Page:Science (journal) Volume 47 New Series 1918.djvu/34

22 and eventually obtain credit for them when they seek a civil degree in medicine. Three schools of military medicine have been established for their benefit in regions behind the front, and have been duly provided with professors, libraries and laboratories.





a total of $515,436.09, federal grants of money to seventeen states under the Vocational Education Act were allotted at the meeting of the Federal Board of Vocational Education on December 21. Each of these states has complied with the terms of the law and has agreed to match every federal dollar with money publicly raised by the state or local commimity. The states are as follows: Ala- bama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Mich- igan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ne- braska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming. Accusations of disloyalty against five mem- bers of the faculty of the University of Illi- nois were found on December 11 to be without groimds, by a subcommittee in a report to the board of trustees of the institution. Professor G. H. Scott, for fifteen years professor of mathematics and astronomy in Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota, has resigned to become principal of Benzonia Academy, Benzonia, Michigan. Francis W. Eirkham, of the Brigham Young University, has been chosen director of vocational education for Utah, following the la3ring of plans to bring the state imder provisions of the Smith-Hughes act. Dr. Wright A. Gardner, formerly associate inrofessor of botany and plant physiologist at the Idaho University and Station, has been ap- pointed plant physiologist and head of the de- partment of botany at the Alabama College and Station. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE A 8UOOBSTION FOR STAINING TBCHNIQUB Where one has many slides of sections passing through the various stages of de- hydration and staining, a systematic method of labelling must be followed. Suggestions have been made to do this by means of a dia- mond point pencil or waterproof ink. Neither of these methods have worked satis- factorily for me — ^the first being too difficult to perform rapidly even after a good point has been procured and the marking being very difficult to read when covered with a dark stain. The second has these disadvantages and in addition the marking is very liable to rub ofF. Therefore I suggest the following method which has worked satisfactorily for me while staining hundreds of sections at a time. Small aluminum clips with a numeral stamped or stencilled on each were prepared. These clips fasten on the edge of the slide when in the staining jars and are not large enough to prevent placing a cover on the jar. The data may be written in whatever manner desired in a notebook with the number or character to correspond to that on the aluminum clip. These clips are cheap, may easily be made and very few reagents ever used in dehydrations or staining attack the aluminum. The same clip may be used repeatedly. Paul Ashley West Toledo, Ohio

A NOTE ON THE PREPARATION OF SKELETONS BY BACTERIAL DIGESTION The method of preparing skeletons by bacterial digestion is of long standing and has given excellent results. The present modification of the method was devised to obviate two objections which are of considerable importance when skeletons are prepared by students as class work. First, the digestion mass produces a foul odor and is disagreeable to handle, and, second, the digestion process, unless carefully controlled by frequent examinations is likely to result in displacement and subsequent loss of the smaller parts of the skeleton.

These objections are to a large extent overcome by embedding the roughly cleaned skeleton in a solid medium supporting bacterial growth. Agar-agar is preferable to gelatin, since it is not liquefied by the common bacterial enzymes. The method is as follows: