FOREIGN ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
The national scientific associations of Great Britain, Germany and France held their annual meetings during the month of September. The British Association met at Glasgow, under the presidency of Professor A. W. Rücker, the eminent physicist. Professor Rücker, who has recently been elected president of the reorganized University of London, gave an excellent address on the present trend of opinion in regard to the atomic theory; and the addresses of the presidents of the sections were of the usual high order. The section of education, organized for the first time, attracted special attention; we are, therefore, fortunate in being able to publish in this issue of the Monthly the presidential address of Sir John Gorst. The attendance at Glasgow—1,912—was above the average, but not so large as at the previous Glasgow meetings of 1855 and 1876, the sesquicentennial of the University, the Engineering Congress and other events having anticipated local interest in scientific matters. The sum of £1,000 was appropriated for scientific grants. The meeting of the Association next year will be at Belfast under the presidency of Professor James Dewar, the well-known chemist.
The seventy-third meeting of German Men of Science and Physicians was held at Hamburg, with Dr. R. Hertwig, professor of zoology at Munich, as president. Professor J. H. Van't Hoff, the eminent chemist of Berlin, was president of the scientific sections and Professor B. Naunyn, professor of medicine at Strassburg, of the medical sections. There were in all twenty-seven sections for the medical sciences and eleven for the natural and exact sciences. The attendance was large—some 5,000 members—and the programs important. Special lectures were given by Dr. E. Lecher on 'Hertzian Waves,' by Professor T. Boveri on 'Fertilization' and by Professor W. Nernst on 'Electro-chemistry.'
The French Association met on the Island of Corsica under the presidency of M. Hamy, whose address reviewed the beginnings of anthropology in France. Owing doubtless to the centralization of scientific work at Paris, the migratory meetings of the French Association are less well attended than those of Germany and Great Britain, and the papers presented are less numerous and important. The Association, however, performs a useful work, and having a large endowment (some $270,000) is able to make liberal grants for scientific research.
PROFESSOR PAWLOW'S RESEARCHES ON NUTRITION.
The award of the first Nobel prize to Professor J. P. Pawlow, the widely known physiologist of St. Petersburg, is a well-deserved testimonial to his valuable and extensive contributions to experimental science. During the last twelve years Professor Pawlow has been engaged more particularly in the study of certain aspects of nutrition, and in this work he has enlisted the services of a considerable number of co-workers in his laboratory at the Imperial Institute for Experimental Medicine in St. Petersburg. The researches which these years brought forth have led physiologists to revise ill many particulars the current teaching in regard to digestion and secretion. Most of the results obtained by Pawlow and his pupils were originally published in the 'Archives des Sciences Biologiques de St. Petersbourg,' and in inaccessible Russian journals and
