30 
Report  on  Atomic  Weights. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
January,  1920. 
group  of  scientific  investigators,  comprising  some  of  the  best-known 
names  of  the  country,  apparently  on  the  ground  that  the  money 
for  the  work  has  been  provided  by  a  commercial  association.  The 
word  "commercial"  is  frequently  used  as  a  general  term  of  oppro- 
brium, but,  as  Roosevelt  would  have  said,  there  is  a  "good"  as  well 
as  a  "bad"  commercialism.  It  is  not  our  understanding  that  money 
was  given  to  Harvard  University  for  the  purpose  of  "exonerating" 
factory  canned  goods  from  any  charge  whatsoever,  but  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  discovering  actual  conditions  and,  so  far  as  those  con- 
ditions might  be  undesirable,  of  discovering  and  applying  appro- 
priate methods  of  improvement.  It  can  hardly  be  assumed  that  the 
officials  or  any  of  the  members  of  the  National  Canners  Associa- 
tion would  favor  for  an  instant  a  plan  to  ignore  or  overlook  any 
danger  of  botulism  poisoning  that  might  exist.  Their  interests, 
"commercial"  as  well  as  simply  human,  lie  wholly  in  the  direction 
of  discovering  what  the  danger  is,  how  it  arises,  and  how  it  can 
best  be  avoided  or  overcome.  Denial  or  concealment  is  the  last 
policy  sound  business  judgment  would  dictate. 
REPORT   OF  THE   INTERNATIONAL  COMMITTEE  ON 
ATOMIC  WEIGHTS  FOR  1919-20.* 
The  last  regular  report  of  this  committee,  apart  from  an  annual 
recommendation  to  continue  the  use  of  the  table  of  atomic  weights 
then  presented,  was  published  in  19 16.  The  interruption  in  the 
series  of  reports  was,  of  course,  due  to  the  World  War,  which  created 
difficulties  of  a  serious  kind  among  all  international  organizations. 
Cooperation  with  Germany  became  impossible,  partly  because  of 
the  difficulty  of  correspondence,  and  partly  because  of  the  personal 
hostilities  created  by  the  conduct  of  the  war.  There  was  also  an 
inevitable  slackening  of  scientific  activities,  and  this  was  well  shown 
by  the  unusually  small  number  of  new  researches  in  the  field  of 
atomic  weights.  Now  that  peace  is  in  sight,  it  seems  wise  to  resume 
the  preparation  of  these  reports,  even  though  they  may  not  be  for 
some  time  quite  so  truly  international  as  heretofore.  The  de- 
terminations published  since  the  preparation  of  our  last  report  may 
now  be  summarized  as  follows: 
*  Reprinted  from  Journal  of  the  American  Chemical  Society,  Dec,  191 9. 
