the centralization of influence of chemical science, both pure and applied, is ever deemed desirable or necessary, it should be inspired through cooperative action of the world's scientific chemical organizations and not by governments through political channels.

The American Chemical Society does not approve any world centralization of control of chemistry and believes that the future progress of chemistry can best be served as heretofore by harmonious cooperation of national organizations.

The society specifically disclaims any discourtesy to the organizers of the present movement, but believes the underlying principle to be so detrimental to continued international cooperation that it would be lacking in probity if it did not make its judgment known.

After a few questions it was moved and carried that the council approve the advice given by the executive committee. The motion was then carried, without dissenting vote, that the secretary be directed to inform those government officials before whom the question of the office of international chemistry might come of the society's position.

The report of Dean Wendt, director of the first session of the Institute of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, was presented and accepted with thanks to all those who had been active in furthering the interests of the institute.

At the Richmond meeting it was requested that a by-law be framed regarding the Endowment Fund and the following By-law No. 22 was adopted: The Endowment Fund of the society shall, Article 4, Sec. 2, of the Constitution of the Society, be collected and administered in two parts: (1) A permanent fund, the income of which alone may be expended only to help meet the society's constantly growing need for funds to record the results of chemical research in its publications; and (2) a revolving fund limited to $100,000 to insure the publication of successive decennial indices to Chemical Abstracts, the sales of which shall be credited to the fund until the $100,000 has been reached or replenished. Any excess above $100,000 in the Revolving Fund at the end of any fiscal year may be used for the same purposes as the income of the permanent fund.

The report of the executive committee made by direction of the council at the Richmond meeting concerning a proposal that an Institute for Chemical Education be established was presented and referred to the society's committee of chemical education. The report in part follows: At the Richmond meeting the council referred to the executive committee for consideration and report the recommendation of the committee on chemical education that there be approved an Institute of Chemical Education. Although the resolution specifies that in all financial details such

an institute shall be subject to final approval by the directors and in other matter to the approval of the executive committee or the council, the committee feels that as referred to it details concerning such an institute are as yet too nebulous to enable intelligent action to be taken. While it is understood that the discussion of such a research institute, both in the senate of chemical education and in the committee on chemical education, centered around the tentative plan published in the Journal of Chemical Education in January, 1927, it has been stated in conversation by several members both of the senate and of the committee that there is a lack of agreement with respect to the plan published. However, resulting discussion has brought forward several points worthy of further consideration.

Therefore, while the executive committee feels that the matter is not in a form sufficiently definite to enable it to give either a negative or an affirmative answer, it has seemed best to present in this report to the council a suggestion for the initiation of work in which we are all interested, with the recommendation that the committee on chemical education give it careful study and consideration, with the hope that from it will come a more definite plan upon which the council and the directors can take action.

A new amendment to the constitution was proposed whereby there would be added to the list of officers a president-elect who, at the end of one year, would automatically become president of the society. While president-elect he would serve upon the board of directors, the executive committee, and as a member of the council, thereby gaining an insight into the affairs of the society before assuming the responsibility of the presidency. This suggestion was automatically referred to a committee to be appointed by the president and which will later report to the council.

The council stood in respectful silence in memory of members deceased since the spring meeting. These included the following: F. T. Bayles, of Indianapolis, Ind.; Bertram B. Boltwood, of Yale University; J. G. Edward Cullmann, Lock Haven, Pa.; Edward H. Darby, Rome, N. Y.; Herbert M. Hill, Buffalo, N. Y.; Norman E. Holt, London, England; Victor Lenher, University of Wisconsin; C. F. Mabery, Case School of Applied Science (retired); H. P. Talbot, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Geoffrey Weyman, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

The council accepted the invitation of the Minnesota Section, the headquarters of which are in Minneapolis, to hold the annual or autumn meeting in that city in

1929.

CHARLES L. PARSONS, Secretary

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REFLECTIONS OF A CHEMIST1

ANTHROPOLOGISTS divide the era of human existence into ages according to the material of the implements used during a given period-the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Far be it from my thoughts to dispute the correctness of this classification, but it does seem a misrepresentation or a wrong characterization to continue the present, or even the preceding, century in the iron age. With the advent. of the twentieth century, at the latest, the count of a new age begins. What shall be the name of this age? Your reply may well be anticipated-chemistry. Not your partiality or mine prompts this reply. It is the verdict of facts, for the advances from the stone to the bronze and from the bronze to the iron age are really the results of the progress of the art of chemistry.

The rôle chemistry is playing in the world affairs is too well known to require elaboration. In its broadest embrace-colloidal, catalytic, biological, therapeutic and what not-chemistry is the moving principle of this world of ours. It is nothing less than life and death! We all know the wonders chemistry has accomplished within the short space of time it has been given a systematic unprejudiced trial. These accomplishments and the potentialities of chemical science have also been well advertised, perhaps a little too much. The chemically untutored will expect too much and too soon, with resulting disappointment and reflection on the science and its followers.

IMPORTANCE OF PURE SCIENCE

A far more important problem and one requiring our immediate and undivided attention is so-called "pure chemistry." I should rather like to call it "science of chemistry” in contradistinction to the practical application of chemistry which would be more correctly designated as the "art of chemistry."

Pure science is the protoplasm of applied science. It is the brick and mortar of our sky-scraping buildings of industry and commerce. Our civilization of which we are so proud, the comforts of life we are enjoying, are wholly built on discoveries emanating from the search for scientific truths, from the pursuit of science for the sake of the science itself. As Secretary Hoover has very tersely put it, "It is in the soil

1 Presidential address delivered at the seventy-fourth meeting of the American Chemical Society, Detroit, Mich., September 5 to 10, 1927.

of pure science that are found the origins of all of our modern industries and commerce."

The relationship between the "science" of chemistry and its varied and multitudinous applications is quite apparent to the chemist, but one or two of the thousands of examples may be cited here. About one hundred and twenty years ago, Sir Humphry Davy, in his pursuit of scientific knowledge for the sake of knowledge, discovered a method of separating the "refractory" metals potassium and sodium from their combinations. Based on this fundamental discovery, Hall, an American, and Heroult, a Frenchman, prepared the metal aluminum. But for the availability of this metal, aviation would still have been a midsummer night's dream. This metal has also added immensely to family happiness. Aluminum kitchen utensils are easy to wash and keep clean, making less work in the household and consequently stabilizing domestic felicity.

This year is the sesquicentennial of the revelation of a simple and great scientific truth. This revelation, known to few and appreciated by still fewer, is the foundation of a very live branch of the applied science of chemistry. In 1777, a French chemist, immortal Lavoisier, enunciated the principle of exchange of gases in respiration. He demonstrated that oxidation in the body and ordinary combustion are analogous processes. This simple scientific discovery marks the real beginning of the science of metabolism. This offspring science of Lavoisier's investigation is, to be sure, still in its infancy, but it is of incalculable importance. It is the very foundation of our existence. What blessings are in store for future generations when this science will have grown to manhood? Disease may then be an unknown term.

We are living on the scientific researches of a hundred or more years ago. We are plucking the fruit of trees of knowledge planted by our forebears. We have worked hard and fast to get all we can out of the funds of discoveries of past centuries, but we can not much longer go on harvesting without planting. We owe to posterity what past generations have provided for us. Shall we fail in our duty and shall we go back on our indebtedness? Our country is spending large sums of money to make available and to extract all the good from the accumulated stores of science, but we are slow to replenish these stores for future generations with fresh materials.

Nature is loath to reveal her secrets. She yields her treasures of knowledge only to those who have consecrated themselves to their quest. No scientific discovery has ever been made by accident or overnight. Archimedes spent many a sleepless hour before he discovered the simple law of displacement of liquids -specific gravity. The falling of an apple did not

drop the laws of gravitation into Newton's head. It took him years of hard and patient labor to investigate and propound this law. Nor did the ring formula of benzene come to Kékulé in a dream.

Scientific discovery is the product of three elements -effort, time and genius. Genius is a gift Heaven rarely bestows upon us. We can not bank on it. But we have learned from the laws of physical chemistry that the lack in one factor can be made up by increasing the other. Owing to the enormous benefits we are deriving from scientific discoveries bequeathed to us in the past, we, especially in this country, are in a position to increase the effort factor in the equation. OF CHEMISTRY

THE "PHILOSOPHY

The significance of chemistry in life processes and its relation to health and disease are beginning to dawn upon us. The achievements and potentialities of the science in peaceful pursuits are becoming recognized and appreciated. Of its force and potency in war we need not be reminded. In our pursuits of the material advantages of chemistry we are liable to overlook and forget its spiritual side, its cultural and educational qualities. educational qualities. Education and culture, terms so commonly used, are but incompletely understood and still less definable. Although at times the conception of culture is purposely corrupted, education misinterpreted and pseudo-cultures substituted and worshipped, honesty and truth are a priori the first and last prerequisites of genuine culture and education. The first, uppermost and last principle in chemistry is veracity and honesty. Said Goethe, "The history of a science is the science itself." The history of chemistry clearly shows that success results when truth, and truth only, is courted and adhered to. Disappointment and failure to themselves, their friends, if any they had, and in the long run to the world at large, have followed those alchemists and their ilk— who pursued the dishonest method of making gold. The names of some of these have survived in history only as object lessons of ridicule. But immortality to themselves, and untold treasures of genuine gold to the world, have come to those who followed the truthful path of science. The first commandment in the curriculum of the study of chemistry is honesty and truth. Such is the irresistible force of this precept in our science that when a student fails to heed it he is automatically eliminated.

