In genetics, Mendel's Law has been | alkaloids, both inducing paralysis of an influential factor and has given the voluntary muscles accompanied by impetus to the work. Studies on the twitching, and a crystalline, fluoreshydrogen-ion concentration of the soil cent principle, which is physiologihave influenced ecological studies and cally inactive. The mixed alkaloids of given rise to much investigation along Caapi, another drug brought out of these lines. Explorations into areas South America by Dr. Rusby, have particularly in South America, the been isolated in crystalline form in flora of which has not been completely the laboratory of Seil, Putt & Rusby studied, have brought to light new and are now being studied in the Mulplants of value to mankind. Results ford biological laboratory with reof studies on some of these have been spect to physiological action. made public. Agricultural Remedies.-Much progress has been made toward the development of agricultural plants which are disease resistant. Dr. E. C. Stakman, M. N. Levine and F. Griffee reported in Phytopath. 15: 691-698, 1925, the discovery of a variety of wheat which is resistant to black stem rust. Dr. J. G. Dickson has reported a strain of corn resistant to seedling blight and that wheat similarly immune is being developed. Dr. G. W. Medical Botany.-The favorable results obtained in medicine through the use of vitamins, insulin, and thyroxin and the detection of complex organic compounds possessing similar properties in plants have given great incentive for the restudy of practically all vegetable products used in medicine, resulting in greater attention being given to the development of medicinal plant, economic and poison plant gardens in connection with our Keit announced that apple scab is educational institutions and pharmaceutical manufacturing establishments. The revision of the United States government standards under the Food and Drug Act has been completed during the year and many advances are recorded in the methods for testing the purity and strength of drug products as well as much new information on the morphological and chemical characteristics of plant material used in medicine. about to be conquered. Working in greenhouses in which all sorts of weather and conditions can be produced at will, Dr. Dickson found that the fungus causing seedling rot was thwarted in its attacks upon the tender plant when the plant builds up a woody armor. This happens in the case of corn when the soil is warm, whereas in cold weather only mucilage-like substances are grown which provide a luxurious and destructive living for the fungus. The new corn has been bred so that it will grow as resistant to the fungus in cold weather as in warm. A strain of smut resistant corn has also been developed by workers in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota. Discoveries and Progress. During the year, Dr. H. H. Rusby has completed the classification of the entire plant collection made on his last South American exploration. Some several hundred new species and eight new genera have been described. The complete data will be published early in 1926. The work of Dr. Rusby on Vegetable Drugs.-New editions of these new plants has been followed the United States Pharmacopoeia and closely by more economic studies by National Formulary were completed others. Dr. H. W. Youngken verified in 1925 and contain revised standards by histological studies the suggestion for some two hundred vegetable drugs by Dr. Rusby that the drug "Mire" and their preparations which will be is derived from a species of Brum- come official under the Federal and felsia of the Solanaceae and has de- various State Food and Drugs Acts termined the species as B. hydran- during 1926. These standards reflect geaformis. Dr. T. S. Githens, work- the completion of a large amount of ing independently, has determined research carried out by Dr. Henry that "Mire" contains three principles Kraemer, Professor E. N. Gathercoal, closely related to, if not identical Dr. E. L. Newcomb, Dr. Carl Alswith, those in Manaca; namely, two berg, Dr. Arno Viehoever, Dr. Al bert Schneider, Dr. C. A. Dye, Dr. W., South Dakota, on the origin and O. Richtmann, G. M. Beringer and manufacture of oil of Chenepodium. O. A. Farwell. New or rewritten de- The results proved conclusively that scriptions of all of the more important vegetable drugs have been prepared by these workers. The descriptions include the