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1919.

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Lefevre, G. The introductory course in zoology. SCIENCE, n. s. 50: 429-431, Nov. 7, 1919. Livingston, B. E. Some responsibilities of botanical science. SCIENCE, n. s. 49: 199-207, Feb. 28, 1919.

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The reconstruction of elementary botanical teaching. New Phytologist, Dec., 1917. A series of papers.

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Aug. 22, 1919.
WILLIAM TRELEASE

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

THE BIOCHEMIST ON THE HOSPITAL STAFF

DURING the past few years there has been gradually evolving in the general mind, and particularly the medical mind, the idea that the chemist is actually something more than a druggist or a detector of arsenic. The present records of the efforts directed towards an elucidation of the reactions of the human organism in health and disease, along the lines of chemical investigation, are an achievement that by their very import, if not their voluminousness, have forcibly directed the attention of the medical profession to the possibility that here is a line of attack worthy of notice. The rapid progress being made is adding so much to the fundamental knowledge of how the organism carries on its activities, that the solution of the many problems being brought to light is most turbid in the minds of the chemical physician and he is turning to the biochemist for clarification. Scientific medicine to-day acknowledges the fundamental value of chemistry in the fight for the prevention and cure of disease; it recognizes now, as never before, the need of ascertaining the basic facts concerned in body reactions and that the satisfying of that need rests in the intensive application of biochemical methods to the study of the human organism. Outside of diabetes there is a general lack of definite information concerning the intricate processes going on, giving rise to, or accompanying pathological conditions, and there is opening up a larger opportunity for acquisition of this information through the open-hearted cooperation between physician and scientist that is now becoming evident.

In view of these facts and since there is an increasing number of hospitals that are coming to realize that the optimum treatment for their patients depends not only in having at hand the means of attaining all possible data, but also that the hospital should be the center for investigation, and are adding to their staffs men specially trained in biochemistry, it seems apropos to discuss briefly some of the points these new alliances are bringing up.

The average physician dumps all chemists into one class, leaving the biochemists undifferentiated, considers them analysts and mentally determines their status on the hospital staff as one a little lower than the plant engineer, but somewhat better than a nurse, although lacking even a nurse's conception of medicine.

Somewhere, though just where I do not recollect, I have read a discussion in which the distinction was drawn between the types of workers in chemistry. It was there brought out that whereas a chemist is always an analyst, an analyst need not necessarily be a chemist, since a chemist is inherently a thinker in chemistry. On the hospital staff it is the chemist that is needed and it is the chemical specialist, the biochemist, for just as in the medical profession there are specialists devoted to certain types of disorders, so have we of the chemical profession divided ourselves according as our inclinations and training have fitted us to pursue certain more or less well defined lines of endeavor. The efficient biochemist, however, must be not only well founded in information and ability to think in terms of all branches of chemistry, but he must also be familiarly acquainted with the principles of physics and general biology. This is merely the groundwork and foundation, on it there must be erected the superstructure of a knowledge of morphology, physiology, bacteriology, pathology and the phenomena of normal and disturbed body functions. Only one with such training can be of maximum service in the field of hospital activities. To a man 80 equipped the opportunities for usefulness are large, and the full utilization of his services

can not but resut in benefit to patients and science.

The question of what and how much routine analytical work should be placed on the shoulders of the biochemist is one of importance, and by routine analytical work is meant the regular and systematic chemical examination of every hospital patient. Routine work, it is true, must and should be done, for from such analyses it is possible to follow the progress of disease and the response to treatment. Moreover, it is from the accumulated mass data carefully correlated that the conclusions can be drawn leading to the understanding of fundamentals, but routine blood and urine analyses can be made by any skilled technician while it requires the cooperative efforts of the clinician and the medically trained biochemist to interpret the results. Now the biochemist being primarily trained for and adapted to research should not have his time so taken up with routine that he can give but meager attention to the outlining and carrying on of investigations. In fact I do not believe that this work should be a part of the duties of the biochemist, except in so far as the results are directly applicable to a certain specific problem, but that it should be done by a technician, leaving the biochemist's time for the investigatory cooperation essential for

progress.

The fundamental purpose of the hospital is the cure or relief of the patient, and it should be the aim of the biochemist as an integral part of the institution to plan his work to that end. He has two points of view that are synchronous as to ultimate effect but different in immediacy. The one line is intended to throw light on the present condition and progress of the patient under treatment; it is individual. Correlated with this is the group study of specific disturbance in various individuals with the aim of acquiring information as to the general processes occurring in the disorder. These are the immediate objects of study. In addition, he should have in mind and as an object of his attention investigations along the lines of basic phenomena not connected with any individual

or specific pathological condition, but more with the point of view of contributing information as to fundamental functioning. The immediate proposition looms the larger because it is the more pressing. But who will say which is the more important? Logical planning will result in such an intimate dove-tailing of both the immediate and the basic lines of effort that the perspective of time will afford a well founded understanding of the causes contributing to disease, which understanding will lay the path for cure and prevention.

