exist naturally in cereals, should be conserved for economic and health purposes in the preparation of human food. In this way, the cheapest foods will give their maximum of nutrition and health while with the use of milk or leaf vegetables they will also be for all except infants a complete food. The importance of these observations by Sherman is particularly pertinent at the present time. There is a very large percentage of our people who, on account of financial straits, are unable to buy as much milk and as many vegetables, particularly the leaf vegetables, as are required to properly supplement the use of refined cereals. The well-to-do may succeed in this endeavor without feeling the financial burden, but not so those with limited incomes. It is immensely important to this class of our people that the cereal foods which they use should be as nature intended them.

The very worthy endeavor among many of the bakers at the present time to use milk instead of water in the making of the dough should receive wide support. Sherman says in this matter that when milk constitutes one third of the total solids of the food intake, almost equally good growth results, whether the remainder of the diet is whole wheat or patent flour. Even when patent flour is replaced by starch, very good nutritive results follow. When, however, the proportion of milk decreases to one sixth of the total dry weight of food, the superiority of whole wheat to patent flour and patent flour to starch both become strikingly apparent. It is not at all likely, therefore, that the bakers will be able to provide a sufficient quantity of milk to constitute one third of the total solids of the food intake.

The author occasionally makes an error in his discussion. This is notably shown in his remark on sweetened condensed milk. He assumes that condensed milk is always regarded by the food authorities as sweetened condensed milk. This is a mistake. Condensed milk, as he quotes it on page 135, is a synonym for evaporated milk or concentrated milk. If he had looked a little further along he would have found a discussion in the government standards for sweetened condensed milk, and this would have avoided the comment which he made at the foot of page 135 in assuming that the condensed milk that he was discussing was the sweetened variety. The sweetened condensed milk is one which is largely used in this country for infant feeding and with very unsatisfactory results. To feed an infant a food which has a percentage of added sugar as high as ordinary preserves is little less than a crime against infancy. Particularly also it should be remembered that sweetened condensed milk is not sterilized and that, for this reason, it may contain very undesirable bacterial flora. There is no assurance even that the milk from

which sweetened condensed milk is prepared is from tuberculin-tested cows. The author is somewhat in error, I think, in assuming that greater care is exercised in securing the raw material from which sweetened condensed milk is made than is exercised for the ordinary evaporated milks of commerce.

The author in discussing the ice-cream standards seems to take the side of the manufacturers rather than the consumer. In this he doubtless followed the recommendation of the committee on milk standards who adopted a very low standard, which was asked for by the ice-cream manufacturers without considering properly the rights of the consumers. The standard adopted by the committee appointed under authority of Congress to make standards for the guidance of the officials of the Department of Agriculture and for the information of the courts set the minimum requirements for ordinary ice cream at 14 per cent. and when flavored with fruits at 12 per cent.

In commenting on the federal standard the author says that it would make ice cream a fat rich food which many health authorities do not deem desirable, and adds that some authorities hold that since it is largely consumed between meals or at the end of a meal already sufficiently abundant, it should better remain as custom has so largely made it, a frozen beverage rather than a fat, rich food. I never have heard these sentiments expressed by any authorities other than those who were promoting the interests of the manufacturer in securing a low percentage of fat. I have never heard health authorities object to butter, although it is a much more concentrated fat food than ice cream. In point of fact, the author has inadvertently fallen into a plea for the lowest grade of so-called ice cream that the manufacturers wish to produce. Those who are familiar with the genesis of the food law all recognize that it was largely "common practices," such as the debasement of articles of diet, that the food law was intended to prevent.

In discussing the function of sugar in diet, the author very properly points out the danger which attends the enormous increase in its consumption in this country. It seems to me, nevertheless, that he does not quite properly point out its nutritive functions. On page 509 he says that the cheapening of this article of food by improvements in manufacture would be a source of great satisfaction but for the fact that refined sugar constituted an extreme case of a one-sided food, its sole nutritive function being to serve as fuel. I think, on the other hand, it is a very widespread feeling among students of nutrition that sugar has another function of almost equal significance, namely, that it is largely a source of fat. Not only, therefore, does the increase in refined sugar, as

the author says, make the diet deficient in some of the substances which are needed for the building and repair of body tissue, but also it has a tendency to produce an unnecessary and burdensome degree of fat.

