SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The bill to establish a board of registra- 

 tion in medicine and surgery for Massachusetts 

 was rejected in the house of representatives, 

 in the latter days of the session, by a very 

 decided majority. A brief statement of the 

 reasons for this action is interesting, inasmuch 

 as the same booty had already created a com- 

 mission for the regulation of pharmae}'. The 

 law proposed, — substantially the same as that 

 so successfully enforced in Illinois and West 

 Virginia, — would, with a proper machinery for 

 its execution, have been a benefit to the com- 

 munity. The measure did not, however, excite 

 a very warm interest in the medical profession 

 as a whole, was opposed in some important 

 details by prominent members of one of the 

 great medical societies, and at no time attract- 

 ed sufficiently the attention of the public, with 

 the exception of that loud-mouthed portion that 

 naturally belongs to the quack and charlatan. 

 The men who appeared in favor of legislation 

 were those most competent to testify to the 

 needs of it, — the honest practitioners of medi- 

 cine. The ordinar}' legislator, therefore, looked 

 upon the proposed law as a privilege desired 

 b} T a class ; and when he found that it was 

 advocated by that class mainly, from his limited 

 point of view, not unreasonably perhaps, voted 

 against the measure. With the warning fur- 

 nished b}* this year's experience, it is safe to 

 assume that the medical profession will insist 

 that the public, which is alone concerned, shall 

 hereafter take the lead in an} T effort to procure 

 legislation for the regulation of the practice 

 of medicine. 



The establishment of a botanic garden in 

 Montreal may now be considered an assured 

 fact. The organization has been completed 

 by the formation of a corporation, from whom 



No. 125. — 1885. 



there is elected a board of management of five 

 •persons, one of whom is the director of the 

 garden, in the person of Professor Pen hallow. 

 With a grant from the provincial government 

 for preliminary work, land from the city, and 

 the hearty good will and co-operation of the 

 citizens, the garden will without doubt prove 

 successful. The site chosen for the garden is 

 on Mount Ro} T al, and embraces about seventy- 

 five acres of land well adapted for the purposes 

 of both a garden and an arboretum. A large 

 stone building, now on the grounds, will be 

 used as the offices, library, museum, etc., and 

 around this the plant-houses will be built. 



In order that composite photographs may 

 be of use as a scientific method for revealing the 

 traits common to some group, it seems neces- 

 sary, that each step of the process employed 

 should be subjected to careful experiment. 

 The presumption is, that any change in the 

 order in which the negatives are used in mak- 

 ing the composite will have no perceptible effect 

 in altering its appearance. Yet this should be 

 a matter of actual experiment; and, should 

 composites so obtained not be substantially 

 identical, the conditions for such identity must 

 be found, before we can feel much certainty that 

 a composite exhibits the essential features of 

 the group in question, as distinguished from 

 such as might be termed accidental. It might 

 happen, for instance, that undue prominence 

 had been given to part of a group by variation 

 in the intensity of the illumination during the 

 printing, or other circumstances might inter- 

 fere with the accurac}" of the representation. 



But a more serious question respecting the 

 truth to nature, of the average expressed by the 

 composite, is contained in the query, whether 

 composites of a given group made by different 

 photographers would be recognizably the same 

 picture, and whether the}'' differ more widely 



