SCIENCE 



Friday, July 2, 1915 



CONTENTS 

 The Present Status and the Future of By- 

 giene or Public Health in America: Dr. W. 

 W. Ford 1 



Measurements of the Distances of the Stars: 

 Sir F. W. Dyson 13 



Scientific Notes and News 22 



University and Educational News 24 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



Editorial Supervision for Experiment Sta- 

 tion Publications: Frederick A. Wolf. A 

 Simple Techniqtie for the Bacteriological Ex- 

 amination of Shell Eggs: J. E. Bush.... 24 



The Dismissal of Professor Nearing 26 



Scientific Books: — • 

 Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast: 

 Dr. John M. Clarke. Boulenger's Cata- 

 logue of the Freshwater Fishes of Africa: 

 Professor T. D. A. Cockerell 27 



A Bibliography of Fishes to be Published : Pro- 

 fessor Bashford Dean 32 



Special Articles: — 



The Action of Potassium Cyanide when in- 

 troduced into Tissues of a Plant: William 

 Moore and A. G. Buggles 33 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — ■ 

 Section B — Physics : Dr. W. J. Humphreys. 36 



The New Orleans Meeting of the American 

 Chemical Society: Db. Charles L. Parsons. 37 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc.. intended for 

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 on-Hudson. N. Y. 



THE PRESENT STATUS AND THE FUTURE 



OF HYGIENE OB PUBLIC HEALTH 



IN AMEBIC Ai 



During the past few years an increasing 

 and now insistent demand has been heard 

 in this country for better facilities for the 

 training of public health officials. This de- 

 mand has come from members of the med- 

 ical profession, chiefly those engaged in 

 official positions as officers or commissioners 

 of health for cities and states, from sanitary 

 engineers, and from various philanthropic 

 societies whose aim is the betterment of 

 social conditions among the poor in our 

 great cities and in our rural communities. 

 With the last this demand is associated 

 with a demand for more enlightened in- 

 struction for the general public in matters 

 affecting their health. At this time when 

 these various desires are but an index of the 

 awakening of interest throughout this coun- 

 try in that branch of science known as 

 hygiene or public health, it becomes a 

 matter of vital necessity for those of us who 

 are working in this field to clearly formu- 

 late the underlying principles of this sci- 

 ence, its scope and its needs, and present 

 them to the public and especially to those 

 who hold the fate of our great institutions 

 of learning in their grasp and under their 

 direction. 



HYGIENE IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA. 



Despite the fact that an American-born 

 scientist. Count Eumford, of Munich 

 (Benjamin Thompson of Concord and 

 Boston), was the first to inaugurate and 

 carry out a comprehensive movement for 



1 Bead at the May, 1915, meeting of the Asso- 

 ciation of American Physicians. 



