SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS PROFESSOR WILDER D. BANCROFT, of the department of chemistry of Cornell University, who has been engaged in government work since our entry into the war, has been commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the Chemical Warfare Service.

THERE has been organized at Dijon a scientific society or cercle for the purpose of amalgamating Franco-American interests in this special territory. The presidents are Major W. B. Cannon, of the United States Army, and Professor Bataillon, dean of the faculty of science. Among those present at the first meeting were American military medical officers, the médecin chef de la Place, the members of the Corps de santé français, the professors of the faculty of science and of the Ecole de médecine et de pharmacie de Dijon.

MR. HENRY GRISCOM PARSONS, supervisor of gardening instruction at the New York Botanical Garden, has been commissioned with the rank of captain in the Quartermaster's Department of the Army, and has been assigned to the Conservation and Reclamation Division, salvage and gardening branch, being put in charge of the farming and gardening operations at the various cantonments, with headquarters at Washington.

DR. SIMON FLEXNER, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, has been elected a foreign member of the Swedish Medical Society at Stockholm.

DR. W. J. SPILLMAN has resigned as chief of the Office of Farm Management in the United States Department of Agriculture to accept the editorship of The Farm Journal at Philadelphia. For the present he will continue to reside in Washington.

DR. HARRY S. BERNTON, pathologist to the Pennsylvania State Board of Health, has resigned to become the chief of the bureau of preventable diseases and director of the biologic laboratories of the Health Department of the District of Columbia.

A PARTY of agricultural experts of the bureau of plant industry of the United States Department of Agriculture have been sent to

Algeria, Tunis and Morocco to investigate and advise on the possibilities of increasing the agricultural output of those French colonies. The visit is to be made at the request of the French High Commission now in the United States. The party is composed of E. C. Chilcott, in charge of the dry farming investigations of the bureau; C. S. Scofield, in charge of the bureau's work in development of irrigation agriculture, and T. H. Kearney, in charge of important work with alkali and drought-resistant crops.

DR. W. A. CANNON, of the department of botanical research of the Carnegie Institution, expects to be in Australia for about twelve months, where he will make field studies of desert plants with special reference to root habits.

HENRY HINDS has returned to Washington from Panama and Costa Rico, where he was acting chief geologist for the Sinclair Central American Oil Company. He is now serving as geologist for the U. S. Geological Survey and the Fuel Administration, in charge of the work of furnishing geological advice for the use of the Capital Issues Committee in considering the applications of oil and gas companies to issue stocks and bonds for development purposes.

DR. KARL T. COMPTON, formerly of the department of physics of Reed College, is now in Paris as a technical assistant with the Research Information Committee authorized by joint action of the Secretaries of War and Navy.

PROFESSOR HUDSON B. HASTINGS, of Reed College, has been engaged by the Food Administration as economic and statistical expert in the study of problems arising in connection with the salmon and milk industries.

DR. S. I. KORNHAUSER, associate professor of zoology at Northwestern University, has entered the Sanitary Corps of the army as a lieutenant and will report at the Brady Laboratory, New Haven.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR ASA C. CHANDLER, Ph.D., of the department of zoology and physiology in the Oregon Agricultural College,

has been appointed second lieutenant in the sanitary corps of the army and is on detail service at the Rockefeller Institute, New York City.

THE death is announced of Dr. R. G. Hebb, consulting physician and pathologist to the Westminster Hospital, secretary to the Royal Microscopical Society from 1898 to 1911, editor of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, from 1902 to the time of his death.

A NUMBER of news photographers are urgently needed by the Signal Corps. These men must have expert experience in handling of speed cameras, such as Graflex and Graphic, and also understand speeds of lenses and various makes of cameras and their operation. Only those men who can furnish references as to their actual experience as news photographers will receive consideration. The men selected for this branch of the service will be sent to a school for military training. Upon completion of the training they will be promoted to grades of sergeant, first class, and will be ordered overseas in a short time. Applicants must be citizens of the United States between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one.

THE U. S. Civil Service Commission announces an examination for scenario editor, for both men and women, on September 18, 1918. A vacancy in the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., at $1,600 a year, will be filled from this examination. The duties of the appointee will consist of preparation and editing of educational motion-picture scenarios dealing with agriculture, home economics and other subjects covered by the work of the Department of Agriculture, the writing of subtitles and descriptions of motion pictures on such subjects, and the preparation and editing of other similarly written educational material.

