Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/195

Rh description and explanation of phenomena), physical and mental. The practical sciences are utilitarian, regulative and cultural. These seven divisions are subdivided into twenty-five departments and one hundred and thirty sections. The congress is to open on Monday, September 19, when the three members of the organizing committee will make introductory addresses—Professor Newcomb on scientific work, Professor Münsterberg on the unity of theoretical knowledge and Professor Small on the unity of practical knowledge. In the afternoon there are to be addresses in each of the seven divisions on its fundamental conceptions. On the next day there will be two addresses in each of the twenty-five departments, one on its development during the last hundred years the other on its methods. On the following four days the seventy-one theoretical and the fifty-nine practical sections will each be addressed by two speakers, one treating the relation of the section to other sciences and the other the problems of to-day. The addresses before the divisions and departments are to be made by Americans, and at least one of those before each of the one hundred and thirty sections by foreigners. The authorities of the exposition have made a liberal appropriation—$200,000 it is said—toward the expenses of the congress. The speakers will be paid, and their addresses will be published.

Fourteenth International Congress of Medicine met at Madrid during the last week of April; the American Medical Association held its fifty-fourth annual meeting at New Orleans in the first week of May, and the Congress of Physicians and Surgeons held its sixth triennial session at Washington during the following week. The multiplicity of sections, societies' addresses and papers is bewildering and beyond the possibility of brief description.

At Madrid there were some 5,000 delegates, those from foreign nations being proportioned as follows: Germany and Austria, 1,000; France, 825; Great Britain, 235; Russia, 290; Italy, 335; other European countries, 327; United States, 193; South America, 13G. The prize for original research, established by the city of Moscow, in honor of the meeting of the congress in that city in 1897, was awarded to Professor Metchnikoff, and that of Paris to Professor Grassi. The next congress will be at Lisbon in 1906. No discoveries of an epoch-making character were presented to the congress, though the programs contained the titles of many papers of importance.

The meeting of the American Medical Association was attended by about 2,000 members. Dr. Frank Billings in his presidential address reviewed the present condition of medical education in the United States. There are in the country 156 medical schools which last year graduated 5,000 physicians. To maintain the present ratio of one physician to 600 of the population, which in the cities, at least, is rather an oversupply, only 3,000 recruits are needed annually. Dr. Billings held that the overcrowding of the medical profession must be controlled by higher standards of education. The American Medical Association has recently organized a house of delegates for the discussion of the interests of the medical profession, and this year a code of ethics was adopted. According to the reports presented, the association is in a flourishing condition. Its membership is over 12,000, having nearly doubled within five years. In this period its funds have increased fourfold, the net increase last year having been $40,000. The prosperity of the association is largely due to its weekly journal, which has a circulation of over 25,000.

The Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons, which meets once