124 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 839 



extent numbers make a substitute for gen- 

 ius — but nothing probably will ever re- 

 place that type of great genius, to which 

 we owe most, the man who has a great 

 thought, which no one has ever conceived 

 before. 



The nineteenth century in response to 

 the new conditions, which have arisen in 

 its course, has added another new standard 

 for scientific memoirs — they must include 

 a conscientious consideration of recent and 

 cotemporary related work. Now the sec- 

 ond step in science-making, after recording 

 the new original observations, so as to 

 make them accessible to others, is the colla- 

 tion of these same observations into broad 

 general results. The aim is to eliminate 

 the personal factor and to impart the 

 character of impersonal absolute validity 

 to the conclusions. 



In addition to the original memoirs sci- 

 ence profits by a large number of publica- 

 tions, almost all of which are of modern, 

 often of very recent, creation. Broadly 

 speaking, their aim is to promote that colla- 

 tion, which is begun in the original me- 

 moirs. Germany is the home of most of 

 these undertakings, which are familiar to 

 us under the names of "Jahresberichte," 

 "Centralblatter" and " Ergebnisse. " So 

 far as I have learned, Jacob Berzelius's 

 "Jahresberichte" for the physical sci- 

 ences, which Gmelin translated into Ger- 

 man, issuing the first volume at Tiibingen 

 in 1822, was the first ancestor, the Adam, 

 of this modern biblic race, which therefore 

 can not yet celebrate its first centenary. 

 As concerns those branches of biology 

 known as the medical sciences, the sum- 

 marizing publications under consideration 

 have become important only since 1870, al- 

 though they began earlier. For biology 

 1834 may be taken as the starting point, 

 for it was the initial year of Schmidt's 

 "Jahrbiicher der gesammten Medicin" 



and of Johannes Miiller's first Jahresber- 

 icht. Meckel had just died and Miiller 

 assumed the editorship of the Arckiv filr 

 Anatomie und Physiologie, which he con- 

 ducted for so long that it is still often 

 known simply as Miiller's Arckiv, al- 

 though the Arckiv since his death has 

 had several distinguished editors. Miiller 

 wrote for the Arckiv the first Jahresbericht 

 entirely himself. His report is interlarded 

 with many keen criticisms and even with 

 references to unpublished observations of 

 his own. Later he engaged others to assist 

 in the yearly reports, which were kept up 

 until 1857. Their place was taken by 

 Henle's Jahresberichte, which were con- 

 tinued until 1871, when they in turn were 

 replaced by the Jahreslerickte der Anat- 

 omie und Physiologie founded by Franz 

 Hoffmann and Gustav Schwalbe in 1872. 

 The growth of anatomical science is indi- 

 cated by the fact that in round numbers 

 400 pages sufficed for the abstracts of an- 

 atomical papers in 1872, but 1,500 were 

 necessary in 1908. Similar increases have 

 occurred in the output of the other medical 

 sciences, hence it has become more and 

 more difficult to bring out the Jahresber- 

 ichte promptly — a delay of two or three 

 years is common. To meet this growing 

 difficulty the various Centralblatter have 

 been started — those with which we are here 

 concerned are periodicals issuing small 

 numbers (Hefte) at short intervals and 

 filled with brief abstracts of recently pub- 

 lished researches.^ They have proved of 

 limited utility and their completed volumes 

 are so inconvenient to consult that one 



' The dates when some of the Centralblatter 

 started are as follows: fiir medizinische Wissen- 

 sehaften, 1863; fur Physiologie, 1887; fUr Bak- 

 teriologie, 1887; fiir allgemeine Pathologie, 1890; 

 fiir allgemeine Biologie, 1910. Although the 

 number of German " Centralblatter " is very 

 large, yet in other countries corresponding maga- 

 zines are viewed with limited favor. 



