SCIENCE 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. 



Vdriti sans petty. 



NEW YORK: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. 



FRIDAY, JULY i, 18S7. 



We have the pleasure of informing our readers that a step 

 long considered desirable fias been taken. The price of Science 

 has been reduced to $3.50. This has been rendered possible by 

 the improving position of the paper financially, and by taking a 

 form which saves largely in the items which make up the cost of 

 manufacture. The saving in paper by making the page nearly 

 double the size of the old Science page allows a saving of many 

 hundred dollars each year, which would otherwise be spent on 

 white paper for extra margins. We mention this as an item little 

 suspected by most people. Each subscriber will find that his sub- 

 scription has been extended /ro rata. 



The act to regulate the licensing and registration of phy- 

 sicians and burgeons, and to codify the medical laws of the State 

 of New York, has been signed by the governor, and is now a law. 

 By Section 9 of the act, all pre-existing laws relating to these sub- 

 jects are repealed ; so that to this single act physicians, attorneys, 

 and courts must hereafter look for the regulation of the practice of 

 medicine in this State. It is gratifying to find that this act is in- 

 dorsed by all the different schools of medicine, and that the only 

 opposition made to it has come from those who believe that the 

 power of healing by the laying-on of hands is likely to be dimin- 

 ished or impaired by the course of study required by the medical 

 colleges. We are giad to see that the objection which we had to 

 make to one of the sections in the act of 1880 is thoroughly and 

 satisfactorily met in the present law. Physicians may hereafter 

 practise in other counties than that in which they first regis- 

 tered, by simply mailing to the county clerk their certificates 

 of registration. Upon this an indorsement will be made which 

 will render practice in the new county legal. Provision is 

 also made by which registered physicians can attend isolated 

 cases in other counties without re-registration, provided they 

 do not intend to habitually practise in such counties. By 

 another section of the act, no person can be licensed or permit- 

 ted to practise who has been convicted of a felony by any court of 

 competent jurisdiction ; and conviction of a felony cancels the li- 

 cense, if one has been granted. We are informed that there is now 

 practising in New York one who has served three terms of im- 

 prisonment for criminal practice. The foUowiiig offences are also 

 punishable under this law : perjury, in false affidavit of registry ; 

 counterfeiting, buying, selling, and altering diplomas, or practising 

 under counterfeited diplomas ; or falsely personating another prac- 

 titioner. It is not improbable that this act may in the future re- 

 quire some modification ; indeed, it would be strange if it did not : 

 but the medical profession is to be congratulated on having all the 

 laws pertaining to it codified, and thus enabling its members to 

 ascertain their privileges and responsibilities without searching 

 through the session-laws of many years. To Mr. W. A. Purring- 

 ton, counsel for the medical societies of the State and county of 

 New York, much credit is due for the skill with which this act is 

 drawn, and for his persistence in urging the measure upon the 

 legislative and executive branches of the State government. 



The nineteenth annual co-operative congress of delegates 

 from co-operative societies in Great Britain and Ireland has closed 

 its session at Carlisle. An exhibition was held in connection with 

 the meeting, which included products purchased or imported by the 

 wholesale for distribution to the retail societies. The exhibits indi- 

 cated the strength of distributive co-operation in the power to pur- 

 chase on the largest scale from producers or importers. There 

 were also fabrics and manufactured articles which indicated 

 the advance of co-operative production. It is in this sphere of 

 production that the question is raised whether the benefit of 

 co-operation embraces the working producers as well as the 

 consumers, whether spinners, weavers, and dyers, tailors, needle- 

 women, and shoemakers, are really co-operative producers, or wage- 

 earners having no interest in the sale of that which they produce. 

 The voluminous returns made to the congress throw much light 

 on the present position of co-operative production. There are in 

 England fifty-eight productive societies, and they make cotton- 

 cloth, elastic web, flannel, hosiery, quilts, table-covers, worsted, 

 boots and shoes, galvanized ware, nails, watches, cutlery, locks, 

 baking-powder, portmanteaus, trunks, and biscuits. Scotland has 

 eight such societies. Last year these sixty-six societies sold goods 

 to the amount of ^1,817,000, and the net profit was ;^74,ooo. Of 

 this profit, ;£24,87i was paid on share capital, over ;£i,9i3 was paid 

 to labor by seventeen societies, and ^,33,733 to purchasers. Mr. 

 Thomas Hughes delivered an admirable address at the opening 

 of the congress, summing up the past, and pointing out the future 

 problems for co-operation to deal with. He said that the problem 

 of distribution was already fairly solved, and that there is hardly 

 any neighborhood, from John O'Groat to Land's End, to which co- 

 operation has not penetrated. " Our membership," the speaker 

 continued, " is numbered by millions, and the poorest member of 

 the smallest society can now be sure that he gets as full value for 

 every shilling he has to lay out as the richest. Co-operation has 

 taught English working-men how to get full and fair value for the 

 wages of their work : can it help them in like manner to get full and 

 fair value for the work itself ? This, Mr. Hughes asserts, is the press- 

 ing question, and it must be faced at once. He deprecates the solu- 

 tion of it in accordance with those who favor centralization rather than 

 federation. He pressed this point very earnestly, and apparently with 

 the approbation of a majority of the delegates to the congress. Lord 

 Ripon, speaking in London just before the congress met, also urged 

 the necessity of settling the question of co-operative production 

 without having recourse to centralization. 



At the recent graduation exercises of the St. Louis Manual- 

 Training School, Professor Woodward pointed out the fact that the 

 number of graduates was increasing each year. The first class 

 numbered twenty-nine ; the second, twenty-nine ; the third, thirty- 

 nine ; the fourth, forty-five ; and the fifth, fifty-two. Professor 

 Woodward also enlarged upon the way in which the course of in- 

 struction at the school is organized. He showed that but one-third 

 of the time is given to shop-work, and that it is distributed in such 

 a way that the students acquire not so much dexterity in a single 

 direction or in a few directions, as a knowledge of principles and 

 methods in many directions. He protested against the assump- 

 tion that the graduates of the school are skilled workmen in several 

 crafts. They are simply better educated than their fellows who 