Some classes of business people-though to be sure they are back numbers, and in the minority-maintain that chemists make poor business men, because they are too honest and truthful-an unconscious tribute to the science and the high culture of its propounders and followers.

Besides the material advantages it brings to the

world, chemistry is a truly "philosophical" science, in the sense of philosophy as conceived and defined by the great, and pure philosophical minds of Socrates, Plato and Seneca. To them philosophy is to teach men to form their souls; knowledge is to be sought for the good of the mind. Our science preeminently fulfils these requirements. Knowledge and contemplation of chemical phenomena, the very varied manifestations of the science, and the subtle and wonderful forms it assumes can not fail to uplift the soul and broaden and purify the mind.

THE CHEMIST'S EDUCATION

The education and training the industrial chemist should have to make him fit and competent in his career is receiving much attention, both from educators and industrialists. Because of the great share of responsibility that is more and more devolving upon the chemist, the importance of this question is self-evident. But in our zeal to hit the spot we are perhaps shooting a little over the mark. The tendency in our curriculum is to stress the applied and industrial chemical courses. I very much doubt that this path will lead to the desired goal. Let me repeat that the industrial achievements of the chemist have resulted from the inspiration he received from his knowledge of the science. Our great and well-known chemical engineers of to-day have been raised on the undiluted milk of the pure science.

Just as in the nutrition of the body a properly balanced food diet must be maintained to insure health and normal development, so it is with the education of the chemist. He must be given a carefully balanced training in the science of chemistry and its application. And I am of the opinion there is decidedly less danger when the ration is increased in the science than the reverse.

The greatest names known to science, and to scientific professions, have not during their college careers specialized in the fields they made famous. Overspecialization in youth narrows the mind and stunts its development. Give the chemist student the tissue-building material, the fundamentals of science, impart to him its spirit; then when he goes out to accomplish his life work he will shape and mold the materials according to the need of time and place and will breathe life into them. As in the words of Lowell:

New occasions teach new duties;

Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, Who would keep abreast of truth.

GEORGE D. ROSENGARTEN

DOES THE NET ENERGY VALUE OF
FOOD DEPEND UPON THE PUR-
POSE FOR WHICH IT IS USED
IN THE BODY?

THROUGHOUT his work on the net energy values of feeds for cattle, Armsby1 has continually kept in mind the probability that the net energy value of a feed varies with the nature of its disposition in the body, for example, varying when used for fattening or for milk production. This probability of a variable utilization of food energy was based in his mind upon the difference in composition of the products formed, indicating differences in the metabolic reactions concerned in the use of food in the basal metabolism and in its conversion into tissue, fat, milk, etc. In the case of milk production, for instance, certain conversions of nutrients are considered as occurring with no loss of energy as heat, while the conversion of carbohydrates to fat is supposed to involve a definite heat liberation. This conception appears to be equivalent to the assumption that the heating effect of food on the animal is determined to a considerable extent by the chemical reactions to which it is subjected after absorption, since the use to which the food is put could obviously have no effect upon the reactions occurring within the alimentary canal.

This conception of Armsby seems to be quite generally held among those laboratories in this country and Europe that are doing calorimetric work upon farm animals, and a number of experiments recently appearing in the literature2 have been specifically concerned with the relative utilization of the energy of farm feeds in maintenance, fattening and milk production.

It becomes a matter of importance, therefore, to consider what experimental evidence may be cited in favor of the belief that the stimulating effect of ingested food upon animal metabolism is due to the nature of the metabolic reactions to which it is subjected and whether some other conception may not be more readily defended. The theory appears to assume that certain metabolic reactions liberate energy which can be used in maintaining cellular life and activity before being dissipated as heat, while 1 Armsby, H. P., "The Nutrition of Farm Animals,'' New York, 1917, pp. 361, 395, 497-8, 563.

2 Hanson, N., Kungl. Landtbruksakademiens Handlingar och Tidskrift, 1923; Fries, J. A., Braman, W. W., and Cochrane, D. C., U. S. Dept. Agr. Bul. 1281, 1924; Forbes, E. B., Fries, J. A., Braman, W. W., and Kriss, M., J. Agr. Res., 1926, xxxiii, 483; Mølgaard, H., "New Views regarding the Scientific Feeding of Dairy Cattle,” Copenhagen.

other metabolic reactions liberate sensible heat only. The latter type of reactions only would be involved in the specific dynamic effect of food. This conception is essentially identical with that put forward by Rubner3 twenty-five years ago. However, Rubner's theory resulted more as a revulsion against the older theory of Zuntz that the heating effect of food was due solely to the work of digestion, absorption and excretion, than as a probable interpretation of certain specific experimental data. The logic that Rubner used in defending the theory is not convincing at the present time.

