484 
tical bureau at Buda-Pesth, presented a plan for 
a simultaneous census of the population of the 
world in 1900. 
THE steamship Hope, with Lieutenant Peary 
and the several scientific parties who accom- 
panied him, arrived at Sydney, C. B., on Sep- 
tember 20th. Lieutenant Peary has secured 
the large Cape York Meteorite destined for the 
American Museum of Natural History. 
A PROPOSITION has been made for the estab- 
lishment of an agricultural experiment station 
in Madagascar for the introduction of foreign 
plans of economic value and the study of those - 
native to the island. 
Ir is stated in Nature that Mr. C. Michie- 
Smith, the Government Astronomer at Madras, 
in his reports for the year ending March 
31st, says that, as regards the staff, the goy- 
ernment has sanctioned the revival of the ap- 
pointment of a chief assistant. The past 
year has been conspicuous by the great amount 
of heavy rain, and both the director’s and as- 
sistants’ houses have suffered considerably. Ob- 
servations for time have, as usual, been carried 
on, and the investigation for the determination 
of the divisions error of the Meridian Circle has 
been completed, no less than 72,192 micrometer 
readings being employed. The Madras Cata- 
logue has further advanced, and the mean 
places for the first sixteen hours have been de- 
duced. Proposals have been sanctioned for 
observing the total eclipse of the sun next Jan- 
uary, and Karad has been fixed upon as the 
most suitable station. 
In an address on ‘ Medical Botany,’ presented 
before the Section of Materia Medica, at the 
recent meeting of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation, and printed in the Journal of the Asso- 
ciation, Professor Trelease states that while 
botany is still taught, to a certain’ extent, in 
medical colleges and schools of pharmacy, an 
analysis of the appropriateness of this study in 
the curriculum of either school has led him to 
the conclusion that for the physician it is to be 
regarded as an accomplishment rather than a 
necessity, inasmuch asin the medical practice 
of to-day prepared drugs and fluid extracts are 
prescribed, rather than the crude material, 
which in any event rarely comes under the 
physician’s own observation, his knowledge 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Vou. VI. No. 143. 
dealing with the physiological rather than the 
physical properties of the remedial agents em- 
ployed by him. While the pharmacist still has 
some occasion for discriminating between crude 
drugs, Professor Trelease concludes that even 
for him the botanical knowledge required is 
rather that of pharmacognosy than of botany in 
the ordinary sense; and the opinion is ex- 
pressed that a knowledge of medical botany, in 
the old sense, is to-day essential rather to the 
expert of the manufacturing house than to either 
the physician or the pharmacist. Attention, 
however, is called to that branch of medical 
botany which has recently come into nearly all 
of the better equipped medical schools, dealing 
with the bacteria of disease, although even here 
it is argued that the study is rather for the ex- 
pert than for the everyday practicing physician. 
THE committee of the British Association ap- 
pointed to report on the elucidation of the life 
conditions of the oyster under normal and ab- 
normal environment, including the effect of 
sewage matters and pathogenic organisms, pre- 
sented at Toronto a report on the green dis- 
ease, drawn up by Professor Herdman and Pro- 
fessor Boyce. They conclude by stating that 
there can by no doubt that Ryder, in America, 
about 1880, investigated the same kind of green 
oyster with which they are dealing. He showed 
that the green coloring matter was taken up 
by the ameeboid blood-cells, and that these 
wandering cells containing the pigment were 
to be found in the heart, in some of the blood- 
vessels and in aggregations in ‘ cysts ’ under the 
surface epithelium of the body. He describes the 
color (in the ventricle) as a ‘ delicate pea-green,’ 
and states that it is not chlorophyll nor diato- 
mine ; he suggests that it may be phycocyanin or 
some allied substance. The committee have 
now shown that it is due toa copper compound, 
and consider that Ryder came nearer to what 
they now consider to be the truth than any pre- 
vious investigator has done. He was trying to 
show that the color was derived from the food. 
Carazzi has recently suggested that the color 
(this, it must be remembered, is in the 
Marennes oyster), due to iron, is derived 
from the bottom on which the oyster is ly- 
ing. The committee have tried numerous 
experiments in feeding oysters on iron and 