"This can not be done nor can full development be obtained without a close cooperation of the other members of the hospital staff with the biochemist. And it almost goes without saying that this cooperation can not be effected unless the biochemist is equipped to understand the point of view of the clinician and is capable of giving to the clinician assistance in the working out of his problems. Progress can not be expected when the biochemist either by preference, or lack of opportunity to do otherwise, remains cooped up with his test-tubes and beakers knowing nothing of the patients save as numbered bottles of urine on which he makes his little tests. Consultations should be held at which the general outlines and progress of investigation should be discussed and opportunity afforded for the examination of any particular case necessitating a biochemical interpretation or study.

Complete independence should be allowed the biochemist in the outlining of his methods of procedure and the problems for investigation, always, however, seeking assistance and ready to give help when his specialized training fits him to be of service. His administrative duties should be confined to his own lines of activity and general laboratory supervision or directorship since it is in that field his capabilities have been developed. The instruction of nurses in the principles of physiological chemistry by the biochemist should be encouraged since the proper collection of specimens depends upon their intelligence. They can not be expected to have an appreciation of the precautions necessary in

collecting the material if they are set to do it as automatons and with no knowledge of the purposes involved.

In these days of ours the question of compensation is extraordinarily vital. The scientific specialist is such because he can not help it. His mental make-up forces him to spend his life in giving, not in getting. He is rarely a success in self-directed commercial enterprise. He has no inclination to enter such work unless driven by necessity, and then it is with repugnance, that he competes with his fellow-men in the accumulation of dollars. Rather does he live a life largely deprived of the creature comforts accorded those mentalities whose urge is acquisitional. But whose is the greater service is obvious. Why should not such workers be given compensation sufficient to allow them to have homes and more than bare necessities? Why should they be forced to derive their major joie de vivre in intellectual introspection? Is it because the work is of low value or is it because of sluggish appreciation and lack of self-advertising? Whatever the causes it is not right, but no matter how wrong it is we have men, and will continue to have men who will gladly devote themselves to science whatever the compensation. Nevertheless measures should be taken by properly organized associations, to so educate those necessary of education that future generations of scientists, if not this one, may receive an adequate income in recognition of their continued contributions to human welfare.

FREDERICK S. HAMMETT

PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL, PHILADELPHIA

CHARLES BUCKMAN GORING

FEW of the readers of SCIENCE will be familiar with even the name of Charles Goring. His time was largely spent as a

1 Goring was born in 1870 and died in 1919. He was a student and later a fellow of University College, London. He served on a hospital ship during the Boer War. At the time of his deathmet at his post combating the influenza epidemiche was Medical Officer in Chief at Strangeways

prison medical officer. His one monumental work, which may perhaps best be described as the biology of the convict, is still unfamiliar to all but a limited circle.

Goring's work was based on thousands of data and is stringently biometric in form, but he was no mere measurer, card shuffler and constant computer. He knew his convicts as the trained student of animal behavior knows his organisms-and better, for he had not merely their physical measurements and an intimate personal knowledge and evaluation of their mental characteristics but knew much of their ancestry and family associations. To Goring, measurements were inviolate-not to be juggled with, modified or discarded because they did not substantiate a popular theory. Better proof of this could not be found than the fact that the raw data for his book were set up before the calculations were well under way. Goring as a thoroughgoing biometrician believed that in many fields of research valid conclusions must rest upon the mathematical analysis of large masses of data. But in his research each constant was critically weighed against his own broad and intimate personal experience of the individual instances which constitute the mass.

I find it difficult to decide just what characteristic of Goring impressed me most when we were working together at the Biometric Laboratory ten years ago. Sometimes it was the steadfast scientific purpose which had supported the years of painstaking detail upon which his great book rests-detail scrupulously executed notwithstanding the fact that there was at times little prospect of its ever serving as a basis for constants and generalizations. Sometimes it was the breadth of interests, knowledge and sympathies of one whose work Prison, Manchester. Those who desire may find a portrait and a more adequate appreciation in Biometrika, Vol. XII., pp. 297-307, pl. 1, 1919.

