212 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 161 



The last conclusion (No. 4) was deemed desirable 

 from the frequent confusion in the statement of 

 the iron salts and of the carbon oxides. 



The committee is unanimously of the opinion 

 that analyses in the form recommended will prove 

 quite as acceptable to boards of health and to 

 the public in general, for whom such analyses 

 are often made, as if presented in the mixed 

 and irregular forms commonly adopted. 



The committee also feels sure that the people in 

 general are better able to form a definite idea of 

 the character of a water from a report stated in 

 parts per 100, parts per 1,000,000, etc., than from 

 one expressed as grains per gallon, the latter 

 being a ratio wholly unfamiliar to any but those 

 in the medical or pharmaceutical professions. 



A. C. Peale, M.D. 

 Wm. H. Seaman, M.D. 

 Chas. H. White, M.D. 



PARIS LETTER. 



Many interesting scientific events have lately 

 attracted attention here. The limits of my present 

 letter will not permit me to speak of them all, and 

 I will therefore confine myself to the most im- 

 portant ones. 



The appointment of Mr. Mathias Duval to the 

 professorship of histology in the medical school 

 is one that does not meet entire approval. Mr. 

 Duval is certainly an able man, and one much 

 liked by his students ; but it cannot be said that 

 he is well fitted for the task he has assumed. He 

 is much more proficient in anatomy and physi- 

 ology than in histology. It had been hoped that 

 the faculty of medicine would appoint to this pro- 

 fessorship an histologist of known reputation, 

 such as Mr. Malassez. There will be, however, 

 one good result of Mr. Duval's appointment : his- 

 tology will undoubtedly be taught in a clear and 

 precise manner, which had never been the case 

 under C. Robin's instruction. Mr. Duval is an 

 excellent vidgarisateur, and thoroughly under- 

 stands teaching. His students will certainly learn 

 histology much better than they have hitherto. 



With this accession to the faculty, however, 

 the resignation by Mr. Vulpian, of his appointment 

 as medecin des hdpitaux, is much regretted by his 

 pupils. His reasons are not very well known. It 

 has been stated that he did so in order to devote 

 more attention to his patients ; but the truth is, 

 he lias not much practice, and the greater part of 

 his time is given to laboratory work. He has 

 recently been asked to accept the appointment as 

 secretaire perpetuelol the Academy of sciences, in 

 the event of Mr. Jamin's death (which occurred 

 yesterday), and it may be that he has thus sought 



opportunity to devote himself to this very absorb- 

 ing task by resigning his other arduous occupa- 

 tions. 



Mr. Paul Bert took his departure from Paris for 

 Tonquin yesterday evening. Monday last he 

 made a speech at the meeting of the Academy of 

 sciences, bidding adieu in rather pathetic tones. 

 The academy, however, reciprocated neither his 

 real or assumed feelings nor his speech. One can- 

 not but wonder at the general approval of Mr. 

 Bert's mission to Tonquin. He himself is over- 

 flowing with happiness. His friends are sure he 

 will do well, and be of use in Tonquin. His ene- 

 mies — and they are not few^ — are convinced that 

 he will commit some great blunder, and kill him- 

 self politically. They, however, feel a great relief 

 in the fact that they will be rid of him for some 

 time. Everybody is satisfied, even the Academy 

 of sciences, who listened to his last speech with 

 much coldness, as though to impress upon him 

 their lack of interest in politicians. It certainly 

 is a strange and unusual occurrence, in France at 

 least, for a scientific man to become a politician, 

 though it must in justice be said that Mr. Bert is 

 a man of much intelligence; and, should he fail, 

 it will be due rather to his temper than to his lack 

 of ability. 



A new French scientific periodical, the Archives 

 Slaves de biologie, has recently made its appear- 

 ance. It is published by Messrs. Richet & Men- 

 delssohn, and will be devoted to the more im- 

 portant scientific works that are published in Rus- 

 sian, Tcheque, and other kindred languages. It 

 will comprise original communications in French, 

 or translations from the Russian, with reviews of 

 the latest w^orks on biological sciences in general. 

 The first number contains more than three hun- 

 dred pages of large octavo size, including origi- 

 nal memoirs by Fritsch, on recently discovered 

 human crania ; of Godlewski, on Pocta and Wier- 

 zejski on fossil and living sponges ; of Dani- 

 lewsky and Kowalevvsky, on Nawalichin and 

 Botkine ; and of many others, on various medi- 

 cal and physiological subjects. The remaining 

 pages are filled with reviews and critical notes on 

 the recent biological work in the Russian and 

 kindred languages, from such writers as Men- 

 delssohn, de Varignv, Danysz, Halperine, and 

 others. The project is certainly a very com- 

 mendable one, to thus gather up in a single jour- 

 nal all the scientific work of a country ; and in 

 this particular case the idea is all the better, from 

 the fact that Slavonic savants do not all w^rite in 

 the same language, and that their scientific pa- 

 pers are not commonly met with. It is very likely 

 that the periodical will be successful, filling as it 

 does such a useful field. The example of the 



