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JOURNAL O F CHEMICAL EDUCATION
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-
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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
