726 
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
offered their services to the nation through the Committee on Zoology. In 
response to many inquiries from zoologists as to how they might be of service 
in this national emergency the Committee on Zoology published in Science, 
volume 45, nimiber 1173, "Some Suggestions for National Service on the 
Part of Zoologists and Zoological Laboratories," from which the following is 
extracted with certain modifications and additions: 
The greatest national service which the biological sciences can render in 
war as well as in peace is in conserving human life, in protecting and improv- 
ing useful animals and plants, and in controlling or destroying injurious ones; 
when it is remembered that practically ever3^hing which we eat or wear 
comes from animals or plants it will be realized that this last is no slight 
service. 
Many of the practical and economic branches of biology have long been 
well organized for public service and this apphes particularly to medicine, 
sanitation and agriculture ; in each and all of these branches the trained zoolo- 
gists may render valuable aid. Probably no other non-medical men are 
better prepared by training and no other institutions better fitted by equip- 
ment to assist in medical and sanitary work than are zoologists and zoological 
laboratories, and in the matter of the propagation and improvement of useful 
animals and the destruction of useless or injurious ones zoologists should be 
especially at home. In many instances zoologists who have hitherto con- 
fined their attention to theoretical and general problems would need to turn 
their attention to new lines of work, but it can not be doubted that experience 
in solving general and theoretical problems would be of great value in deal- 
ing with special and practical ones. 
3. Sanitary Work. — {a) Much sanitary work is primarily zoological as, for 
instance, the study of the life histories of parasitic protozoa, tapeworms, 
flukes, roundworms, insects, mites, etc., together with methods of their con- 
trol or eradication. 
{h) The elimin^^tion or control of animal pests, which are often carriers of 
disease-germs, such as flies, mosquitoes, bugs, lice, rats, etc. 
(c) Assistance in medical diagnosis, as in the microscopical or chemical 
examination of blood, urine, feces, sputum, etc. 
{d) Microscopical or chemical examination of water and soil of camp-sites, 
drainage-areas of cities, etc. 
{e) The zoological aspects of the collection and disposal of garbage and 
sewage. 
(j) ''The effects of sewage contamination upon the system of life and hence 
upon the economic productivity of specific waters, especially of important 
rivers, and a program of management, calculated to gain and retain whatever 
economic advantages, and to avoid whatever disadvantages, the contamina- 
tion of streams by sewage may involve or entail." (Letter from S. A. Forbes.) 
In view of the importance of zoological science in dealing with old and new 
