On the Pacific coast, wheat farmers have generally found that bluestone-treated seed escapes wholly or in part from soil infection. Bluestone solutions (1 pound to 4 or 5 gallons of water) are so strong that heavy loss in seed germination occurs. To prevent this loss, the bluestoned seed is dipped in a lime solution. This double dipping adds considerably to the cost and labor concerned in the seed treating process. Inquiries are frequently received requesting to know if the lime can not be mixed with the bluestone and but one dipping given. As the lime counteracts the effects of bluestone on smut spores, this process is not advisable.

In devising some means to meet the situation the writer devised tests using the lime sulphur-dip so universally used in spraying fruit trees for fungous pests. Preliminary tests with wheat and barley show the lime sulphur-dip at rather dilute solutions to be very effective against both stinking smut of wheat and covered smut of barley. As a thick coating of the dip adheres to the seed, it is quite effective against soil infection. The germ of seed wheat and barley dipped in a lime-sulphur solution even as strong as one part to one part of water gave, in these preliminary tests, no noticable deleterious effects on seed germination. If further more exhaustive tests confirm the preliminary ones, a fungicide which is much cheaper than bluestone and entirely lacking in destructiveness to the seed germ will have been secured.

UNIVERSITY OF California, BERKELEY, CAL.

W. W. MACKIE

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

A Text-book of Mycology and Plant Pathology. By JOHN W. HARSH BERGER. P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1012 Walnut St., Philadelphia, 1917. With 271 illustrations, vii + 779 pages.

Students as well as investigators in mycology and plant pathology will greatly welcome the appearance of the above named work, by Dr. Harshberger. This is perhaps the only American book of its kind which treats of mycology in its true relationship to plant pathol

ogy. The book is of special interest, as it is written by a man who combines the knowledge and the technique of the old and the young botanist. Dr. Harshberger's work is the result of twenty-seven years experience in teaching and in preparing men for the botanical profession.

Like all other of his works, Dr. Harshberger's present book is very exhaustive; indeed it may safely be called an encyclopedia of mycology and plant pathology. It contains a wealth of information all written in concise language. It is also abundantly illustrated, and the numerous references will be especially welcomed by students and investigators. A book of this nature should not be judged by some few imperfections, or errors, in spelling, but rather by its scope and its ability to cover the field in a precise way. In this the author seems to have succeeded.

The book is divided into four parts:

Part I. deals with systematic mycology. It is divided into twenty-one chapters in which the Myxomycetes, the Schizomycetes and the Eumycetes are considered at length. The Myxomycetes receive a considerable share of attention and emphasis is laid on the pathogenic forms. A complete bibliography is also appended. The discussion of the Schizomycetes is taken up in a similar fashion as the Myxomycetes. The pages dealing with the fungi are preceded by chapters on histology, chemistry, physiology, ecology, etc. A comprehensive treatment of enzymes in fungi is also given. The chapter on the geographic distribution of fungi will be appreciated by the plant pathologist. The distinctive features of the taxonomic chapters on the fungi is that emphasis is laid on the forms pathogenic to plants.

Part II. takes up a general consideration of plant pathology. The various forms of disease, the predisposing factors, the symptoms, etc., are very clearly set forth.

Part III. deals at first with a list of specific diseases of economic plants. These are taken up alphabetically and the reader is referred to a list of fairly extensive agricultural experiment station bulletins. The second part of

Part III. goes into detailed account of specific diseases of plants in which the hosts are also taken up alphabetically. Only those diseases which are of economic importance are considered. The doubtful ones, or those of little economic importance, are omitted. Here plant pathologists will find ground to differ with the author in his choice of those specific diseases which he considers most important. The survey in the chapter of non-parasitic, or physiologic, diseases will be appreciated by the student.

Part IV. takes up a detailed account of laboratory and teaching methods. Here the author incorporates much of his own methods and technique. This part will be found of partic

ular interest to the teacher of both undergraduate and graduate students. Part IV. is made up of forty-six lessons in which every phase of laboratory technique is elaborately and clearly set forth. Finally the book concludes with an appendix which considers the preparation of fungicides and insecticides, spray calendar, keys for determining species of Mucor, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Erysiphacea and the fleshy fungi.