whole drug, the structure and the powder. Much new morphological data are included in these descriptions, especially with reference to the size of microscopic elements. tency. a physiologically active oil could be produced in the locality. E. B. Fischer of the Department of Phar macognosy of the University of Minnesota reported during the year on the yield of volatile oil from various economic plants grown in the Medicinal Plant Garden at the University of Minnesota. The results supply im Determinations. In preparation for portant data for the development of the new standards, some twelve thou- the volatile oil industry in the Northsand determinations on the inorganic west. F. A. Upsher Smith has con constituents of vegetable drugs were tinued the cultivation of Digitalis made. These results together with purpurea and the production of the some fifty thousand determinations drug Digitalis in Minnesota and reby other workers including alkaloidal ported assays showing very high poassays, physiological assays and other assays were compiled by E. L. Newcomb, who served as the chairman of the sub-committee on Botany and Pharmacognosy during the latter part of the revision, and formed the basis for new standards. Over ten thousand specimens representing the material worked with, are now carefully indexed and preserved at the University of Minnesota and available for reference. A special committee, under the chairmanship of E. L. Newcomb, made extensive investigation on the subject of uniformity in size of particles of powdered drugs, and standards are now provided. Numerous new tests and assays of vegetable drugs have been included, all of which assure to physicians and the general public greater uniformity and potency in medicinal agents derived from plants. Plant Oils.-Anton Hogstad, Jr., published during the year the results of a series of extensive experiments carried out in the Medicinal and Poisonous Plant Gardens at Brookings, Miscellaneous Contributions.-Many other contributions in the field of Economic Botany have been made during 1925. The following are deserving of special mention: Pollen Morphology by Maxy Alice Pope, Botanical Gazette, 80: 63-72, 1925. "Some effects of seasonal conditions upon the chemical composition of American Grape Juices," J. S. Caldwell, Journal of Agriculture, Research No. 12, June, 1925. “Oxygen supplying power of the soil as indicated by color changes in alkaline pyrogallol solutions," Lee L. Hutchins and B. E. Livingstone, Journal of Agriculture, Research XXV. Dixon "On ascent of sugar in plants"Blakiston, London. The Constitution of Cellulose, A. W. Schorger, Industrial and Engineering Chemical Jour nal, 16: 12, p. 1274. The Chemistry of the Rubber Hydrocarbon, H. L. Fisher, Industrial and Engineering Chemical Journal, 16: 6, p. 627. Insulin-like action of vegetable extracts. Sil. Med. Klinik, 21-169. SELECT REFERENCES ON BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES LIBRARIAN, JOHN CRERAR LIBRARY, CHICAGO ALLEN, Glover M.-Birds and Their Attributes. Boston, Marshall-Jones, 1925. BAUMAN, John E.-Out of the Valley of the Forgotten. 2 Vols., Sioux Falls, Augustana College. David Starr Jordan considers this work an encyclopedia of deductions from evolution. BIGELOW, Henry B., and WELSH, W. W.-Fishes of the Gulf Maine. BURLINGAME, Leonas L. and others. 1925. J. E. Experimental Vegetation. Wash., Carnegie Inst., 1925. CROSBY, Cyrus R., and BISHOP, S. C. -Studies in New York Spiders. Albany, Univ. of State of N. Y., 1925; N. Y. State Museum Bulletin, No. 264. CUSHMAN, Joseph A.-An Introduction to the Morphology and Classi fication of the Foraminifera. Wash., Smithsonian Inst., 1925; Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 77, No. 4. DEAM, Charles C.-Shrubs of In- EAMES, Arthur J., and MACDANIELS, 1925. and Human Life. Boston, Ginn, HERRICK, Glenn W.-Manual of In- JORDAN, David Starr.-Fishes. Rev. KELLOGG, Vernon.-Biology (Reading KEPNER, William A.-Animals Look- KINGSLEY, John S.-The Vertebrate 1925. LOTKA, Alfred J.-Elements of Physi cal Biology. Balt., Williams and LULL, Richard S.-The Ways of Life. Papers concerning the paleontology PATTEN, Bradley M.-Early Embryology of the Chick. 2nd ed., Phila., Blakiston, 1925. PEARL, Raymond.-Biology of Popu lation Growth. N. Y., Knopf, 1925. PHILLIPS, Ruth L.-Text-book Vertebrate Embryology. Phila., Lea & Febiger, 1925. of STOCK, Chester.-Cenozoic Gravigrade Edentates of Western North America. Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1925. PRATT, Henry S.-Course in Vertebrate Zoology. Rev. ed., Boston, Ginn, 1925. ROBERTS, Elmer, and DAVENPORT, Eugene. Plant and Animal Improvement. Boston, Ginn, 1925. SCOTT, George G.-Science of Biology. N. Y., Crowell, 1925. SEITZ, Don C.-What Evolution Really Is. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. SHARP, Dallas Lore.-The Spirit of the Hive. N. Y., Harpers, 1925. SINNOTT, Edmund W., and DUNN, L. S.-Principles of Genetics. N. Y., McGraw-Hill, 1925. SKINNER, Milton P.-Bears in the Yellowstone. Chicago, McClurg, 1925. SNODGRASS, Robert E.-Anatomy and Physiology of the Honey Bee. N. Y., McGraw-Hill, 1925. STEVENS, Frank L.-Plant Disease Fungi. Rev., ed., N. Y., Macmillan, 1925. THOMSON, John A.-Concerning Evo lution. New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1925. Dwight H. Terry Lec tures. WARD, Henshaw.-Evolution for John Doe. Bobbs-Merrill, 1925. WEESE, Asa O.-Animal Ecology of an Illinois Elm-Maple Forest. Urbana, Univ. of Illinois, 1925. WIEMAN, Harry L.-General Zoology. N. Y., McGraw-Hill, 1925. WILSON, Edmund B.-Cell in Development and Heredity. 3d ed. enlarged, N. Y., Macmillan, 1925. WRIGHT, Walter P.-Alpine Flower and Rock Gardens. N. Y., Dodd, Mead, 1925. YERKES, Robert W.-Almost Human. N. Y., Century, 1925. YERKES, Robert M., and LEARNED, B. W.-Chimpanzee Intelligence and Its Vocal Expressions. Balt., Williams & Wilkins, 1925. DIVISION XXXIII MEDICAL SCIENCES PHYSIOLOGY BY PERCY G. STILES HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL When the attempt is made to sum- muscles? This is a question which marize the progress of a branch of has not been easy to answer. Some science in any fixed period of time additional evidence has been gathered there is an important consideration which tends, on the whole, to supwhich should be stressed. It is to port the traditional teaching that carthis effect: that while we are com- bohydrate is the favorite but not pelled to choose for enumeration the the invariable source of power. Fat studies which have an appearance of may undoubtedly be used when necescompleteness, the future advances sary but whether it can be utilized will probably be in the line of those in its original form or must be which now seem to be tentative and changed to carbohydrate has proved fragmentary. The selection of par- difficult to determine. A. V. Ĥill of ticular investigations for mention Cambridge, England, believes that here does not indicate that they the preliminary transformation is eswill prove to have the most perma-sential. Furusawa has shown by nent value but that they are adapted trials with human subjects that a for description by reason of their diet made as rich in fat as practicable clean-cut and concrete character. is quite unfavorable to efficient musThe Neuromuscular System.-Con-cular activity. Indications multiply spicuous for its interest among the that the level of the blood sugar has publications of 1925 is the paper by a definite relation to muscular efHenderson and Haggard on the per- ficiency. formance of a champion Yale crew. The Liver.-In view of this referReliable measurements of the force ence to the blood sugar it is apexerted by these eight athletes when | propriate, at this point, to cite the driving their shell at twelve miles per work of Bollman, Mann, and Magath. hour show that they developed each These investigators have made it about one-half a conventional horse- clear that the disastrous effect propower. To sustain such activity the duced upon an animal by the removal heart sent to the muscles a tide of of the liver is primarily due to the blood capable of contributing to their reduction of sugar concentration. The use upwards of three liters of oxy-glycogen deposits of the liver are gen per minute. At the maximum normally drawn upon to hold the the release of energy in the system sugar of the blood up to a proper reached about twenty times the rate standard. A late report emphasizes at rest. Even the huge oxygen supply the distinction between the availabildid not keep pace with the strict re-ity of the liver glycogen for this quirement; the muscles "went into purpose and the inutility of the other debt for oxygen," collecting payment glycogen store, that which is held in in the term of deep breathing that the muscles. The hepatic cells refollowed the exertion. lease their carbohydrate whenever the What is the fuel burned by the blood sugar is slightly subnormal; |