2 Goring, C. B., "The English Convict; A Statistical Study." 444 pp. London, 1913. Abridged edition, Wyman and Co., 1915. The statistical work on this volume was carried out at the Biometric Laboratory with the cooperation of H. E. Soper and with the helpful suggestion and criticism of Professor Pearson,

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Secretary-Mr. John Blakeman, M.A., M.Sc.
British Cotton Industry Research Association,
108, Deansgate, Manchester.
Secretary-Miss B. Thomas.

British Empire Sugar Research Association,

Evelyn House, 62, Oxford Street, London, W.1. Secretary-Mr. W. H. Giffard. British Iron Manufacturers Research Association, Atlantic Chambers, Brazennose Street, Manchester.

Secretary-Mr. H. S. Knowles.

British Motor and Allied Manufacturers Research Association,

39, St. James's Street, London, S.W.1. Secretary-Mr. Horace Wyatt.

British Photographic Research Association, Sicilian House, Southampton Row, London, W.C.1.

Secretary-Mr. Arthur C. Brookes.

British Portland Cement Research Association,
6, Lloyd's Avenue, London, E.C.3.
Secretary Mr. S. G. S. Panisset, A.C.G.I.,
F.C.S.

British Research Association for the Woollen and

Worsted Industries,

Bond Place Chambers, Leeds. Secretary—Mr. Arnold Frobisher, B.Sc.

British Scientific Instrument Research Association, 26, Russell Square, W.C.1.

Secretary Mr. J. W. Williamson, B.Sc.

British Rubber and Tyre Manufacturers Research
Association,

consideration for forming Research Associations.

NATURAL GAS CONFERENCE

SECRETARY LANE, of the Department of the Interior, announces that the following appointments have been made for the committee of ten authorized by the resolution at the Natural Gas Conference, held under Secre

c/o Messrs. W. B. Peat & Co., 11, Ironmonger tary Lane's invitation at Washington, JanLane, E.C.2.

The Linen Industry Research Association,

3, Bedford Street, Belfast.

Secretary-Miss M. K. E. Allen.

Glass Research Association,

7, Seamore Place, W.1.

Secretary Mr. E. Quine, B.Sc.

British Cocoa, Chocolate, Sugar Confectionery, and
Jam Trades Research Association,

9, Queen Street Place, E.C.4. Secretary-Mr. R. M. Leonard.

Schemes for the establishment of Research Associations in the following industries have reached an advanced state of development.

RESEARCH ASSOCIATIONS APPROVED BY THE DE-
PARTMENT BUT NOT YET LICENSED BY THE
BOARD OF TRADE

uary 15, 1920: Van H. Manning, director, Bureau of Mines, chairman; John B. Corrin, The Reserve Gas Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; L. B. Denning, The Ohio Fuel Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; J. C. McDowell, Witchita Natural Gas Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; W. L. McCloy, The Philadelphia Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; John S. Rilling, Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Miss Edna N. White, American Home Economics Association, Detroit, Michigan; Art L. Walker, Chairman, Corporation Committee, Oklahoma City Oklahoma; F. W. Wozencraft, Mayor, Dallas, Texas; Samuel S. Wyer, Consulting National Gas Engineer, Columbus, Ohio; and Dr. I. C. White, state

British Music Industries Research Associa- geologist of West Virginia, Morgantown, tion. West Virginia.

British Refractory Materials Research Association.

British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association.

Scottish Shale Oil Research Association.

PROPOSED RESEARCH ASSOCIATIONS WHOSE MEMO-
RANDUM AND ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION ARE
UNDER CONIDERATION

British Launderers Research Association.
British Electrical and Allied Industries Re-
search Association.

British Aircraft Research Association.

INDUSTRIES ORGANIZATIONS ENGAGED IN PREPARING
MEMORANDUM AND ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

Silk Manufacturers.

Leather Trades.

Master Bakers and Confectioners.

In addition to the industries included above, certain others are engaged in the preliminary

The functions of this committee will be to consider the wastes now going on in natural gas and the relations between the natural gas companies and the consuming public. The committee has been carefully selected from a number of nominations with a view to representing equally the interests of the public and the natural gas companies. Dr. Manning writes:

The development and utilization of the most ideal fuel known to man-natural gas-has been accompanied by almost inconceivable wastes. Although these wastes have been greatly reduced during recent years, they have by no means been eliminated and the country to-day is paying the penalty of its sins by the depletion and even exhaustion of many of the formerly prolific gas supplies. These wastes have occurred in the fields where the gas is produced; in the lines through which the gas is transported; and from the cooking stoves, furnaces, boiler plants, etc., where the gas is ultimately consumed.

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