446 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S Vol. V. No. 115. 



lie health, a further donation of £1,063 for the 

 same object had been intimated from Mrs. 

 Bruce and other members of the family. It 

 was also reported that an offer of £5,000 to- 

 wards the same object had been received since 

 last meeting of the Court from a gentleman 

 whose name, at his own request, is not to be 

 made known for the present. The Court, con- 

 sidering that the amount of donations approxi- 

 mates the sum which they think to be necessary 

 for the endowment of the proposed chair, re- 

 solved to request the Universities' Commission 

 to frame a draft ordinance instituting a separate 

 chair of public health in the University. 



Dr. Otto Fischer, professor of chemistry at 

 the University at Erlangen, has been called to 

 Kiel ; Dr. W. Felix has been promoted to an 

 associate professorship of anatomy at the Uni- 

 versity of Zurich. Dr. August Pauly has been 

 made associate professor of comparative zoology 

 at the University of Munich and director of the 

 division of zoology at the forestry experiment 

 station. Professor Pasquele Baccarini has been 

 appointed professor of botany at the University 

 of Catania and Dr. Oswald Kruch professor at 

 the agricultural experiment station in Perugia. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 OPPORTUNITIES FOE TRAINING IN PHYSIOLOGY. 



The department of physiology in the Harvard 

 Medical School offers to four qualified men 

 positions in which training in physiology may 

 De obtained. 



It is expected that these men will give the 

 mornings of the collegiate year to research and 

 the afternoons to the direction of undergradu- 

 ate students in experimental 'physiology, under 

 the supervision of a professor in the department. 



Every effort will be made to instruct the 

 holders of these positions in the ways of fram- 

 ing problems for investigation, in the principles 

 of criticism, in the technical methods of research, 

 and in the manner in which the results of an 

 investigation should be put together for publi- 

 cation. Instruction will be given also in 

 methods of teaching, including the arrange- 

 ment of lectures, the division of subject-matter 

 between the systematic course covering the 

 entire field and the advanced special lectures. 



the physiological conference, the Journal Club, 

 the use of the projection lantern in physiolog- 

 ical demonstration, and the demonstration of 

 physiological experiments to large and small 

 classes. 



The direction of laboratory work will be an 

 important part of the training. The first year 

 class in the Harvard Medical School is divided 

 into sections of thirty-two. Each section works 

 twenty-four afternoons in experimental physi- 

 ology, making more than one hundred experi- 

 ments, such as the influence of temperature on 

 the form of the muscle curve, the phenomena 

 of electrotonus, the compensatory pause of the 

 heart, the use of the artificial eye, the ophthalmo- 

 scope, laryngoscope, sphygmograph, etc. etc. 

 The repetition of fundamental experiments in 

 this course, and the great variety afforded by 

 so many experimenters working at the same 

 time, secure to the directors of the work a 

 thoroughness and a breadth of training in ele- 

 mentary physiology scarcely attainable in other 

 ways. 



The administration of a large department 

 will be carefully explained. Attention will be 

 given to the cost of apparatus for instruction 

 and research, the problems of construction and 

 maintenance of plant, the care of storage bat- 

 teries, the making of lantern slides, the cata- 

 loguing of physiological literature, the importa- 

 tion of apparatus, and many other details essen- 

 tial to the successful operation of a physiological 

 laboratory. Men intending to devote them- 

 selves to clinical medicine, will, of course, give 

 less time to these things and will concern them- 

 selves chiefly with matters bearing directly on 

 their chosen work. 



It is evident that these appointments will 

 afford an admirable training to those intending 

 to make physiology or any other of the biolog- 

 ical sciences a profession. To the physician they 

 offer a training not less valuable in the opinion 

 of those who believe that research in the funda- 

 mental sciences is the best introduction to the 

 higher walks of medicine. 



Applicants for these positions should possess 

 an elementary knowledge of physiology and a 

 sufficient training in one or more of the biolog- 

 ical sciences to enable them to profit by the in- 

 struction offered. Successful applicants are 