The author quite naturally falls into a grave error in discussing the legal status of certain sweetening agents and so-called chemical preservatives. He properly recognizes the fact that those clauses of the food law which forbid the addition of poisonous or other added deleterious ingredients which may render such article injurious to health have given rise to more discussion than any other part of the law. It has done a great deal more than this. This discussion has led to an entire subversion of the purpose of the food law as enacted by Congress and to the practical elimination of the Bureau of Chemistry from passing judgment upon such added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredients. The author's discussion on this point is based upon a misunderstanding of the situation. On page 46 he makes the statement that the preservation of food by the so-called noncondimental preservatives is necessary. This is entirely erroneous. There is not a single article of food which contains an added preservative which can not be satisfactorily and perfectly manufactured without any addition of preservative at all. In point of fact, although under the wrongful interpretation of the statute to which I have just alluded certain preservatives are permitted, the number of manufacturers availing themselves of this privilege is extremely small. All the manufactured articles to which preservatives have been added are distinctly inferior in character and quality to those which are made without preservatives. Therefore, there is no justification whatever for this statement, which I quote verbatim:

It is true that by drying, by heating and canning, and to a certain extent by refrigeration, foods may be preserved from the season of abundance to the season of scarcity without the addition of any preservative substance, but restriction to these methods of preservation would often be unnecessarily burdensome and costly and would in many cases involve a loss of the flavor for which the food is chiefly prized. The prohibition of all preservative substances would be as unsatisfactory to the consumer as to the producer and has never been seriously contemplated.

It is a matter of great regret that a book so full of excellent statements and so useful in the household as "Food Products" should convey so misleading and unwarranted a statement. I never yet have found any consumer who had requested that his foods be artificially preserved with non-condimental preservatives.

The purpose of the Referee Board of Consulting

Scientific Experts, on which the author bases these statements, was not for the protection of the consumer at all. It was openly and devotedly a body which served as experts for the lowest grade of manufacturers in the country. Nearly $300,000 of money which was appropriated by Congress to secure the enforcement of the pure food law were diverted to pay the expense of this body of men working solely in the interest of food adulterators. Due regard for the eminent scientists who composed the board requires the statement that they were wholly innocent of any such purpose. They were asked to do scientific investigation. They learned afterwards the interests they were unwittingly serving. This board was investigated by the committee on expenditures in the Department of Agriculture during the months of July and August of 1911. The committee unanimously reached the decision that there was no warrant in law for the appointment of this board. It was merely a body appointed to advise the secretary of agriculture in certain matters over which he had no control. The law placed the investigation of these matters in the hands of the Bureau of Chemistry for the purpose of determining whether or not in any given case a food was adulterated or misbranded. In all but one instance the referee board of consulting scientific experts reversed the decisions of the Bureau of Chemistry, the organization which by law was authorized to make these decisions. The findings of this board were adopted by the secretary of agriculture in plain violation of the law.

The committee reported the curious circumstance of a board appointed as the personal advisors of the secretary of agriculture overthrowing the conclusions of the legalized body under the law and thus protecting food adulteration instead of eliminating it. Had I been permitted to enforce the law as Congress passed it there would not to-day be a single article of food in this wide country of ours that contained any non-condimental preservative of any description.

In addition to this, this body of consulting scientific experts authorized the use of alum in foods. Unfortunately, all these violations of the law are still in force, and the Bureau of Chemistry is to-day partly paralyzed in any effort to protect the foods of this country against any added deleterious or poisonous substance permitted by its decisions. Thus, one of the greatest purposes of the food law has been completely subverted. If our manufacturers were inclined to do so there is no reason why we should not have the worst adulterated foods of any country in the world. It is due to the high public spirit and honesty of the American food manufacturers that we have been saved from such a disaster.

H. W. WILEY

SPECIAL ARTICLES

ON THE CONFIGURATIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ẞ-OXYBUTYRIC

AND LACTIC ACID

It was shown in a previous communication1 that levorotatory B-oxybutyric acid is configurationally related to levorotatory propylene glycol. That is, the asymmetric carbon atoms in these two substances have the same configuration when they rotate polarized light in the same direction. Independently of us and simultaneously this fact was ascertained by P. Karrer and W. Klarer.2 We now find that lactic acid also can be converted into propylene glycol by the reduction of ethyl lactate with metallic sodium and alcohol. The glycol obtained in this manner rotates in the same direction as the original free lactic acid. Here again, in the glycol and in the lactic acid the asymmetric carbon atoms have the identical configuration when the acid and the glycol rotate in the same direction.

