termediate convalescence, a severe attack of bronchitis, due to exposure through attending a professional consultation, developed into a pneumonia with pleurisy and empyema, necessitating surgical drainage; and although he had been cheerful three days before his death, the end was gravely apprehended by those around him. He is survived by his widow, Lady Osler, and two brothers, his only son having been killed in the war.

Sir William Osler, the son of Rev. F. L. Osler of Falmouth, England, was born at Bond Head, Province of Ontario, Canada, on July 12, 1849. A medical graduate of McGill University (1872) with the customary post graduate study in the London clinics and German universities, he became lecturer and professor of the institutes of medicine at McGill in 1874 and easily rose, without stress or undue effort, to the top of his profession. In succession, he was professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (1884-9) and the Johns Hopkins University (18891904), was appointed Regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford in 1904 and received his baronetcy in 1911. On July 11, 1919, his seventieth birthday was honored by the presentation of two anniversary volumes made up of contributions by English and American colleagues. Due to delays in printing, the completed volumes reached him only a few days before his death.

Of Osler's scientific work, it may be said that no great physician has been more firmly grounded in the fundamental disciplines of his calling. Of the arduous years of postmortem work at Montreal the Pathological Reports of the Montreal General Hospital (1876-80) are a permanent record, as also the eight editions of the great text-book on Practice of Medicine (1892), which has been translated into French, German, Spanish and Chinese. The disciple of Morgagni and Virchow is equally apparent in the hundreds of clinical papers, the larger monographs in Osler's "Modern Medicine" (1907-10), the Gullstonian lectures on malignant endocarditis (1885), and the separate treatises on the cerebral palsies of children (1889), chorea (1894), abdominal tumors (1895), 1 SCIENCE, September 12, 1919, p. 244.

angina pectoris (1897), and cancer of the stomach (1900). From the start he did much original investigation of high quality. At the age of twenty-five (1874), he described the blood platelets associated with the name of Bizzozero, and defined their status as the third corpuscle of the blood and their relation to the formation of thrombi. Such early papers as those on the blood in pernicious anemia (1877), overstrain of the heart (1878), fusion of the semi-lunar valves (1880) reveal the born clinical and pathological observer. Osler was a profound student of all modes of aneurism, of tuberculosis, of typhoid fever, of disorders of the circulation. He was the first to emphasize the relation between mycotic aneurism and mycotic endocarditis, first described the ball-valve thrombus at the mitral orifice, the visceral complication of erythema multiforme (1895), chronic cyanosis with polycythemia, known as Vaquez' disease (1895), multiple telangiectasis (1901), the erythematous spots in malignant endocarditis (1908), and he discovered the parasite of verminous bronchitis in dogs (filaria Osleri, 1877). But to sense the magnitude of Osler's clinical work, it must be taken by and large in the 730 titles of the recently published Osler Bibliography (1919).

At the farewell banquet given him in New York in 1904, Osler said that he desired to be remembered in a single line: "He taught clinical medicine in the wards." He found his great opportunity when he became physician to the Johns Hopkins Hospital. During the six years intervening between the opening of the hospital (1889) and the beginning of undergraduate instruction in medicine (1893), Osler blocked out the arrangements for a graded whole-time upper resident staff of men of exceptional promise, a lower resident staff of one year internes, careful instruction in case-taking and clinical laboratory work for third year students and the appointment of fourth year students as "clinical clerks," in actual charge of patients in hospital, for three months each. The feeling of confidence and of personal responsibility acquired by these advantages was further strengthened by assigning advanced pupils to

teach extempore, to read and report on foreign literature, to cultivate the history of their profession. In his Saturday night meetings at his home in West Franklin Street, his aim with young students was to make good physicians of them, to make good men out of them, to teach them to think for themselves and to be themselves. As Dr. H. M. Thomas has said, Osler "put the students in the wards, but he did not leave them there; he stayed with them"; and he adds: "What good there is in me as a teacher and a physician I owe to him." This is the common sentiment, that he took his students with him into the upper reaches of their profession and the broad sunshine of actual life. Only Astley Cooper or Carl Ludwig could have produced such a train of loyal disciples; only Pasteur could have inspired such universal regard and affection.

Space permits but a passing reference to Osler's work on the history of medicine, to which, through his personal interest and his many unique contributions, he gave a greater impetus than any other; to his civic activities, his labors in behalf of medical libraries, his splendid service to his country in wartime. His great collection of original texts and documents relating to discoveries and advances in the science and art of medicine, the hobby of his later years, was all but completed as to items, but the big human touch which would have made its catalogue one of the unique things in medical bibliography could only have been given by Osler himself. Essentially English in character, Osler had, through his forebears, Cornish and Spanish elements in his composition, easily sensed in the "hauntings of Celtism" in his ringing eloquent voice, the suggestion of the hidalgo in his slender, aristocratic figure, the cleancut features and the tropical brown eyes. His was the longish head of the man of action, the active practitioner against disease and pain. Osler's warm glance and utter friendliness of manner told how naturally fond he was of people. He had the gift of making almost any one feel for the moment as if he were set apart as a valued particular friend, and so became, in effect, a kind of universal

And lived itself, and made us live.

