political parties have pledged themselves to increase the national agencies for suppressing disease and promoting the public health, and public sentiment will doubtless be further awakened by this congress.
International scientific congresses are leading to permanent international bureaus. Thus an International Association for Cancer Research has been founded at Berlin, to promote the investigation of cancer and the care of cancer patients, the collection and publishing of international cancer statistics, and the establishment of an international center of information on all matters concerning cancer research. Other objects of the association are the publication of an international technical organ and the organization of international cancer conferences. So far, thirteen states, including all the great powers except Great Britain, have joined the association, the seat of which will be at Berlin.
The International Institute of Agriculture was formally opened on May 23 by the king of Italy, who has given it a building and an endowment yielding $60,000 a year. The new building in the gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome is said to be admirably suited to the purposes of such an institution. All civilized nations have joined in this movement, inaugurated three years ago, and it promises much for the promotion of agriculture throughout the world.
Permanent international bureaus must have a local home, and in addition to the two new institutions noted here there are others in London, Paris and Berlin. There are none in this country, and it is but proper that we do our share. The fisheries and research in tuberculosis and propaganda for its suppression would be proper objects for our government to promote, and it may be hoped that the approaching congresses will lead to the establishment of international bureaus at Washington for one or both of these objects.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We regret to record the deaths of Mr. Henry Lomb, one of the founders of the Bausch and Lomb Optical Company; of Dr. Chamberland, subdirector of the Pasteur Institute; of Dr. Ostwald Seeliger, professor of zoology at Rostock, and of Dr. Rudolf Credner, professor of geography at Greifswald.
The Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts has been awarded to Sir James Dewar.—Sir William Ramsay succeeds Lord Kelvin as a member of the Dutch Academy at Amsterdam.—Colonel W. C. Gorgas, eminent for his work on yellow fever, chief sanitary officer of the Isthmian Canal Zone, has been elected president of the American Medical Association.
Mr. Henry Phipps, of Pittsburg and New York, has made a large gift to the Johns Hopkins University for the founding of a Psychiatric Clinic. It provides for the construction of a hospital building, together with apparatus, and laboratories for the scientific investigation of mental abnormalities by pathological, chemical and psychological methods. Mr. Phipps will provide for the maintenance of a medical and nursing staff, including salaries for a professor of psychiatry and assistants and other expenses for a period of ten years. The total amount of the gift is withheld in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Phipps, but it is understood that it will considerably exceed half a million dollars. Dr. Adolf Meyer, director ot the Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospitals, has accepted the professorship of psychiatry and the directorship of the hospital and clinic.