The distinctiveness of the book is the extensive field which it covers in mycology and plant pathology. It stands by itself, in its difference from the average American text-book bearing on these subjects. The book fills a timely want, and it should find a place in every library of the teacher, investigator or student. J. J. TAUBENHAUS

TEXAS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION

THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS1

THE four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Royal College of Physicians of London is an event which can not be allowed to pass without comment. On September 23, 1518, Henry VIII. granted the charter by which the college was constituted. He did so, moved by the example of similar institutions in Italy and elsewhere, and by the instigation of Thomas Linacre and others of his own physicians, and of Wolsey his chancellor, 1 From the British Medical Journal.

with a view to the improvement and more orderly exercise of the art of physic, and the repression of irregular, unlearned and incompetent practitioners of that faculty. The college consisted of eight persons known as "elects," with power to elect from amongst themselves a President annually, and to choose the "most cunning and expert men to fill vacancies as occurred in their number. At the same time it was enacted that no person except a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, without dispensation, should be permitted to practise physics throughout England, unless he had previously been examined and approved by the

president and three of the elects. The first meetings of the college were held at Linacre's private house in Knightrider Street, the front portions of which, comprising a parlor below and a chamber above, used as a council room and library, were given to the college during Linacre's lifetime. These small premisesthe ground on which they stood only measuring about twenty-four square feet-continued to be used for nearly a hundred years. But in 1581 they were enlarged, and a capacious theater added, in which to deliver the lectures founded by Dr. Caldwell and Lord Lumley, in 1583. Dr. Foster was the first Lumleian lecturer. A botanical garden, under the supervision of Gerard, was also secured. Linacre, founder of the college, learned both as physician and scholar, was president until he died in 1524. Of distinguished successors and benefactors of the college during its first hundred years of existence the names of Clement (1544), professor of Greek at Oxford; of Wotton, the zoologist; of Caius (1555), linguist, critic, physician, naturalist, second founder of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, antiquarian and designer of the insignia of office still used by presidents; of William Gilbert (1600), author of "De Magnete" and first physicist of the college, naturally occur to us. The last meeting in the old college in Knightrider Street was on June 25, 1614; the first meeting in the new college, in Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, was on August 23, 1614. Here, in April, 1616, Harvey

delivered the Lumleian lectures in which he is supposed to have expounded his doctrine of the circulation of the blood; two years later the first Pharmacopæia Londinensis was issued by the college. The civil wars reduced the college to the greatest distress. Unable to pay an assessment by Parliament of five pounds per week, and its rent to St. Paul's, it was in danger of being sold by auction, when Dr. Baldwin Hamley came to the rescue, purchased house and garden himself, and with the utmost generosity presented them to his colleagues two years afterwards. Prosperity followed, for in 1653-4 the munificence of Harvey enriched the college with a museum, a "noble building of Roman architecture," stocked with valuable and curious contents, and a library of medical books, treatises on geometry, geography, astronomy, music, optics, natural history and travels. But this prosperity was not long continued. After Harvey's death in 1657, the treasury was nearly empty, lectures were suspended, large numbers of physicians were living and practising without a license within the liberty of the college, examinations were discontinued. The creation in 1664 by Sir Edward Alston of upwards of seventy honorary Fellows, both brought unlicensed practitioners under the authority of the college and replenished its coffers. But in 1665, during the great plague, most of the Fellows and officers of the college fled the city, and thieves broke in and stole the whole of the contents of the treasury chest. On September 5, 1666, the great fire consumed the whole of the college buildings; only the charters, annals, insignia, some instruments and portraits, and 140 printed books in the library were saved. The premises in Amen Corner were never rebuilt, and the college remained homeless until its new buildings in Warwick Lane, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, were opened without ceremony on May 13, 1674. This commodious and stately building occupied four sides of a quadrangle enclosing a large paved court, on the east side of which was erected at Sir John Cutler's expense a spacious anatomical theater. The

other sides of the quadrangle contained the library, coenaculum, censors' room and other public apartments. At the back of the college were the botanical garden, and in 1684 a noble library building was presented by the Marquess of Dorchester. Here the college stood for 150 years; all that remains of it now is the beautiful Spanish oak wainscoting, the gift of Hamley, which lines the Censors' Room in Pall Mall, and two colossal statues of Cutler and Charles II, which may be seen in the Guildhall Museum. At the end of 150 years the college buildings had become dilapidated, Warwick Lane was a slum, the population and fashion had moved westwards, and a more convenient situation for the Royal College of Physicians was a necessity. Mainly through the influence of Sir Henry Halford, a grant of land was obtained from the Crown at a cost of £6,000 in Pall Mall East, and on it the present college building, designed by Sir Robert Smirke, was erected and opened with great ceremony on June 25, 1825. The premises in Warwick Lane were sold for £9,000. One may regret their disappearance, and that it is no longer possible to people them with the shades of those who have made the history of medicine and of this famous college during 150 years of its life. The names of such are Mayerne, Glisson and Sydenham, exponents of clinical medicine, followed by Radcliffe, Garth, Arbuthnot, Freind, Sloane and Meade, and last but not least, William Heberden. All of these have made their mark in the history of medicine, and directly or indirectly have been associated with the history of the college. The quartercentenary of the Royal College of Physicians of London reminds us that, in spite of modern progress, we can not afford to neglect the learning of past ages.

