Contemporary News in Chemistry and Education
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CHEMISTRY BUILDING FOR MIAMI UNIVERSITY Miami honored one of her most distinguished living alumni when the board of trustees with the recommendation of the president of the university voted to name the newly finished chemistry building Hughes Hall. This is named for R. M. HUGHES, Miami 1893, professor of chemistry 1898 to 1913 and presidcnt of Miami University 1913 to 1927. I n 1927 he became president of Iowa State College. The picture of the building shows it as it will be when completed. The central
an alumnus, loyal friend, chemist. teacher of chemistry, and administrator.
NEW YORK CANCER COMMITTEE APPEALS FOR AID In these days of general business deprcseion, when the immediate need must be met, we have a tendency, unhappily, in responding to the emergency, to overlook other less spectacular but absolutely essential charities Yet the sufferings of hard times arc many fold increased when
portion, which is finished, contains thc serious or fatal illuess occurs. Too often officcs for the staff, the class and lecture the family is broken up as the result of illrooms, the storage and dispensing rooms, ness which might have been avoided; and and the laboratories for advanced work. the situation is then indeed tragic. With insufficient funds the agencies in The wings will contain the laboratories for the regular chemistry courses and will be the field of health education are trying to erected as s w n as money is available from meet present conditions, to respond to demands even heavier than in normal times, the state. This section is fireproof throughout and and t o carry on so t h a t the ground alembodies many of the features included in ready won shall not be lost. The New modern chemistry buildings. Ymk City Cancer Committee of the The alumni, friends, and faculty of American Society for the Control of CanMiami University are pleased to com- cer, one of these agencies, supported enmemorate so distinguished a name as tirely by public subscription, calls attention to the increased need for cancer eduHughes by so handsome a building. They believe that it is a fitting testimonial cation during the depression, when so of their appreciation of R. M. Hughes as many who lack funds are apt to neglect 2095
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their health, disregarding warning signs, and trust to luck. Particularly in the case of cancer is delay dangerous and early examination and treatment imperatively necessary, since in early treatment lies the only hope of escape. I t is gratifying to he assured that as a result of public education in cancer during the past few years, patients suffering from the disease are coming to physicians a t earlier stages in its development, when there is chance of cure. This is due largely to the work of the Society, snd is a most helpful advance. The financing of such work is always a task, and in times of depression a much more difficult one. To secure funds necessary for carrying on its campaign throughout the year, and for responding to the resulting appeals for help, for advice in the particular case, and for information in general, the New York City Cancer Committee of the American Society for the Control of Cancer has put out an address label which carries the emblem of its work-a sword twined with the healing symbol, typifying the fight for humanity against disease. The use of these strikingly effective labels, an ornament to the Christmas package, indicates endorsement of the work and participation in it. They are sold in lots of ten for one dollar. all the proceeds going t o the Committee. Those who are in touch with the situation tell us that the need is great, and no one who has seen anything of the ravages of cancer in its later stages can doubt that this is so. The work of cancer education must go on, and the response to the appeal for funds to continue it should be generous. Labels can he ordered by mail, in any quantity, from the New York City Cancer Committee, 34 East 75th Street, New York. FIRST AWARD O F A. C. LANGMUIR PRIZE TO PAULING On September Znd, a t the meeting of the American Chemical Society in Buffalo, N. Y.. DR. LINUS C. PAULING.of the California Institute of Technology, re-
O c ~ o m n .1931
ceivcd the first award by the American Chemical Society of the $1000 A. C. Langmuir prize.* granted for the "most outstanding research in pure chemistry conducted by a scientist who is on the threshold of his career and not over 30 years of age." Dr. Pauling's research has been in the field of quantum mechanics and the nature of chemical bonds. He has published approximately fifty papers on original research. The recipient of the Langmuir award is just 30 years old. He was horn in Portland, Oregon, and educated a t thc Oregon Agricultural College and the California Institute of Technology, having received his doctor's degree from the latter institution in 1925. EXPERT TO STUDY EDUCATION BY RADIO Appointment of CLINE M. KOON,assistant director of the Ohio School of the Air for the past two years, to fill the newly created post in the Office of Education, Specialist in Education by Radio, has been announced by the Secretary of the Interior * J. C R E MEDUC..8, 993 (May, 1931).
