JutT 11, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



39 



isting professors. We think the conditions 

 of a professor's emplojonent are a matter 

 which must be left to the university to de- 

 termine ; but in our opinion it is not neces- 

 sary or advisable to prohibit private prac- 

 tise altogether. 



Thus the duties of the clinical teachers 

 in a medical school are defined. They cer- 

 tainly do correspond well with the opinions 

 of some of our leading educators. Enough 

 has been said to show the trend of the re- 

 port, the full meaning of which can not be 

 had without studying all of the pages of 

 this excellent document. At any rate it is 

 clear that there are far-sighted reformers 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. 



Whether or not a great hospital should 

 conduct pay wards is not discussed. How- 

 ever, it is stated that in a hospital which 

 has no end in view but medical education 

 and the advancement of medical science, 

 the public interest must be considered, and 

 the question of the privilege of access to 

 the great London hospitals can not be 

 treated as a matter of private right or de- 

 cided as if it were the private property of 

 the existing medical schools. 



Feanklin p. M.\ll 



THE OPTICAL ACTIVITY OF PETSOLEUM 

 AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE^ 



The wide distribution of deposits of 

 bitumen, in its various forms, is attested in 

 the very earliest writings, both sacred and 

 profane. In the book of Genesis we learn 

 that slime was used for mortar, and in the 

 second book of the Maccabees we are told 

 that 



Neemias commanded the priests to sprinkle the 

 sacrifices with the thick water . . . and when this 

 was done . . . there was a great fire kindled, so 

 that every man marvelled. 



' Address of the retiring president of the Kansas 

 Academy of Science. Eead December 23, 1912, 

 at Topeka, Kansas. 



Herodotus gives us the following descrip- 

 tion of the manner of its collection: 



At Ardericca is a well which produces three dif- 

 ferent substances, for asphalt, salt and oil are 

 drawn up from it in the following manner: It is 

 pumped up by means of a swipe, and, instead of 

 a bucket, half a wine skin is attached to it. 

 Having dipped down with this, a man draws it up, 

 and then pours the contents into a reservoir, and, 

 being poured from this into another, it assumes 

 these different forms: the asphalt and the salt 

 immediately become solid, but the oil they collect, 

 and the Persians call it rhadinance. It is black 

 and emits a strong odor.^ 



For more than 2,500 years the disciples 

 of Zoroaster have worshiped the "eternal 

 fires" in the neighborhood of Baku, Rus- 

 sia, and not until recently have their tem- 

 ples been replaced by oil reservoirs and re- 

 fineries. 



Within the last half century a new shrine 

 has been set up in oildom, and our modern 

 devotees have shown such zeal and activ- 

 ity that it may again well be said "that 

 every man marveled." But the marvelous 

 development of the petroleum industry has 

 been rendered possible only by reason of 

 the gigantic strides which have been made 

 in the fields of natural science and tech- 

 nology. We may look for even greater 

 things in the future, for science is still in 

 its infancy. I have chosen for my subject 

 to-night what I consider to be one of the 

 infant industries of science. 



In the year 1835 Jean Baptiste Biot pub- 

 lished his memoir on the circular polariza- 

 tion of light and its application to organic 

 chemistry,^ which contains a table giving 

 polarimetric data regarding essential oils. 

 This includes a sample of "naphte" recti- 

 fied by distillation, which, examined by red 

 light gave a rotation to the left equivalent 



'"Petroleum and its Products," 8. P. Peckham, 

 1882, p. 1. 



'Mem. de I' Acad, de Sciences, 13: 39, 1835. See 

 also "Die Polarimetric der Erdole," M. A. Ea- 

 kusin, Berlin, Wien, p. 6, 1910. 



