RECORDS OF MEETINGS 401 



cal development of the free ribs, or of the vertebrae, or by the presence of 

 supernumerary elements. Such abnormalities, he believed, may well be 

 an expression of a general process of reduction in the number of the ribs 

 and lumbar vertebrae, correlated with the upright pose in sitting and 

 walking. 



The speaker illustrated this hypothesis by means of a series of Primate 

 skeletons, beginning with the tailed quadrupedal monkeys and culminat- 

 ing in the anthropoid apes and man. 



The Section then adjourned. 



William K. Gregory, 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF ASTEOXOMY, PHYSICS AXD CHEMTSTEY 



15 February^ 1915 



Section met at 8 :15 p. m., A^ice-President Charles Baskerville presid- 

 ing. 



The minutes of the last meeting of the Section were read and approved. 

 The following programme was then offered : 



A. R. Rose, Phosphorus Compounds in Relation to Animal and 

 Plant Life. 



I. S. Kleiner, On the Greater Retention of Glucose Injected In- 

 travenously INTO Depancreatized Animals and its 

 Relation to Pancreatic Diabetes. 



Summary of Paper 



Dr. Rose said in abstract: The phosphorus compounds derived by the 

 substitution of the H ions of phosphoric acid may be classified into two 

 general groups, one, termed inorganic phosphorus, consisting of com- 

 pounds in which the H ion has been replaced wholly or in part by metals ; 

 the other, organic phosphorus, in which one or more of the H ions have 

 given way to organic radicals. In general, only inorganic phosphorus is 

 available to plants, and hence all of these forms are not equally suitable 

 to their nutrition. The soil from which the plant draws its food is rich 

 in both organic and inorganic phosphorus. There are agencies present 

 tending to change all forms into suitable nutrients. Within the plants 

 the inorganic compounds are combined with more or less complicated 

 organic substances, giving us the various forms of organic phosphorus 

 with which we have to deal. 



These constitute in large part the phosphorus nutrients of the animal 



