiness. The same investigators 

 have likewise shown that Mendelian splitting 

 occurs in the second generation, and have re- 

 ferred the results to Mendel's hjrpothesis of 

 segregation in the gametes of the first genera- 

 tion of hybrids. They have also drawn atten- 

 tion to the fact that the dominance of char- 

 acters in poultry is not always complete in 

 the first generation. Hurst estimated, in fact, 

 that incomplete dominance is twice as numer- 

 ous as complete dominance. It was also ob- 

 served that in the second generation there is 

 often a mixing of the characters, so that it 

 is difficult or impossible to distinguish the 

 pure forms from the ' dominant-recessives.' In 

 other words, there may be almost a continuous 

 series in this generation. Such results are 

 difficult to account for on the basis of ' pure ' 

 gametes, although a tendency towards segrega- 

 tion may be distinctly recognized. The ease 

 most difficult to explain in this connection is 

 the inheritance of extra toes. Castle's recent 

 experiments with polydactylism in guinea 

 pigs have shown in fact that prepotency, 

 rather than Mendelism, is a more important 

 factor in this kind of inheritance. It looks- 

 as though certain individuals may transmit 

 a given peculiarity differently from other 

 individuals ; and while the ' lump-sum ' may 

 often give an approximation to Mendelian ex- 

 pectation, the really important fact is not 

 the chance result, but the prepotency of cer- 

 tain individuals in regard to the transmission 

 of characters. 



Professor Davenport's work covers in part 

 the same ground as that of Bateson and his 

 co-workers; in part, however, he has studied 

 different characters and races, and has been 



