SCIENCE 



Friday, August 11, 1911 



CONTENTS 

 The Chemistry of Anesthetics: Professor 

 Charles Baskerville 161 



Cyrus Guernsey Fringle: G. E. Oecutt 176 



Students in the German Universities 177 



The Astronomical Fellowship of the Nan- 

 tucTcet Maria Mitchell Association 177 



Scientifio Notes and Netvs 178 



University and Educational News 180 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Pythagorean Theorem: Propessoe 

 Alexander Macparlane. A Bright Aurora 

 of September, 1908: Professor William 

 Francis Eigge 181 



State Support of Medical Education 183 



Scientific BooTcs: 



Bernard on Some Neglected Factors in Evo- 

 lution: J. P. McM. Jcpson's The Silva of 

 California: Peopessoe J. W. Haksh- 

 beeger. HitchcocTc's Sawaii and its Vol- 

 canoes ; Whitman Cross 184 



ial Articles: — 



The Permeability of Living Cells to Salts 

 in Pure and Balanced Solutions : Professor 



W. J. V. OSTEEHOUT 187 



The American Chemical Society: Professor 

 Charles L. Parsons 189 



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

 review should be sent to tbe Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 

 Hudson, N. Y. 



THE CHEMISTST OF ANESTHETICS'- 

 Idiosyncrasy has in the past accounted 

 for — serves now to account for — unusual 

 observations in the use of drugs, and per- 

 haps will continue to cover much of our 

 lack of information as to their real thera- 

 peutic action, but I am of the opinion that 

 it is a "magic skin." 



Sacred, profane and mythological lit- 

 erature abound in incident, fact and fancy, 

 showing that from earliest times man has 

 sought to assuage grief and pain by some 

 means of dulling consciousness. Eecourse 

 was had to the inhalation of fumes from 

 various substances, weird incantations, 

 application of drugs, both external and 

 internal, pressure upon important nerves 

 and blood vessels, and the laying on of 

 hands, or animal magnetism. Each has 

 played its part in the mitigation of hu- 

 man ills. It was not until the close of the 

 eighteenth century, however, that modern 

 surgical anesthesia was foreshadowed. 

 Then it was that the discovery of hydro- 

 gen, nitrogen, oxygen and nitrous oxide — 

 pneumatic chemistry, as it were — created 

 a field of pneumatic medicine. In 1789, 

 the Pneumatic Institute was founded for 

 the purpose of investigating the "medical 

 powers of factitious airs or gases" and 

 was set up at Clifton by Dr. Beddoes. 

 The immediate idea to be followed out was 

 the treatment of phthisis and other lung 

 troubles by inhalation of various gases. 

 Humphry Davy was assigned the office 

 of superintending the experiments. Davy 

 actually inhaled nitrous oxide, and re- 



^A lecture delivered at the general meeting of 

 the American Chemical Society, Indianapolis, June 

 28, 1911. 