THE British Medical Journal states that during the summer school, Cambridge, Sir William Osler, on August 7, gave a sketch of the evolution of scientific medicine in the United States, illustrated by lantern slides. He divided the story into four periods. The first, British, to 1820, concerned with medicine

among the early colonists, tracing the influence of Edinburgh and of John Hunter, and coming down to the New England group illustrated by Jacob Bigelow and James Jackson. The second, French, period extended from 1820 to 1860, when the influence of Laënnec and Louis was supreme; of the third, German, period extended from 1860 to 1890, the main features were specialism at the Vienna school, the teaching of Virchow and Koch, and the work of Traube in experimental medicine. The fourth period is the American, from 1890 to the present day, its chief features being the reorganization of hospitals as integral parts of the university system, and unit and team work illustrated in the clinics of Cushing, Halsted and the Mayo brothers.

A MEDICAL division has been established in the Provost Marshal-General's Office. The first step was the appointment last February of Dr., now Colonel, Frank Billings, who was assigned as medical aide to the Provost MarshalGeneral. But since that time the medical phases have developed to such an extent that the enlargement of this position into a specific division in the Provost Marshal-General's Office has followed. The personnel of the medical division consists of Colonel F. R. Keefer, of the regular medical corps, chief, assisted by Major Hubert Work and Captain D. Chester Brown.

THE British Board of Agriculture and Fisheries has appointed a committee to study the life habits of the honey bee with the object of improving the conditions under which beekeeping is carried on in England and Wales, and to investigate the epidemic diseases of the bee, more especially the disease or group of diseases which pass under the name of "Isle of White" disease. The committee consists of: The Master of Christ's College, Cambridge (Dr. A. E. Shipley, F.R.S.); Professor Punnett, F.R.S. (professor of genetics, Cambridge); Dr. G. S. Graham Smith, M.D.; Professor G. C. Bourne, F.R.S.. D.Sc. (professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, Oxford); Professor W. Somerville (professor of rural economy, Oxford); Mr. T. W. Cowan (chairman of the British Bee-keepers Association);

Mr. G. W. Bullamore; Mr. J. C. Bee Mason; and Mr. A. G. L. Rogers (head of the Horticulture Branch, Board of Agriculture and Fisheries). Mr. R. H. Adie will act as secretary. It is proposed to undertake the study of healthy bees at Cambridge and the investigations on Isle of Wight disease at Oxford. The committee would be glad to receive specimens of bees suspected of suffering from “Isle of Wight" disease for examination and experiment.

THE American Public Health Association will meet at Chicago from October 14 to 17. Some of the military sanitarians who will address the meetings are Surgeon-General Gorgas, Colonel Victor C. Vaughan, and Major William H. Welch of the Army Medical Corps. Other speakers at the general sessions will be George H. Vincent, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; Dr. Charles J. Hastings, president of the American Public Health Association; D. W. A. Evans, Assistant Surgeon-General Allan J. McLaughlin, U.S.P. H.S., Dr. Ernest S. Bishop, Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Dr. Frederick L. Hoffman and others.

ONE motion-picture film is now being supplied every two weeks by the United States Department of Agriculture for release in the Universal Screen Magazine. These films show in an interesting and educational manner some of the activities of the department and of the important lessons which the department is trying to teach. Films that have already been released show work of the pig clubs, road building, forest-fire prevention, poultry management, cattle and sheep grazing on the national forests, types of horses, cooperative berry growing in the Pacific Northwest, the government's method of tree planting on the national forests, how the department regulates logging in the national forests, and the work of the forest ranger.