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CONTEMPOR ARY NEWS
Duties of the new Office of Education specialist will be t o initiate and conduct research stcdies of radio as an educational agency; to organize and maintain an informational and advisory service t o schools and other agencies interested in the field of education by radio; to become familiar with college and university extension work so that the part radio as a tool may take in this field may he evaluated; and to prepare matcrial for publication on phases of education by radio. Mr. Koon was graduated from West Virginia University in 1915 with the degree of Bachelor of Science, and received his A.M. degree from Teachers' College, Columbia University, three years later. For nine years he was principal of high schools in West Virginia. Creation of the radio specialist position in the Office of Education recognizes the growing importance of education by radio. I t was authorized as a result of many recommendations, including one of the National Advisory Committee on Education by radio last year, which stressed the need of such a section in the Office of Education. The newly appointed radio specialist, through his affiliation with the successful Ohio School of the Air, has made many contacts in the radio field which will be valuable to him in conducting this phase of educational activity in the Federal Office of Education. He assisted in directing educational broadcasts which are now heard regularly in approximately 8000 schoolrooms. PROFESSOR LAWALL APPOINTED TO LEAGUE OF NATIONS COMMITTEE PROFESSOR CHARLES H LAWALL,Dean of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and Secretary of the Committee of Revision of the United States Phamacopcia, has just been notified by the Medical Director of the Health Committee of the League of Nations of his appointment t o represent the United States of America on the International Committee for Assaying Opium.
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The chairman of this committee is DR. I,. VAN ITALLIE, professor of pharmacy and toxicology a t the University of Leyden. Other membws of the committee are pharmaceutical chemists from Denmark, Switzerland, France. Austria, Germany, Japan, and Great Britain, one member from each country. The purpose of the committee is to make a systematic study of the more important methods of opium assay, with a view to the approval of some one method for official adoption by the various pharmacopeias of the world. The appointment of this committee was made a t the request of the Advisoly Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, which has been in session a t Geneva since May of this year. PLANT YIELDS SUBSTANCE 300 TIMES AS SWEET AS SUGAR A natural substance three hundred times sweeter than cane sugar, rivaling some of the coal-tar products of chemical laboratories, has been shown by two French chemists to consist of a chemical union of common glucose and another compound which haslittle or no taste. United, they arc intensely sweet; divided, they are not even as sweet es ordinary sugar. The compound hears the chemical name "stevioside," because it occun in a South American plant known to botanists as Stevia. The plant itself was first introduced t o the scientific world about the beginning of the present century; it is a close relative of such familiar North American weeds as boneset, Joe-Pye-weed. and the plant that causes occasional outbreaks of milk sickness in the Midwest. After its discovery by Europeans it rapidly acquired the name of "the sweetest plant in the world." A very small piece sufficed to sweeten a cup of coffee or tea. During the past generation several partially successful attempts have been made to isolate and study the particular substance in the plant that made it so intensely sweet. It has remained, however, for the French chemists. MM.BRIDDELand
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LAVIELLE, to ac~omplishthe final purification. Thev have discovered. t o their surprise, that the sweet crystals of stevioside, upon chemical treatment t o remove a part of the combined water in them, break apart into about 60 per cent common glucose and 40 per cent of a new stuff which they called "steviol." The latter has no taste, hut combined with the glucose it produces a most paignantly sweet substance. Mm. Briddel and Lavielle made another interesting discovery, the significance of which is not yet clear. If they freeze a 50 per cent solution of the intensely sweet stevioside they obtain a mat of fine needle wystals, which contain more chemically combined water than the original substance, and which are only faintly sweet. The sweetness of stevioside seems to depend on the presence of a n exact amount of water in combination with the glucose and steviol; a trifle more or a trifle less spoils the effect.