930 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1096 



the beneficial use of remedies and defenses 

 which chemistry at present can neither 

 analyze nor synthesize, such, for example, 

 as diphtheria antitoxin; but they are 

 aware that this condition of their art is 

 unsatisfactory and ought not to be perma- 

 nent. The animal body consists of well- 

 known chemical substances, and its func- 

 tions depend on chemical reactions. Diges- 

 tion is largely a chemical process. The 

 animal body consists of innumerable cells 

 in great variety, each of which acts under 

 chemical and physical laws. Hence the 

 belief of the biologist of to-day that 

 chemistry — analytical, structural and 

 physical — can and will come to the aid of 

 the science and art of medicine in the large 

 sense, and will ultimately enable biological 

 science to comprehend the vital processes 

 in health and disease, and to penetrate 

 what are now the secrets of life and death. 

 Charles "W. Eliot 



TBE BUREAU OF FISSEBIES 

 The annual report of the Commissioner of 

 Fisheries shows that the bureau has just com- 

 pleted the most successful of the forty-five 

 years of its existence. The number of fish 

 produced and distributed was greater, and the 

 cost of production per million less, than in 

 any previous year. Fifty permanent hatch- 

 eries and seventy-six sub-hateheries, aux- 

 iliaries, and egg-collecting stations have been 

 conducted and the output during the fiscal 

 year 1915 was over four billion young fish 

 and eggs, an increase of more than 241,000,000 

 over the previous year. Plants of food fishes 

 were made in every state and territory; fish 

 eggs were distributed to the fish commissions 

 of twenty-seven states; and consignments of 

 eggs were sent to Porto Eico, Cuba, India, 

 and Japan. The distribution of the output 

 required over 146,000 miles of travel by the 

 five special cars of the bureau and 491,000 

 miles by detached messengers. The introduc- 

 tion of the hump-back salmon of the Pacific 

 coast into Maine streams, which last year 



was an experiment, is now a reality, as many 

 of these fish were taken during the summer of 

 1915 in the Maine rivers; furthermore, ripe 

 eggs have been taken from them — a proof of 

 thorough acclimatization. The counter-ex- 

 periment of transplanting the Atlantic lobster 

 in Pacific waters is still in progress. 



The Bureau of Fisheries has done and is 

 doing much for the conservation and utiliza- 

 tion of food fishes which have heretofore been 

 wasted. Each year when the Mississippi and 

 Illinois Rivers, with their various tributaries, 

 overflow their banks and later recede, mil- 

 lions of young fish are left stranded in tem- 

 porary pools or where in a short time they 

 would perish. Rescue work is, however, under- 

 taken by the bureau, and in 1915 over eight 

 million valuable food fish were saved and 

 delivered to applicants, deposited in public 

 waters, or returned to the main rivers. 



The Alaskan seals are the most valuable 

 herd of wild animals ever owned by any gov- 

 ernment, and the Bureau of Fisheries is their 

 custodian. The revenue to the government 

 from the seal skins — when commercial killing 

 is resumed — will be very large, and efforts 

 are being made to find uses for the seal car- 

 casses, aside from the comparatively small 

 number required by the natives for food. The 

 old practise of using only the skin and wasting 

 the carcass can no longer be countenanced. 

 The report of the special investigators who 

 went to the Pribilof Islands in 1914 to make 

 a thorough study of the conditions of the seal 

 herd was submitted in January, 1915, and 

 presents in detail a statement not alone of the 

 condition of the seal herd, but also of the fox 

 and reindeer herds belonging to the govern- 

 ment, and of the natives who inhabit the seal 

 islands. A new method of obtaining supplies 

 for the Pribilof Islands was instituted in 

 1914^15, and a large saving will result there- 

 from. 



APPOINTMENTS AND DISMISSALS AT TEE 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



As a result of the case of Professor Scott 



IvTearing at the University of Pennsylvania, 



professors of the university appointed a com- 



