890 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. i 



the appointment of first lieutenants in the 

 Army Medical Corps will be held on July 10, 

 1911, and September 5, 1911. Full informa- 

 tion concerning these examinations can be 

 procured upon application to the " Surgeon- 

 'General, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C." 

 The essential requirements to securing an in- 

 vitation are that the applicant shall be a citi- 

 zen of the United States, shall be between 22 

 -and 30 years of age, a graduate of a medical 

 school legally authorized to confer the degree 

 ■of doctor of medicine, shall be of good moral 

 t3haracter and habits, and shall have had at 

 least one year's hospital training, after grad- 

 uation. The examinations will be held con- 

 currently throughout the country at points 

 where boards can be convened. Due consid- 

 eration will be given to localities from which 

 applications are received, in order to lessen 

 the traveling expenses of applicants as much 

 as possible. The examination in subjects of 

 general education (mathematics, geography, 

 history, general literature and Latin) may be 

 ■omitted in the case of applicants holding 

 diplomas from reputable literary or scientific 

 colleges, normal schools or high schools, or 

 graduates of medical schools which require an 

 entrance examination satisfactory to the 

 faculty of the Army Medical School. In 

 order to perfect all necessary arrangements 

 for the examination, applications must be 

 complete and in possession of the Adjutant 

 General at least three weeks before the date of 

 examination. Early attention is therefore en- 

 joined upon all intending applicants. There 

 are at present sixty-one vacancies in the Med- 

 ical Corps of the Army. 



A BIOLOGICAL party from the University of 

 Nebraska has been formed for the purpose of 

 carrying on ecological work in central and 

 western Nebraska during the coming summer. 

 The party will spend all the time between 

 ■June 15 and September 15 in the field, 

 dividing the period between three selected 

 ■stations, where sets of recording apparatus 

 will be installed, and from these making ex- 

 •«ursions to other points. The party includes 

 .Dr. Eobt. H. Wolcott and Mr. Frank H. 



Shoemaker, of the department of zoology, and 

 Professor Raymond J. Pool, of the depart- 

 ment of botany, from the university, and 

 Professor Cyrus V. Williams, professor of 

 botany in Nebraska Wesleyan University. In 

 addition to those named, who will devote the 

 whole summer to the work, other persons 

 specializing in certain lines will be with the 

 party for shorter periods at different times 

 during the summer. The particular problems 

 which the party will deal with are concerned 

 with the ecology of the sandhill region of 

 Nebraska and the biological conditions in the 

 Cherry County lakes. 



Speaking in the House of Commons on the 

 budget proposals, Mr. Balfour, as quoted in 

 Nature, asked the chancellor of the exchequer 

 to exercise caution in carrying out his scheme 

 for the expenditure of large sums of money 

 on building consumption sanatoria. In the 

 public mind, he said, there had perhaps been 

 an exaggerated enthusiasm for this method 

 of dealing with tuberculosis. There was an 

 idea that this open-air treatment had produced 

 such marvelous results that through it alone 

 tuberculosis could be, if not exterminated, at 

 all events diminished to such an extent that 

 it might be reduced to one of the rare zymotic 

 diseases. He was not sure that the most re- 

 cent investigations bore out that view. There 

 were very able investigators who took the 

 view, after examining the actual results in 

 England and in Germany, that so many com- 

 plete cures must not be expected as was at 

 one time hoped for. He took a sanguine view 

 as to the treatment of tuberculosis, for he 

 believed that science had made great strides 

 and was still destined to make great strides, 

 but when they came to such large sums as 

 those mentioned by the chancellor of the ex- 

 chequer, it was possible to waste money on 

 permanent buildings which might be better 

 devoted to scientific investigation into the 

 cause of the disease. They must not assume 

 that all that they had to do was to spend 

 money on these sanatoria in order to effect a 

 cure. What was important was that medical 

 science had made great progress, and we re- 