-Science Service CAREFUL COOKING BEST PREVENTIVE FOR FOOD POISONING Food poisoning may be caused by a great variety of factors but outbreaks can more frequently be traced t o carelessness in the kitchen than to the use of unfit ingredients. Thorough heating of all food products; protection against contamination by dust, flies or other insects, rats and mice, and against contamination by human carriers of disease-producing bacteria; cleanliness and careful refrigeration are among the recommended precautions. Botulism, an increasingly serious source of food poisoning, is caused most frequently by home-canned goods which have not been completely sterilized in thc canning process and in which the Clostridium botulinunz organism develops its powerful poison. Home-canned string beans and homecanned corn have frequently been sources of botulism. Almost nine-tenths of the poisonings observed in the United States are caused by vegetables of various sorts
OCTOBER, 1931
preserved in brine; animal products are involved in less than one-fifth. Canned goods containing a large amount of liquid appear more liable to the contamination than do relatively dry products. "While i t is possible that ingredients such as eggs, milk, or wheat may be the vehicles of infection carrying poisoning organisms into the prepared mass, their development there is possible only because of failure to destroy them by adequate heating or to prevent their development by sufficient preparation," states a government bulletin on food poisoning. "Foods such as meat pies, scalloped fish or oysters, hash, some salads, puddings, custards and cream pie fillings are frequently the cause of illness due to the fact that in the process of preparation insufficient heating is used to destroy the bacteria or their toxins and such prepared foods offer extremely favorable conditions for the development of bacteria if inadequately heated and improperly stored after preparation." In the ease of botulism, the food itself is made poisonous by the contaminating organism. Sometimes there is present an infection which makes a poison in the body of the host after the food is eaten. Trichinosis is often regarded as a form of poisoning caused by underdone pork. In reality i t is a disease caused by a parasite contained in infected pork. If the meat is sufficiently cooked to kill the parasite, the same pork can be eaten without dangerous results. "Ptomaine poisoning" was a t one time a popular explanation for the majority of eases of food poisoning. It was thought that rotei in foods degenerated into a toxic substance, This theory is now dismissed as false, and infection is blamed for the majority of food poisoning. Occasionally harmful chemical adulterants in food cause poisoning. Cases of gin paralysis have been traced to a poison present in adulterated forms of Jamaica ginger. Some cases of food poisoning have been traced to toxic substances contained in silver polish andconsumed with the fwd.
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CONTEMPORARY NEWS
Several epidemics of food poisoning on the Pacific Coast have been traced to a variety of mussel which becomes poisonous during the summer months. A t first it was thought that the sickness incurred from eating the sea food might be caused by bacteria or by some pollution hut investigation has revealed that it is due t o a poison originating in the mussel itself, the actual cause of which is unknown.Science Service HIGHLY PURIFIED IRON OBTAINED FROM LIQUID COMPOUND Highly purified iron, possessing many of the qualities of copper, is prepared in Germany by a new process described recently by Dn. ING.L. SCHLECHI. Carbon monoxide of a high degree of purity is passed over hot iron previously purified by ordinary methods. The two unite to form a liquid of relatively low boiling point, iron carbonyl. Heating this drives off the carbon and oxygen. leaving iron, with hardly a trace of impurities, in an exceedingly finely powdered form. The individual spherical particles are only 20 millionths of an inch in diameter. Heating this powder t o a temperature of 1200 degrees Centigradc-twelve times as hot as boiling water-changes it into solid iron that resembles copper in its softness, resistance t o corrosion and other properties. The process is declared t o he applicable on a large scale, and the product to be much more useful than ordinary iron for many purposes. German patents on the process are held by the great manufacturing concern, the I. G. Farhenindustrie A,-G. of Ludwigshafen am Rhein.-Science Sewice LUMBERING WASTE LESS THAN SUPPOSED While a period of business depression focuses public attention on waste, the Office of Products of the U. S. Forest Scrvice at Missoula, Montana, has issued charts which indicate that a larger part of