Therefore, a lactic acid and a B-oxybutyric acid are configurationally related when both are convertible into the identical glycol. In the present experiment, the starting material was lactic acid of low optical activity [a] =+0.7°. The ester had a spe

20

More than 1,500 grafts of the 1925 planting were examined in early June to determine the relation of growth to bud position. The growth condition was recorded as bud dead, poor (only a few leaves forced out), medium (a few inches long but growth stopped), and good (actively growing at the time of observation). The bud positions were described by number as follows:

(1) Above matched side of tongues; (2) Above lower lip of scion;

(3) Above mismatched side of tongues (opposite 1);

D 20

61.8 poor

cific rotation of [a] ̧

0.0 good

7.8 dead

THE variable growth of apple grafts in the nursery is commonly ascribed to such causes as variation in the seedling stocks, incompatibility of stock and scion and poorly made grafts. While working upon the latter problem, it is believed that the principal cause of the extreme variation in growth has been found. The explanation to be offered developed from three observations: (1) The growth of the scion is usually made from the top bud; (2) the callus union is best along the tongues of the graft; and (3) the rapid rise of water during transpiration is in a straight line with very slow lateral diffusion. It is suggested then that, in order to secure the best condition for good growth, the top bud of the scion should be directly above the point of union.

1 Journ. Biol. Chem. (1925), lxv, 49. 2 Helv. Chim. Acta (1925), viii, 393.

63.8 poor

In the case of equal-sized parts of the graft, approximately one third of the buds in positions 2 and 4 were making a good growth. There was a corresponding reduction in dead and poor growths. Of all dead buds observed, 78.8 per cent. were on position 4 where the direct ascent of moisture is often cut off.

Clearly, the position of the bud in relation to the point of union would seem to be the principal cause of the great variation in the early season growth of the grafts. Fortunately, only a slight reduction in the speed with which grafts are made will permit of all grafts being put together with the top bud of the scion directly above the matched tongues (position 1).

In addition to the practical significance of this finding, there is also the following item of technical importance: By eliminating the great variation in growth of the grafts due to the position of the bud

on the scion, it will be possible to measure more accurately than has been done heretofore the interrelations of stock and scion.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

R. H. ROBERTS

Discussion and Correspondence:

Botanical Criticism: PROFESSOR PAUL B. SEARS. Functional Divisions of the Nervous System of Insects: PROFESSOR WILLIAM A. HILTON. The Index Generalis: PROFESSOR WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS. Bauxite and Siderite: E. F. BURCHARD Scientific Books:

Medical Research in China: DR. E. V. COWDRY..... Special Articles:

Effect of Freezing and Thawing on the Bacteriophage: E. S. SANDERSON. The Relation of Moisture Contents of Wood to its Decay: DR. WALTER H. SNELL, NATHANIEL O. HOWARD and MYRON U. LAMB

The American Mathematical Society: PROFESSOR R. G. D. RICHARDSON

Science News

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X

THE APPEAL OF SCIENCE TO THE
COMMUNITY

THE subject on which I shall venture to speak to you this evening is one which some of you, perhaps, may deem too threadbare for further consideration. The position which science holds or ought to hold among the general interests of the community has formed the theme of many an eloquent and vigorous address, and leaders among the men of science in this and other English-speaking countries have time and again urged its claims upon an apparently or supposedly slothful and perverse generation. If I then venture once more to speak on this topic it is because there are abundant evidences that the past few years have been a time of awakening and awakened interest in science, and that it is our duty to do our utmost to guide and quicken this interest. Has not the well-known Scottish writer, Sir James Barrie, borne testimony that "the man of science appears to be the only man who has something to say just now," although he somewhat unkindly adds the opinion that he is the only man who does not know how to say it? Although a great change has, I believe, taken place in public opinion, in this as well as in my own country, regarding the work of science, there nevertheless exists the necessity of urging, with persistence but also with restraint, the great importance of cultivating what we may call the scientific habit of mind and of securing the right and proper appreciation of the value of creative scientific work. We can not, therefore, consider too carefully or too frequently how, in a spirit of service, we may best frame our appeal to the community and bring to our fellow men a knowledge and appreciation of those benefits and delights which come from a study of nature.

