VOL.5, No. 4
CREATING INTEREST IN FRESHMAN CAEXISTRY
447
in considerable time in preparation for this contest, and the section winners are drilled overtime, by their classmates, in preparation for the final contest. Of the five contests since 1923, three have been won by electrical engineers, one by a chemical engineer, and one by a student in liberal arts and science. Many of the good men, however, have developed an interest in chemistry through these contests and have continued their work in the subject. From the standpoint of favorable publicity, the parents and taxpayers appreciate the effort being made to encourage and reward scholarship. I t is hoped that a t some time these contests may become intercollegiate in a similar manner to athletic events. This will have a great tendency to equalize the standards of collegiate work in chemistry, and by contact with representatives from other institutions would inevitably react for better presentation of freshman work in this science.
THE DIVISION OF HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY The former Section oi History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society is now a Division, and members who wish to be enrolled in this Division are invited t o send their names to Dr. Tenney L. Davis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
New Vitamin Discovered: Needed by Young Trout. A new vitamin, designated as "Factor 'H' " by its discoverers, has been added to the list of these mysterious accessory food substances required for normal health and growth in animals. I t is found in raw liver, and to a slight extent in dried milk, and so far as is yet known is needed only by young trout. With i t they grow normally, without i t they die. The discovery was made by C. M. McCay, F. C. Bing, and W. I% Dilley of Cornell University, and will be formally announced in the forthcoming issue of Sciace. I t came as the result of an effort to learn the scientific reason underlying the common practice in fish hatcheries of feeding young trout on raw liver. Groups of fingerlings were kept in isolated feeding pools, and supplied with carefully compounded rations. Some of these included various known vitamins and some of them no vitamins a t all. One group received a vitamin-free diet with a certain amount of dried milk added. None of the fish got any liver a t the start. One by one all the groups of young fish died, although the ones receiving dried milk along with their food outlived the rest. Finally one group of survivors was allowed t o have its normal diet of raw liver. Immediately they "picked up" and began t o grow rapidly. Theinvestigators, therefore, concluded that young trout need, for life and normal growth, something that is found in raw liver and to a less extent in dried milk, but yet is not any known vitamin. Further experiments showed that dried and cooked liver would not have the same results as the raw meat when fed t o .y o u w . trout, and that a "synthetic" milk. compounded out of substances normally found in natural milk, was also unavailing t o keep the little fish alive.-Science Sem'cc