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Douglas fir and Western larch trees are utilized when they are cut for lumber than is commonly supposed. When a Douglas fir is cut in Montana and northern Idaho, 63.9 per cent of the tree is converted into lumber and 13.2 per cent is otherwise utilized, the report indicates; when the larch is felled, only about 57 per cent becomes iltmher, while 12 per cent is converted into other products. The disposition of the average Douglas fir is summarized in this manner: 10 per cent of the tree is left in the forest, including breakag~,stumps and tops, and usable and unusable limbs; while 90 per cent goes into saw logs. Seventy-one per cent of the saw log becomes lumber while 29 per cent is converted into slabs, sawdust, edgings, and trims. A portion of this 29 per cent of the saw log is utilized in making lathes, fuel wood, molding, and box stock, and represents 16 per cent of the log, the net log waste being 13 per cent. As 10 per cent of the tree is left in the forest and 13 per cent of the log is wasted a t the mill, the total unutilired part of the 100 per cent tree is 22 per cent. Scientists are striving t o develop new pulp and plastic by-product industries which will use a portion of the wood wasted in lumbering and logging.-Science Service PELLAGRA MAY BE DUE TO LACK OF IRON IN DIET Lack of iron in the diet rather than lack of vitamin G may he the cause of pellagra, a skin and nervous disease which is prevalent in some rural districts of the southern states, i t appears from studies which DR. SIDNEYBLISS of Tulane University School of Medicine has reported to the journal, Science. The diet of corn bread and molasses on which most of the poor people in the South live is lacking in iron as well as in vitamin G. Dr. Bliss minted out. Furthermore, all the foods listed as preventive or curative of pellagra because of their
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large vitamin G content, also contain large amounts of iron. Among these he mentioned beef liver. egg yolk. and yeast. Fifty-one persons suffering from pellagra were accordingly given iron by intravenous injection. The results are encouraging, Dr. Bliss reported, although it is still too early to state whether these patients will recover entirely from the disease on iron alone. Dr. Bliss and associates also studied the effect of iron on dogs suffering from blacktongue, considered by some authorities to be the canine counterpart of pellagra. The dogs were fed on a diet of peas, cracker meal. and cotton-seed oil. Black-
O C T ~ B E1931 R,
tongue developed in all its severity. When iron was injected into the veins of these animals, the animals promptly recovered although no change in diet was made. Pellagra is practically unknown in very young children, under two years of age. Moreover, as compared with adults, children. puppies, kittens, and rabbit? arc born with about three times the concentration of iron in the body, Dr. Blis; pointed out. Anemia, which is a frequent accompaniment of pellagra, may be "yet another finger painting to an iron deficiency in pellagra," Dr Bliss suggested.-Science Service
White Hot Platinum Is New Light Standard. Molten platinum, precious metal. shininn nives the world its best standard of linht .with heat. . - with which to comnare the brightness of lamps or the stars. A t the National Bureau of Standards four physicists have produced this new light standard. Using an idea suggested by Dr. G. K. Burgess, now director of the Bureau of Standards, and his associate, the late Dr. C. W. Waidner, the platinum light standard was tested experimentally by Dr. H. T. Wensel, William F. Roeser, L. E. Barbraw, and F. R. Caldwell of the Bureau's staff. A flameof standard type burning fuel a t a known rate has been used in the past as a standard but its brilliance varies with changes in atmospheric conditions. Platinum, pure to one part in 30,000, is fused electrically in crucibles of thorium oxide. Comparisons with its light are made when the platinum is melting or freezing. I t s temperature then is about 3200 degrees Fahrenheit. Light produced under these circumstances is remarkably constant. Reproducibility is of first importance for a standard and the values of the platinum standard are repeatable to a tenth of one per cent. The precise value of the new light standard is 5834 international foot candles per square centimeter.-Science Service Electric Separation Carries Electrons through Air Space. Electrolysis, or electric senaration of the elements in a chemical solution, is carried on in a new way by a ~rocess invented by Prof. Alfons Klemenc of the University of Vienna. The method promises results of great importance in research, and possibly also in industry. In ordinary electrical separations, both positive and negative electrodes are immersed in the solution to be treated, and each takes out the atoms or atom-groups t h a t are attracted to it. In Prof. Klemenc's process, the negative electrode is suspended above the surface of the liquid, and separated from i t by an air space. When the current is turned on, a stream of electrons is given off by the electrode into the air. The electrical phenomena t h a t accompany this kind of electrolysis are quite different from those of ordinary electrolysis, Prof. Klemenc states. Electrolytic reduction is carried on more easily, and electrolytic oxidation proceeds much more intensely.-Science Service
