Researchers in Arms

Often have ardent research workers rankled under the interference of trustees, directors, presidents who meddled with their work. It has been necessary for them to smother their rage, remain silent, when they have been restrained from teaching evolution, practicing vivisection, inquiring into sex tendencies, etc.

In many a case researchers have been dismissed for daring to touch tabooed material. Last week some 600 of tho land's leading biochemists, physiologists, pathologists, .pharmacologists gathered in Chicago for the annual convention of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, took steps to make the world safe for Research.

Their action: appointment of a committee to investigate offending institutions, to report at the next annual convention. Such institutions, it was proposed, will be blacklisted; any professor who accepts a position in one will be dropped from his scientific societies.

Routine business of the convention was the reading of 72 ten-minute papers prepared for the occasion. Some points made:

Pared Brain. Dr. Walter Edward Dandy (Johns Hopkins) announced that he had found that two-thirds of a man's brain could be pared away without damaging intellectual powers. He reported cases where he had removed both frontal lobes in removing a tumor. Said he: '"To retain unimpaired mental powers a human needs only his midbrain and his left hemisphere."

Hormone Surgery. A hormone, secreted by a gland at the base of the brain, was discovered by Milton 0. Lee of Harvard. It tends to lower combustion rate of tissue. This faculty might, he suggested, be employed to combat tissue destruction caused by the hormone of the thyroid gland, obviate the necessity for many surgical operations.

Heart "Brake." Long has the pericardium, a fibroserous, inelastic membrane which surrounds the heart, been a puzzle to physiologists. Its function has been discovered by George Crisler and Edward Jerald Van Liere of the University of West Virginia. The inelastic sac acts as a brake, keeps the heart, the muscular control of which, is not sufficient to prevent undue dilation, from going out of bounds, breaking.

Autointoxication. Dr. Charles Herbert Best, Toronto, co-discoverer of the insulin treatment for diabetes, announced his discovery of a new enzyme, claimed it was operative against histamine (said to be responsible for autointoxication).

As the convention drew to a close it was announced that next year's session would be held in Montreal. Followed a low buzzing sound, then scattered professorial applause, then thunderous cheering. Commented one smiling member: "Such a demonstration is more . . . convincing than a poll on prohibition."

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