210 



scmJS'CE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 187 



two substances is entirely different, but it may be 

 that their chemical natvire is less different than 

 might be supposed. 



Some days ago, in a saloon of Vincennes, about 

 fifty persons were seated at a dining-table. A 

 passer-by would have remarked that they were 

 veiy quiet. Not a word was said by a single per- 

 son. As the dishes went around in due order, the 

 passer-by would have thought, after some twenty 

 or thii'ty minutes, that the meeting was a very 

 ungenial one, or that the assembly was troubled 

 with some mysterious ailment. On walking into 

 the saloon, he would have understood, however, — 

 as the reader perhaps already surmises, — the cause 

 of this silence. The guests were deaf-mutes. No 

 hurrahs, no laughing, no toasts or speeches, 

 that is, in spoken language. But in gesticulated 

 speech a good deal was said. These people are 

 united in a society to celebrate the memory of 

 Abbe de i'Epee, the charitable and devoted in- 

 structor of deaf-mutes, and they meet each year 

 to rejoice over their instructor's useful work. 



The same day a very amusing meeting was held 

 in Paris by some five or six persons, and attended 

 by a rather large crowd. It was a meeting to 

 protest against Pasteur's method of healing rabies. 

 It is not useful to review all the foolish speeches 

 that were made in this assembly. Tiie public has 

 sufficiently shown what it thinks of them. It was 

 a very funny scene to witness, and one can form 

 no idea of the ignorance and lack of intelligence 

 displayed by the orators. They were perpetually 

 interrupted by the shouts of the crowd, who were 

 intelligent enough to know when truth was spoken, 

 and when error. It is, however, a pity to hear 

 such ignoramuses discuss in such a way scientific 

 questions they do not understand. Sweet Louise 

 Michel was one of the orators, and was well hooted. 



A much more interesting and useful meeting 

 was that of the committee appointed to witness 

 M. Marcel Desprez's experiments on the trans- 

 mission of force by means of electricity. The 

 problem was to take two hundred horse-power at 

 Creil, fifty-six kilometres from Paris, and to de- 

 liver half that amount in Paris. In fact, the horse- 

 power in Creil was eighty-eight ; in Paris it was 

 forty. Upon the whole, the experiment succeeded 

 weU enough, and the results are satisfactory. 



Some sensation was recently created here by the 

 application of the law requiring that all professors 

 aged over seventy or seventy-five, if members of 

 the institute, shall be deprived of office, or, as we 

 say here, mis en retraite, retired. Among the 

 victims of this law we notice MM. Hardy, Ga- 

 varret, and Sappey, of the medical school, and M. 

 Duchartre of the faculty of sciences. M. Hardy 

 is not a lazy man, and he still works a good deal ; 



but all he can do, as his best friends say, is to give 

 a lectm-e dated 1850. That is very well, but in 

 1886 science is much advanced, many things hav- 

 ing been discovered since 1850. Students require 

 present-day notions, and do not care for old dis- 

 coveries. M. Sappey is also a conscientious 

 worker ; but he teaches anatomy in such a very 

 tedious and uninteresting manner that his retire- 

 ment cannot be much regretted. As to M. Ga- 

 varret, he has not lectured for some years. M. 

 Duchartre has never done any personal original 

 work worth speaking of. He has written a very 

 unpleasant ' Botany,' and that is all. His de- 

 parture will create no sensation, and students have 

 nothing to lose by the change, whoever may take 

 his place. M. Sappey's place will most likely be 

 filled by M. Farabeuf, a man very well informed 

 on human anatomy, but entirely ignorant of com- 

 parative anatomy. M. Gavarret will be succeeded 

 by M. Gariel, an able scientist and very good 

 teacher. It is not known who will take the two 

 other places, but M. van Tieghem, professor at the 

 Museum d'histoire naturelle, might be called upon 

 to teach botany in the Sor bonne. The choice 

 would be a very good one. No choice will be 

 made at present, and, when it is made, I will in- 

 form you. 



The annual meeting of the Association for the 

 advancement of science is to take place to-morrow 

 at Nancy. A great number of interesting com- 

 munications are announced, and the volume re- 

 cording the proceedings at last year's meeting has 

 been issued to-day. 



The competition begun some three months ago 

 for fellowships in different medical schools is 

 just over. As usual, the successful competitors 

 for fellowships in anatomy and physiology are 

 surgeons. Surgeons, as a rule, are familiar with 

 anatomy, that is, human anatomy ; but they 

 know nothing about physiology, and the lectures 

 they give on the subject are quite insufficient. It 

 is a great pity for the students, and yet more so 

 for the medical schools. There is little yet to be 

 done in anatomy, so they do not do any personal 

 or original work. They go on practising sur- 

 gery, and are of no use at all to science. In five 

 years, only one real physiologist has been ap- 

 pointed to a fellowship, Ch. Richet ; since then 

 only surgeons or anatomists have been appointed. 

 This is a very unfavorable thing for medical 

 schools, and one easily understands the criticism 

 of foreigners, who remark that the fellowships are 

 always obtained by persons who add nothing, or 

 next to nothing, to the stock of human knowledge. 

 The critics are entirely justified, it must be con- 

 fessed, and it wiU be necessary to find some 

 remedy for this state of affairs, which is all the 