Many are the tales of the clever hoaxing and practical joking put over by Osler on his boon companions and professional fellows in his salad days, but the chaffing was carried on in such a jolly spirit that it left no sting behind. In his address on the male climacteric, delivered on the occasion of his retirement from the Johns Hopkins faculty, he found to his dismay that he had chaffed a whole nation. The hazards incurred by his chance reference to Trollope's fable about chloroforming at sixty" have been set forth at undue length in the public press and even on the stage. But Osler's reasoning about the comparative uselessness of men at sixty, in the face of the imposing array of exceptions in Longfellow's Morituri Salutamus," was obviously an expression of his essential preference for and innate sympathy with the oncoming race of younger people, whose worth he had sensed many times over in his beloved pupils.

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The last two years of Sir William Osler's life were clouded by the death of his only son, Lieutenant Revere Osler, an artillery officer and a youth of great promise, who was killed in the action about Ypres in 1917. This he bore bravely, concealing his grief from his friends and busying himself with his own duties to the sick and wounded, but, the war at an end, his loneliness increased in spite of the companionship of his wife and his evergenerous hospitality to American officers and physicians. Toward the end, his intimates began to realize that he had "trod the upward and the downward slope" and was done with life. Up to that time he had remained cheer

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

A BOTANIC SCHOOL IN REGENT'S PARK

THE report of the committee appointed last April by Lord Ernle, the former president of the British Board of Agriculture, to consider what steps should be taken to improve the usefulness of the Royal Botanic Society in London, is now published and an abstract is given in the London Times. The members of the committee, all of whom sign the report, were: Lieutenant-Colonel Sir David Prain, F.R.S., director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (chairman); Sir W. H. Dunn; SurgeonGeneral Sir A. Keogh, Imperial College of Science and Technology; Sir Malcolm Morris; Major R. C. Carr; Mr. Morton Evans, joint secretary of the Office of Woods; Mr. H. J. Greenwood, L.C.C.; and Professor F. W. Keeble, F.R.S., Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and Royal Horticultural Society; with Mr. G. C. Gough, B.Sc., secretary.

The society was incorporated in 1839, and

plant is essential; (3) a center for teaching in horticulture, the students of which could receive their necessary training in pure science at existing London colleges; (4) courses in school gardening, at times suitable for teachers in elementary, continuation, and other schools. In addition, the committee consider that the gardens might extend their present utility as a center from which colleges and botany schools could be supplied with material for teaching and research, and in which students could make use of the existing facilities for the study of systematic botany.

In an appendix the committee deal with the financial side of the scheme. They consider that the suggestions need not entail, in their initial stages, any very great expenditure. Buildings should be of a temporary nature and of not more than two stories, and might be erected near the present greenhouses. After giving details of the laboratories and rooms required, the committee suggest that the staff should consist of the following:

A director at a salary of £800 to £1,000, able to cooperate with the teachers of botany in London, and with a knowledge of economic problems or of vegetable physiology. An assistant director, salary £500 to £700, to be appointed after the director. His knowledge should supplement that of the director-e. g., if the former be an economic botanist the latter should be a physiological botanist. An assistant, salary £250 to £400, to act as curator of the museum and librarian, with a general

Park until 1870. This lease was renewed by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in 1870, and in 1901 at an increased rental. present lease terminates in 1932.

The

The committee have formed the opinion that the Royal Botanic Society could be made more useful both from the scientific and educational point of view by the establishment of: (1) A school of economic botany, at which a knowledge of the economic plants and their products including those of tropical regions, might be obtained; (2) an institute which might be made a center for research, more especially in plant physiology where the living

The committee estimate the total cost of the staff, with attendants, etc., at £3,000 to £3,500 per annum; the cost of the buildings, £4,000; and the cost of equipment, including books, plants, etc., £500.

THE ATTITUDE OF GERMAN PHYSICIANS TOWARDS INHUMAN ACTION

It will be remembered that a protest signed by M. Calmette and four other members of scientific organizations who had remained at Lille during the occupation by the Germans,

charged acts of inhumanity, saying in conclusion: "The high command in Germany willed the war, but the people in arms approved it, and resolutely waged war with the most ferociously cruel means, even the physicians with the army doing the most odious acts without a word of excuse, regret or pity." The Deutsche, medizinische Wochenschrift of April 10, 1919, as quoted in the Journal of the American Medical Association, related that the matter was brought up in the Berlin Medical Society, and Calmette's protest and the resolutions voted thereon by the Académie de médecine at Paris were discussed. Dr. Fuld offered a resolution that the society should go on record as expressing its regret at such happenings as were specified in the Calmette protest, but his suggestion was opposed by Orth and others, the speakers saying that there was no proof of the truth of the statements made by Calmette, and no voting should be done on a matter of which only one side had been presented. Finally a committee was appointed to report after obtaining an official copy of the resolutions that had been adopted by the Académie. The Wochenschrift of November 6, 1919, relates that this committee recently presented its report. It was in the form of a resolution which was adopted without a dissenting voice. The members of the committee were Fuld, Kraus, Krause, Morgenroth and Schwalbe, the latter the editor of the Wochenschrift. The resolution in translation reads:

The Berlin Medical Society is not in a position to pass judgment on the Manifesto of the Lille professors and the Académie de Médicine and on the published justification issued by the German authorities, entitled "Lille under German Rule and the Criticism of the Foe." But the society does not hesitate to declare openly that it condemns in the most unqualified manner all inhuman actions, wherever, whenever, and by whomsoever they may be committed. This attitude corresponds to the spirit of medicine always held high by the German medical profession, that really international spirit to which we are loyal and to which we assume all other physicians are loyal wherever they may be and to whatever nation they may belong.

