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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1114 



ments, the right to apply medical treatment 

 to individuals. The functions of the Public 

 Health Service are limited to interstate or 

 foreign regulation, except in such cases where 

 the state itself invites and authorizes the 

 Public Health Service to perform specific 

 functions within its territory. ISTeither may 

 treatment, if it may be called such, be applied 

 to environment or property except by due 

 process of law, in such a manner as to duly 

 conserve property rights. 



Fallacies of this type are due to the fact 

 that, while the medical profession is much 

 engaged in public health work because its 

 members have in the past come nearest to hav- 

 ing the qualifications necessary for such work, 

 physicians are apparently too greatly limited 

 in their understanding of government to real- 

 ize that, while public health has medical as- 

 pects of the greatest importance, nevertheless 

 public health is a function of community life, 

 founded upon law and our form of govern- 

 ment. Until such time as all people will 

 learn that the ideals of a single profession, no 

 matter how excellent, can not be applied to 

 people in the mass, except as such ideals are 

 founded on the law, and are in strict accord 

 with fundamental rights of individuals and 

 well-defined principles of government, we may 

 expect to find fallacies such as this continu- 

 ally appearing. 



Harold F. Gray 



the centigrade thermometer 

 " No man that has any regard for his repu- 

 tation will care to say that the irrational, in- 

 convenient Fahrenheit scale ought to be main- 

 tained," is the modest and diplomatic way in 

 which Eepresentative Johnson, editor of a 

 country newspaper, passes judgment on some 

 two hundred millions of people who never 

 knew it. As for being irrational, any heat 

 scale is arbitrary; if inconvenient, it could 

 never have been generally accepted. Nine 

 tenths, probably, of the use of a thermometer 

 is for the weather; and practically the F. 

 degree is a convenient one, while the C. degree, 

 being about twice as coarse, would involve 

 fractions. Some people perhaps think that 



a centigrade scale has something to do with 

 grams and liters; but I never could see any 

 special convenience in 15. °5 0. as a tempera- 

 ture reading in density determinations. A 

 scale is convenient if you find it so; it is ra- 

 tional if its divisions are such that the quan- 

 tities commonly used can be expressed in 

 units. 



In all English-speaking countries all tech- 

 nical and manufacturing work uses the F. 

 scale; and all the common people are familiar 

 with it. Unless there is some reason for 

 change it should be let alone. The fact that 

 I and a few hundred other people in this coun- 

 try are familiar with the thermometer used in 

 France and Germany is no adequate reason 

 why a hundred millions of our fellow-citizens 

 should be put to a great inconvenience which 

 will never benefit them or their descendants 

 in the least. Perhaps a rose by any other name 

 would smell as sweet; but why not keep on 

 calling it a rose? 



A. H. Sabin 



Flushing, N. Y., 

 March 11, 1916 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Transactions of the International Union for 

 Cooperation in Solar Research. Vol. IV. 

 (Fifth Conference), Manchester, At the 

 University Press. 1914. Price $3.25 net. 

 This tri-lingual volume (English, French, 

 German), representing the high water mark 

 of friendly cooperation in scientific research, 

 comes as an almost painful reminder of con- 

 ditions shattered by war, of friendships replaced 

 by enmity, of constructive science replaced by 

 destructive art. 



The Solar Union, not quite adequately de- 

 scribed by its title, was organized, largely 

 under American auspices, as a common meet- 

 ing ground for the most distinguished students 

 of astrophysics throughout the world. From 

 the beginning its cosmopolitan character has 

 been served through holding stated meetings 

 in divers lands. The present volume contains 

 an account of the fifth of these meetings, which 

 was held at Bonn in the summer of 1913. In 

 addition to reports upon the progress of mat- 



