August 26, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



281 



ing to come together at all is the first requisite, 

 and when once that is attained the rest will 

 follow as a matter of course. 



Now all of this does not imply that the 

 writer is satisfied with all that was done in 

 Vienna and Brussels. Far from it. The 

 writer's feelings are very much like those he 

 experiences where he contemplates the actions 

 of, say, the last session of congress. He fully 

 believes in the making of laws by legislative 

 action, but he does not approve of all that 

 legislative bodies do. Yet while he withholds 

 his approval he recognizes the binding force of 

 these same disapproved laws. So it is and 

 must be with these rules made by the botanical 

 congresses. Many of them are good, in fact 

 the great majority of them meet with the ap- 

 proval of all botanists. Some of them are no 

 doubt unwise, but that is to be expected from 

 human legislation. Thus-, in the opinion of 

 the writer, the Brussels Congress erred in 

 designating so many beginning dates, but even 

 this is to be preferred to having no agreement 

 whatever. It is really quite absurd in the 

 Algas, for example, to have beginning dates all 

 the way from 1753 to 1900 ! Yet that is not 

 so absurd as having no agreement at all as to 

 beginning dates. 



Then the adoption of so many lists of 

 nomina conservanda looks very much like an 

 acknowledgment of the inability of the leaders 

 to successfully lead the mass of delegates. 

 These lists are so many exceptions to the rules, 

 and so far are pitiful exhibitions of weakness 

 on the part of the lawmakers. And yet the 

 writer remembers that in his old English 

 grammar there were similar troublesome ex- 

 ceptions to the precisely stated rules. 



What shall we do with these rules is a ques- 

 tion which comes to every thinking botanist, 

 and some in their disappointment and chagrin 

 are boldly saying that they will ignore them. 

 This course does not seem wise to the writer, 

 who confesses to a very strong dislike of some 

 of the rules. So much has been accomplished 

 by the agreement to refer nomenclatural mat- 

 ters to international congresses, that we must 

 not overturn it all because we did not get 

 everything we asked. Let us regard these 



rules as valid, but retain our right to " cry 

 aloud " our disapproval. Had the writer been 

 in Brussels he would have voted against every 

 one of the nomina conservanda, but when out- 

 voted he would have accepted (with a wry 

 face, perhaps) the dictum of the congress, and 

 he would have given notice — as indeed he does 

 now — of his intention to work to secure the 

 reduction and final abolition of all such lists. 

 The duty of every botanist appears to be 

 plainly to accept the rules as given us, but to 

 seek to convert enough other botanists to our 

 way of thinking so that eventually we shall 

 be in the majority, while those who hold con- 

 trary opinions shall be in the minority. 



Charles E. Bessey 

 The Univeesity or Nebraska 



J 



A NOTE ON TRAUBE'S THEORY OF OSMOSIS 

 AND " ATTRACTION-PRESSURE " 



Professor Isidor Traube, of the Technische 

 Hoehschule at Charlottenburg, is the author 

 of a series of interesting investigations ' on 

 the relation of the phenomena of surface-ten- 

 sion to osmosis, digestion, narcosis, hemolysis 

 and serodiagnosis, the most significant prac- 

 tical outcome of which is the so-called " meios- 

 tagmin " (little drop) reaction," a blood serum 

 test recently devised by Professor Ascoli, of 

 Pavia, to confirm the diagnosis of malignant 

 tumors, syphilis, typhoid and other diseases. 

 Experiment has show that there is some meas- 

 urable variation in the surface-tension of such 

 body-fluids as the urine, gastric juice, milk, 

 blood, under different conditions, and it seems 

 likely that this physical constant may play 

 some part in the diagnostic procedure of the 

 future. A striking . example of this is the 

 Matthew Hay test for biliary acids in the 

 urine.' If flowers of sulphur be sprinkled on 



'■Biochem. Ztschr., Berlin, 1908, X., 371; 1909, 

 XVI., 183; 1910, XXIV., 323, 341. 



- From fieloiv, little, and irTdfai, drop. 



' Printed as a private communication by Pro- 

 fessor Hay in the second edition of Landois and 

 Stirling's " Physiology," London, 1886, p. 381 ; 

 Philadelphia, 1886, p. 294. Spivak claims the test 

 is delicate to the limit of one part of glycocholie 

 or taurocholic acid in 120,000 parts of water 

 (.7. Am. Med. Ass., Chicago, 1902, XXXIX., 630). 