THE War Department authorizes the statement that as a result of the studies at the front, methods have been developed whereby more than 80 per cent. of the wounded, who originally remained at the military hospitals for months, are now cured and returned to the

forces in three or four weeks. In order that Army surgeons stationed at camps, cantonments and other military hospitals in this country may thoroughly understand the latest treatment of war wounds, the Army Medical Department has had established special classes of instruction to which are sent selected officers who, upon completion of their courses, return to their own hospitals and instruct other surgeons in these methods. The earliest possible information of changes of treatment are sent to the Surgeon-General's Office from the American Expeditionary Forces, and these in turn are immediately transmitted through the classes and, by means of moving pictures, lantern slides and pamphlets, to every surgeon who will come in contact with these wounds either at home or at the front. Since last October more than 150 officers have received special instruction each month in classes which have been established at the War Demonstration Hospital, Rockefeller Institute; four classes at Bellevue Hospital, New York, Roosevelt Hospital, New York, University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, Rochester, Minn., Pittsburgh, Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco. All surgeons who will come into contact with war wounds have received instruction in the methods of administering the Carrel-Dakin treatment, and sufficient apparatus has been furnished to treat every patient in the service who may require this method. A large supply of apparatus has been sent to Europe so that there are now more than 50 sets available for every injured man who, up to the present time, has needed this treatment, and over 3,000 sets are being shipped every month to care for the added number of wounded in which this application may be necessary.

Ar a meeting of the board of directors of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, recently held in New York, it was decided to drop all enemy aliens from membership. The meeting, which was under the chairmanship of Sidney J. Jennings, president of the institute, was attended by twenty-three of the

Accordingly, it seemed that physical chemical factors might enter into the question. With some colloids at least, the viscosity is increased by raising the content of inorganic salt (Loeb) and this is apparently what is desired in the case of barley gluten.1 At the same time, it seemed desirable to determine the optimum hydrogen ion concentration of some of the flours in the presence of yeast. Accordingly, the following experiments were performed:

Wheat, barley, rice and potato flours were used. When prepared without wheat, rice and potato flours failed to rise, owing to the lack of a protein similar to gluten, whose physical characters permitted the holding of the gases, CO, especially, to "lighten " the dough. When used with distilled water, barley flour alone gave practically the same sort of bread as that when wheat flour is used in amounts smaller than 70 per cent., the heaviness and sourness rendering its use impossible. An attempt was made to mix barley and rice, barley and potato, etc., but the results were even worse than with barley alone.

The influence of various degrees of alkalinity and of acidity were then examined. By the aid of the chart of Sørensen, mixtures of KH,PO, and Na,HPO, were made. Twentyfive grams of barley flour were weighed into an evaporating dish and 35 c.c. of one of the various solutions were added, together with one gram of Fleishman's compressed yeast. The whole was then intimately mixed, transferred to a cylinder and left to rise at 35° C. for one half hour, in the constant temperature room. Solutions of phosphates were used as follows: Ph=8.0, 7.6, 7.4, 7.0, 6.4, 6.0, 5.2, 4.6.

1 Cf. Upson's work. ·

The optimum rise was obtained at 5.2 and later it was determined that with solutions at Ph 5.0, the best results were obtained. Controls were conducted with wheat flour, using distilled water.

In passing it may be remarked that similar experiments with wheat flour have the optimum at a lower acidity than that given here for barley flour.

It has been supposed that there is a specific chemical effect in the phosphates, owing to the difference in phosphate composition in wheat and other gluten-bearing flours. Inasmuch as we are able to use lactic and acetic acids at Ph 5.0, it seems that the effect is rather one concerned with reaction.

After the dough had risen, the preparation was removed and mixed with ten grams of fresh barley flour, the whole kneaded well and transferred to a pyrex beaker which was placed in an electric baking oven for one hour at 220° C. Besides barley flour, we also used rice and potato flours, separately, but without improving the resulting bread.

The bread thus made is fairly good and greatly superior to that made from water preparations.

We repeated the experiment just described with barley, this time using 2 per cent. NaCl (introduced dry) in the dough. A much lighter loaf was obtained, the initial rise being greater and the subsequent dough on the second rising being more similar to that of wheat preparations. A good crust is formed and there is less sourness, characteristic of all barley breads.

=

It is apparent, then, that by maintaining a reaction approximating Ph 5 and a sodium chlorid content (added) of 2 per cent., barley flour may be utilized by itself to make a passing war bread. By suitable manipulation, we have little doubt that an experienced baker can derive a formula whereby an excellent bread can be produced at will.

LORRAINE L. LANDENBERGER, WITHROW MORSE

MICHAEL REESE HOSPITAL, CHICAGO