Abstract: if it is not "backed up" by communications from constituents to the individual members of the Senate and House or the special committee to which the measure has been referred. The "constituent" is a most important person. We venture to say that no request, however small or unimportant, goes unnoticed or unanswered. The American Nurses' A ssociation with its alumnae, district and state societies is particularly well adapted to legislative work. It has been a matter of real pride when telegrams have reached the Capitol from members in these branches within a few days, sometimes hours, after the first letter asking that they be sent has been received. The longer one works with our national society-the American Nurses' Association-the more one is convinced of the soundness of the organization and the wisdom of those early leaders, who seem to have "builded better than they knew."

Abstract: IT is rather shocking just at a time when we are beginning to take pride in the fact that we are extending nursing service to reach all groups-the rich, the middle class, and the poor-to find within the last group -the poor-one whole stratum which nursing scarcely touches at all. These are the indigent old, the aged, infirm, and chronically sick who make up the population of the almshouses of this country. It is not particularly helpful at this point to say that there should be no almshouses, or that the present development of social consciousness is doing away with the classes who once inhabited the almshouses. These institutions are with us and probably will continue to be for some time to come. True, with the development of social service, with mothers' pensions, workmen's compensation, and other forms of out-door relief, the almshouse population has changed and many of those who might have been its inmates under the conditions of former years have instead been able to achieve independence. However, there still remain those, old and broken, who did not in their youth have the help of social service as we now know it, and who, unable to help themselves, must remain a charge on the community for some time to come. As the Woman's Department of the National Civic Federation reports, following a study of the almshouses of four states:

Abstract: lTHE confusion which arises when an attempt is made to arrive at an improved method of selection of student nurses is suggested by the results, and especially by the difficulty of interpreting the results, of a tentative experiment in administering intelligence tests to the students of a nurses' training school. These difficulties are inevitable when the problem is attacked as an isolated one, without reference to the related and perhaps primary issues pertaining to the standards and objectives of nursing education, especially with respect to the clarification of the most important qualifications for success in nursing. The results reported here are merely suggestive, but they are suggestive of problems to be attacked and of questions to be cleared up, rather than of any decision for or against the use of intelligence tests as an instrument of selection. It is from this point of view that they will be discussed. How can we select the best from among the embarrassing number of applicants for entrance to our nurses training schools? Will intelligence tests help us? These are the questions which directors of training schools and hospitals everywhere are asking themselves. And the first of these questions, to which the second is clearly subordinate, is by no means a simple one. It depends for its practical solution upon the clearing up of a host of other questions pertaining to the definition of the actual and ideal standards of the nursing profession, and to the choosing of the most desirable methods of training for fulfilling the requirements of these standards. That the nursing profession is awake to these basic problems is demonstrated by the comprehensive study

Abstract: [Teachers in schools of nursing will be interested in this presentation of the case study method from the public health nursing point of view. They uill be interested in the statement of aims on page 400 and the extent to which they coincide with the aims of the same method when used in the school of nursing. Perhaps the most striking thing about the use of the method by public health nursing organizations is the fact that it is used as a tool for getting the job done, as well as a method of teaching the principles of public health nursing. The case studies which are offered with Miss Buell's statement are valuable illustrations of the form and content of a case study; they are also suggestive in that they show how problems other than the immediate one which brought the nurse into the family are recognized and dealt uith. Particularly useful to the student or staff nurse are the summaries at the close of each study, since they practically compel her to think about her problems in an orderly way and to judge whether she has or has not found a solution of those problems.-EDITOR.]

Abstract: T HE word rheumatism has been employed for many years to designate acute and chronic joint affections. It has been used, in fact, to include a motley group of diseases characterized by aches and pains of all kinds. It has been frequently misused and has become so indefinite in its meaning as a designation for a disease entity that, today, the word stands more or less relegated to the laity and to quacks, who employ it and who seem to cherish it because of its very indefiniteness and, consequently, because of its ready applicability as a name for a large group of human ailments little understood, though much spoken of by them. The human mind, it seems, likes to classify and to "pigeon-hole." Such a tendency eliminates the necessity of thinking. It settles matters, as it were, and disposes of them. To the lay mind, the term rheumatism is a convenience. To the quack, it serves a twofold purpose. To him, also, it is a matter of convenience; but, in addition, it serves the sinister purpose of an entering wedge in his endeavors to sell remedies for something which neither he nor his lay customer understands; but he, being an enterprising fellow,-to use the modern slang,speaks their language. With his equipment of generalities, he has access to circles where the scientific medical man hesitates to enter. To the scientific mind, the word rheumatism has become somewhat of an annoyance. It is too indefinite; too inclusive; and, since it refers to no one thing in particular, it can serve no useful purpose as a definition.

Abstract: INVESTIGATORS have recently emphasized the very obvious fact that ultraviolet stimulation of the skin or tissues of a patient, or other room occupant, occurs only when the light rays actually reach the individual; and that, as might be expected, such stimulation varies directly with the amount of light received, depending upon the individual's nearness to the window and whether the window contains ordinary window glass or glass which is permeable to ultraviolet light. The same limitations exist with regard to bacterial destruction by light, of course; but since air circulates throughout a room, any agent which kills the bacteria in any part of it must affect the bacterial content of the room as a whole. From this point of view, there would, therefore, be a real advantage in replacing ordinary window glass with glass which is more permeable to ultraviolet rays; and two different types of experiments were undertaken to determine the relative bacterial destruction which may be obtained with (1) unobstructed or open sunlight, (2) sunlight through plate glass, and (3) sunlight through one of the more "permeable glasses" now on the market.' In both types of experiments we used cubical wooden boxes about twenty inches in diameter. Each box had a removable top, which could be taken out to allow the sun's rays to enter the box unimpeded, or which could be replaced by plate glass or by the more permeable glass. The boxes

Abstract: RADIUM is the chief member of the uranium series of radioactive elements belonging to the alkaline earth group of elements. Its parent is ionium and its disintegration product is radium emanation or radon. Radium occurs in nature in the salts, radium sulphate, radium chloride and radium bromide which are in combination with uranium compounds in the form of pitchblende and carnotite. The radium salts of commerce are white or greyish powders which glow more or less brightly in the dark. Minute amounts can be found in all soils, rocks, oceans, springs, etc. However, there are places where the element is found in comparatively large quantities. The largest deposits are found in the Belgian Congo. The radium supply in this country has been produced from carnotite ore found most plentifully in Colorado and Utah. To obtain one gram of radium it is necessary to treat 500 tons of carefully selected high grade ore, and in the task nearly 1,000 tons of chemicals must be used. The process is a costly one. The present price of radium is $70,000 per gram. Soon after Roentgen discovered x-rays in 1895, Becquerel of Paris found that certain uranium salts produced rays similar to them. About two years later M. and Mme. Curie