In more recent times, Lusk has accumulated much evidence inconsistent with Rubner's theory. In the case of the specific dynamic action of amino acids, Lusk has shown that the reactions of deamination and urea formation are not involved, since two amino acids, glutamic acid and aspartic acid, exert no specific dynamic action in the body, although evidence of their deamination was obtained. Furthermore, although glycine and alanine exert powerful dynamic effects, the products of their deamination, glycollic and lactic acids, exert only inconsiderable effects upon heat production.5 Lusk has also found that, under certain conditions, the specific dynamic effect of glycine may be as great as the total gross energy content of the amino acid, a result quite unexplainable on the basis of Rubner's theory.

With regard to the specific dynamic effect of glucose, it has been shown by Anderson and Lusk that the ingestion of 70 gms of glucose by a working dog is without effect upon its heat production, although in the same dog at rest a very marked effect is produced. In both cases, oxidation of glucose occurred, and hence, according to Rubner's theory, the specific dynamic effect should be the same. Baumann and Hunt' observed a definite effect of the ingestion of 25 gms of glucose in the normal rabbit, but no effect in the thyroidectomized rabbit, although with both groups of animals oxidation of glucose was occurring as indicated by the respiratory quotient.

The fact that the ingestion of small amounts of foods may produce no effect on heat production is significant in this connection. According to Rubner's theory, the specific dynamic effect of a food material should be proportional to the amount ingested when

3 Rubner, M., "Die Gesetze des Energieverbrauchs bei der Erhähnrung," Leipzig and Vienna, 1902, pp. 356-407. 4 Lusk, G., J. Biol. Chem., 1915, xx, 555; Atkinson, H. V., and Lusk, G., Ibid., 1918, xxxvi, 415.

5 Lusk, G., J. Biol. Chem., 1921, xlix, 453.

6 Anderson, R. J., and Lusk, G., J. Biol. Chem., 1917, xxxii,

421.

7 Baumann, E. J., and Hunt, L., J. Biol. Chem., 1925, lxiv, 709.

it is being used for the same purpose. However, Lusk has found that his experimental dogs showed no response to the ingestion of 10 or 20 gms of glucose, although with 50 to 70 gms marked increases in heat production were observed. Similarly, it has been shown that the ingestion of a small breakfast by human subjects does not appreciably affect a subsequent basal metabolism determination.8

Among human subjects there are certain pathological conditions, such as certain types of obesity, certain diseases resulting from endocrine deficiencies and certain neuroses, in which the specific dynamic effect of food is either non-existent or distinctly subnormal. To explain this situation on the basis of Rubner's theory would necessitate the assumption that in these disorders the metabolic reactions are markedly abnormal and are all of the type in which liberated energy can be completely utilized in covering the energy requirements of the tissues. The improbability of this assumption requires no elaboration.

Finally, if the specific dynamic action of food were due to the metabolic reactions to which it is subjected, one would expect that it could be calculated from the composition of the food, its digestibility and the average heating effects of the different nutrients of which it is composed. However, Armsby10 has shown quite conclusively that this can not be done by any rational method in the case of cattle. Similarly, in the case of dogs, the heating effect of a protein can not be predicted from its amino acid constitution.11

From these considerations, it appears that Rubner's theory of the specific dynamic effect of food is not in agreement with many of the observed facts of energy metabolism, and hence is no longer tenable. It is interesting to inquire, therefore, if any other theory would lead to the conclusion that the heating effect of food on metabolism will vary depending upon the manner of its utilization.

The theory that Lusk sponsors on the basis of his own extensive investigations is that the specific dynamic effect of food is due to a stimulating effect on cellular oxidations, brought about either by the mere presence of an excess of oxidizable matter in the intercellular fluids (in the case of sugar and fat) or by a stimulus of some other type not so clearly definable (in the case of amino acids). The theory

8 Benedict, C. G., and Benedict, F. G., Boston Med. and Surg. J., 1923, clxxviii, 849.

Plaut, R., Deutsch. Arch. klin. Med., 1922, cxxxix, 285; 1923, cxlii, 266. Liebesny, P., Biochem. Z., 1924, cxliv, 308. Wang, C. C., and Strouse, S., Arch. Intern. Med., 1924, xxxiv, 573.

10 Loc. cit., pp. 667–673.

11 Rapport, D., J. Biol. Chem., 1924, lx, 497.