The ground on which the appeal of science has been most frequently and, perhaps, most noisily made has been that of the utility of science, not merely in the practical business of life and of earning one's livelihood, but also in the preservation of life itself and in the provision of physical comfort. "Real gain, real progress," as the late Sir William Ramsay declared, "consists in learning how better to employ energy, how better to effect its transformation," and, looking back over the history, more especially of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, down to the present day, it is easy to mark how great have been the achievements of science in this direction. One thinks, for example, of the develop

And

ment of the steam engine, the gas engine, the internal combustion engine; of the development of the electric dynamo and the utilization of electrical energy; of the conversion of the energy of falling water into electrical and other forms of energy; of the development of machinery of all kinds; of the concentration of chemical energy, as in explosives, and so on. in the domain of biological science and of preventive medicine the achievements have been no less remarkable. It is the biologist and bacteriologist who have made Central Africa, for example, safe for man's habitation, and it is no exaggeration to say that the Panama Canal was built not by the engineer but by the biologist. It is the man of science who, through his influence on industrial and agricultural development and the development of natural resources, determines what population a country can support. It is the man of science, indeed, who in the last resort decides the economic fate of nations.

It was Pasteur who claimed that "in our century science is the soul of the prosperity of nations and the living source of all progress. What really leads us forward are a few scientific discoveries and their applications." And these claims can, indeed, be substantiated by the work of Pasteur himself.

In the middle of last century, as you all know, the silk cultivation of France, of Spain and of Italy was threatened with extinction. In 1849, a disease, called pébrine, attacked the silkworms of France and in the short space of twelve years, we are told, "the mulberry plantations on the slopes of the Cevennes mountains, which had for long given employment to a happy and contented people, were completely abandoned, and the once radiant faces of men became sad and melancholy because misery and poverty prevailed where before happiness and plenty had reigned." In the same space of time, also, the annual revenue derived by the state from the silk industries fell from 130,000,000 to 8,000,000 francs. From the bankruptcy with which it was faced, the silk industry was saved by the scientific labors of Pasteur. It is to Pasteur, also, that much of the present-day prosperity of the various fermentation industries is due; it is to Pasteur that we owe our earliest knowledge of the bacterial origin of disease and the production of immunity by vaccines which led to the culminating glory of Pasteur's life, the cure of rabies or hydrophobia. It is, moreover, on the foundations of Pasteur's work that the practice of antiseptic surgery was built up, whereby the havoc and torture of festering sores and gangrenous wounds were abolished from the surgical wards of our hospitals. What a glorious life of service to humanity for a single man to achieve! How irresistible must seem this appeal of science! And the people not

only of France but of other countries as well answered the appeal and erected the Institut Pasteur as a tribute to the genius of Pasteur and in recognition of the services which science through him had rendered to mankind. The appeal in this case went home because it was centered in a living person whose "science" could be generally understood and whose unselfish work touched the heart and humanity of man. In contrast with the success of that appeal stands the comparative failure of the more general appeal for the support of the science laboratories of France which was made two years ago on the occasion of the national celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Pasteur's birth. The appeal in this case was too general; it awakened small response because the people could not understand its meaning. From this we learn that even the utilitarian appeal of science will arouse a general response only in so far as it is interpreted to the community in terms which the people can individually understand.

And this has been found to be the case, also, with regard to the utility of science in its applications in industry. The different countries of the modern world, and especially the older countries, are becoming more and more industrialized, and however much we may sometimes deplore the fact we must recognize that only by this means can the ever-growing populations of these countries be supported. As the populations grow and as the conditions of life become, through competition, more and more strenuous and exacting, the necessity arises for ever-increasing efficiency in the industries and in the utilization of the natural resources of the country. It is only natural, therefore, that men of science, in a spirit of helpfulness and in the consciousness of their knowledge, should have urged the vital necessity of a wider and fuller application of scientific knowledge and scientific method, for by that means alone was it possible to enlarge the scope of the industries and to increase their efficiency. For a long time the appeal bore little fruit in my own country, and, as I gather, not very much even in this. In this country, the enormous, the apparently almost inexhaustible natural resources of the country, the great and rapidly expanding home market and the absence of any serious competition from outside made it difficult for people to realize the wisdom if not the actual necessity for avoidance of waste and for the application of science in industry. And in England the industries on which, early last century, the country grew wealthy were such that their dependence on science was not very obvious and so, owing to a natural inertia of mind and a fairly widespread prosperity, the necessity of applying more scientific methods with a view to diminishing waste and improving