SPECIAL ARTICLES SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE CAUSES OF BIOELECTRIC PHENOMENA

BIOELECTRIC phenomena constitute a group of facts for which adequate and satisfactory explanations have hitherto been lacking. It is my purpose in this paper to point out certain

significant correlations between these phenomena and the metabolic gradients which are now known to exist in organisms; and to propose an explanation of the former in terms of these gradients. The metabolic gradients were first demonstrated by Child in Planaria; subsequently he and his students extended the observations to include a large number of adult organisms, cells and embryos.1 This work has shown that the anterior, oral or apical end of organisms has the highest metabolic rate and that this rate decreases along the sagittal axis. A gradient in rate of metabolism therefore exists along this axis; and to a less extent along other axis of symmetry also. This fundamental discovery has furnished a basis for the interpretation of many hitherto entirely inexplicable biological facts, and I believe that it also throws light upon the nature of the bioelectric currents.

66

The term metabolism is too well understood to require definition; it commonly signifies the sum of chemical processes which results in the production of new protoplasm or other organic compounds, or of energy. Metabolic rate" simply means the rate at which these processes take place; and modern chemistry, particularly through the study of organic and other catalyzers, has taught us the supreme importance of rate in any chemical system. The metabolic rate is generally measured either by the rate at which the raw materials, particularly oxygen, for the reactions are used up; or by the rate of production of end-products, especially carbon dioxide. The extent to which a given mass of protoplasm is actually alive is determined by its metabolic rate; these chemical reactions, always building and destroying, are the very essence of the living; when they sink to a rate so low that only the most delicate means serve to detect them, the organism is practically lifeless, but when they burn intensely,

1 Child, "Individuality in Organisms," Univ. of Chicago Press, 1915.

2 Child, Jr. of Morph., XXVIII., p. 65; XXX., p. 1; Roux's Archiv, XXXVII., p. 136; Newman, Biol. Bull., XXXII., p. 314, are a few examples where such interpretation has been applied.

the most marvelous manifestations of protoplasm, such as thought, leap forth.

The following suggestions are by no means entirely new; similar ones have already been made by Waller, Child and Tashiro. In collaboration with Mr. A. W. Bellamy of this laboratory, I am collecting further data upon these matters, and the complete results, together with a more extended discussion of the literature, will appear later; but a sufficient number of facts are already known to justify a preliminary statement of the relation between metabolic conditions and differences of potential found in organisms.

1. Permanent Differences in Potential.-In a number of cases we know both the metabolic gradient and the permanent differences of electrical potential along the antero-posterior axis. Thus Mathews5 in 1903 discovered that the head of hydroids is electro-negative to the stem, and that anterior levels are electronegative to posterior ones. Later, Child demonstrated that in these animals the head or any anterior level has a higher metabolic rate than any posterior level. Hydes found

3 Alexander and Cserna, Biochem. Zeitsch., LIII., p. 106, have demonstrated that the oxygen consumption of the brain greatly exceeds that of any other part of the body.

4 Child, "Individuality in Organisms," p. 63; Tashiro, "A Chemical Sign of Life," Univ. of Chicago Press, 1917; Waller, "Signs of Life from their Electrical Aspect," London, 1903.

5 Am. Jr. of Physiol., VIII., p. 294.

6 SCIENCE, XXXIX., No. 993.

7 An additional statement regarding the metabolic gradient in hydroids would seem to be required owing to the recent paper of Garcia-Banus (Jr. Exp. Zool., XXVI., p. 265), who states that apical pieces of the stem of Tubularia do not regenerate oral hydranths faster than basal pieces. In the summer of 1914 at Woods Hole, while I was a student in Professor R. S. Lillie's class in

physiology, I performed this experiment with the

common tubularian hydroid found there, called at that time Parypha. I found the hydranths arising earlier on the apical pieces; the result was clear-cut and definite. The experiment has since been repeated at Woods Hole to my personal knowledge with the same result as mine. Driesch also (Roux's Archiv, IX., p. 130) found that oral