812 CURRENT TOPICS. [J. F. I.

Some Inorganic Poisons were discussed by ALICE HAMILTON, Of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a lecture delivered at the H a r v a r d Medical School, and published in the Chemical Trade Journal and Chemical Engineer, 1919, lxv, 365-367 . The lecture deals pr imar i ly with industrial poisoning. Arsenical poisoning may occur in the manufac ture of certain insecticides, such as lead arsenate and Paris green. The workmen are best protec ted by p lugging the ears and nostri ls l ight ly with cotton, smearing the face with a bland ointment , wear ing clean work clothes each day, and use of a full shower bath at the end of each day's work. Poisoning by arsine (hydrogen arsenide) may take place when moisture acts on ferrosil icon which contains 40 to 60 per cent. si l icon; the ferrosil icon contains as an impur i ty calcium arsenide which react~ with water under these conditions to liberate arsine. Ant imonial poisoning has not been repor ted among workers in the pr in t ing t rade ; its occurrence among rubber workers is un- certain, though possible. Golden and crimson sulphides of an t i - m o n y - - r e a l l y mixtures of its pentasulphide, t r isulphide and oxysu lph ide - - a r e used in large amounts in the manufac ture of rubber ; human gastr ic juice dissolves approximate ly 8 per cent. of the an t imony present in the crimson sulphide, and about 3 per cent. of the an t imony present in the golden sulphide. Mer- curial poisoning may at tack mercury the rmomete r makers, and w orkm e n who manipulate mercury vacuum pumps in the manu- facture of incandescent lamps and similar apparatus. Since mer- curic n i t ra te is used in the preparat ion of felt for hats, mercurial poisoning m a y occur among workers in tha t industry. Use of ca rbon disulphide in the rubber indus t ry of cont inental Europe has caused many cases of poisoning. In the Uni ted States, poison- ing by carbon disulphide vapors has been observed among workers in the manufac tu re of artificial silk f rom cellulose, car- bon disulphide, and caustic soda. Whi le poisoning by phos- phorus is painful and disfiguring, only a small propor t ion of the workmen are at tacked, and the mor ta l i ty is low, 15 to 2o per cent. Since the abolit ion of the white phosphorus match, but little white phosphorus is used in American industr ies ; dur ing the Great W a r it was used in an incendiary projectile. Ferro- silicon may evolve phosphine (hydrogen phosphide) as well as arsine. J . S . H .

Amer ican Phi losophical Society, Papers P resen ted at the: Meet ing of April 24 , 199.o. L. A. BAUER.--The Relat:on of the Recent Solar Eclipse to the Einstein Theory.--The eclipse of 1919 was peculiarly favorable for testing this theory because several bright 'stars were near the sun at the time. By the theory of gravitation advanced by the Swiss scientist these stars should have appeared to be displaced 1.74 seconds along lines joining them to the sun. In :fact, early reductions of the results showed that in general they were