CONFERENCE ON WASTE OF NATURAL GAS

A PUBLIC conference of governors, public utility commissioners, state geologists, home economic experts, natural gas companies, owners and officials, and appliance manufacturers has been called by Secretary of the Interior Lane to meet under the auspices of the Bureau of Mines at the Interior Department Building, Washington on January 15, to discuss the waste of natural gas in this country both by consumers and gas companies. As a result of the work of the experts of the bureau on this question, it is declared that in using natural gas the consumers through faulty appliances obtain an efficiency of about 13 per cent. from a gas cook stove, 25 per cent. from a house-heating furnace, and 10 per cent. from a hot-water heater, although in good practise these efficiencies can be trebled. Dr. Van H. Manning, director of the Bureau of Mines, writes in regard to the purposes of the conference:

Domestic consumers waste more than 80 per cent. of the gas received. The efficiency of most cooking and heating appliances could be trebled. By making natural gas worth saving the 2,400,000 domestic consumers in the United States could get the same cooking and heating service with one third the gas; that is, make one foot of gas do the work of three and greatly delay the day when the present supplies will be exhausted and consumers must go back to more expensive manufactured gas.

It is time for the public to take a new viewpoint on the waste of natural gas. It is time for the domestic consumer to realize that his duty is not done when he cries out against the flagrant wastes occurring in the gas fields and demands of his government that such wastes be abated; he must realize that he himself is likewise at fault and that it is time for him to set his own house in order. Furthermore, the domestic consumer must realize that these wastes do not concern him alone, and consequently he has not the right, merely because he pays for the gas, to employ it in any manner that pleases him, no matter how wasteful. Natural gas is a natural resource in which every inhabitant of this country has an equity. Those who waste the gas do so at the expense of those who would use it efficiently. Natural gas is not replaced by nature, and in comparison with the life

of the nation the duration of the supply will be brief.

The public has a right, therefore, to demand that this natural asset be used to the greatest advantage of all and that no one be allowed to waste it. Natural gas in each ctiy is a community asset and every consumer has a right to demand that wasteful use shall be prohibited in the interest of the public service. This is particularly important during cold spells in the winter when the supply is insufficient and actual suffering may occur. Clearly, it is not right that any consumer suffer at such times because of the extravagance and waste of other consumers, even though they are willing to pay for the gas wasted. Nor can the citizens justify demands for better service from the public utilities without making provision to correct abuses in their own homes. It must be recognized that the public has been and is to-day just as much a party to the crime of wasting this natural resource as are the companies that produce and market it.

H. Bragg, six lectures adapted to a juvenile auditory on The World of Sound; Sir John Cadman, two lectures on (1) Modern Development of the Miner's Safety Lamp and (2) Petroleum and the War; Professor G. Elliot Smith, three lectures on The Evolution of Man and the Early History of Civilization; Professor Ernest Wilson, two lectures on Magnetic Susceptibility; Professor Arthur Keith, four lectures on British Ethnology: The Invaders of England; Professor A. E. Conrady, two lectures on Recent Progress in Photography; Professor A. H. Smith, two lectures on Illustrations of Ancient Greek and Roman Life in the British Museum; Lieutenant-Colonel E. Gold, two lectures on The Upper Air; Sir F. W. Dyson, Astronomer Royal, three lectures on The Astronomical Evidence bearing on Einstein's Theory of Gravitation; and Sir J. J. Thomson, six lectures on Positive Rays. The Friday evening discourses will begin on Friday, January 16, 1920, at 9 o'cock, when Sir James Dewar will deliver a discourse on Low-temperature Studies. Succeeding discourses will probably be given by Sir C. A. Parsons, Mr. S. G. Brown, Professor W. M. Bayliss, Dr. E. J. Russell, Mr. W. B. Hardy, the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, Professor J. A. Fleming, Mr. E. McCurdy, Sir J. J. Thomson, and others.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

AT a meeting of the Société de Pathologie exotique at the Institut Pasteur of Paris, held on December 10, Dr Simon Flexner of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, in New York, was elected an associate member. Dr. Flexner was also elected to associate membership in the Société Royale des Sciences Médicales et Naturelles of Brussels, at a meeting held on December 1, and to the Société Belge de Biologie of Brussels, at its meeting of December 6. On December 22, Dr. Flexner was made a corresponding member of the Bataafsch Genootschap der Proefondervindelijke Wijsbegeerte of Rotterdam, Holland.

OFFICIAL notice has been issued by the French Academy of Sciences of the award of