VASSAR COLLEGE

during the period 1910- 25 the endowment of vassar college grew from about $1,500,- 000 to $7,000,000 with goo ac. in campus and farm. student enrolment, formerly limited to 1,000, was increased to 1,150. the college has always maintained a full roster, admitting new students whenever vacancies occur. some of the new students each year are admitted in order of application, provided they pass the entrance examination; but about one-third of the enter- ing class is admitted on competitive examination. plans call for enrolment exclusively by compctitive examination after 19028. the funds available for student aid in one form or another amounted in 1926 to over $450,000. the physical equipment of the college, exclusive of faculty residences, includes 30 build- ings, seven of them dormitories, a library containing 132,000 catalogued books and a farm of 675 ac., with vegetable gardens and a model dairy. student self-government is in effective operation, the students themselves assuming responsibility for most of the regulations governing attendance and conduct, for the management of the students’ building and a club house conducted for the maids; also for all extra curriculum activities, including the providing of various money-making occupations for self-supporting stu- dents. the price for rooms and board is the same for every stu- dent. the rooms are selected by lot. there are no sororities or other clubs to which membership is not absolutely open. no fee may be charged for admission to any campus building. all these facts help to maintain the democratic spirit of which the college is justly proud. the increased endowment mentioned includes $3,000,000 pledged in ro21t-2 for the increasing of teachers’ salaries. the college in 1925 received a gift of $550,000 by mrs. john w. blodgett, of grand rapids, mich., for the erection and endow- ment of a laboratory of “ euthenics,” a term comprising the sciences which contribute most directly to physical efficiency. this development is in keeping with the wishes of matthew vassar, founder of the college, to the effect that the curriculum should provide, in addition to other studies, those related to the fullest development of the primary interests of women in relation to parenthood and the family. (bjs) vatican: sce papacy. vaughan williams, ralph (1872- ), british musical composer, was born at down ampney, glos., oct. 12 1872. he early determined on the pursuit of music, but his development as a composer was slow. at trinity college, cambridge, where he became mus. bac. in 1894, and at the royal college of music, where he studied with parry and stanford, his work made little mark. he seemed singularly lacking in the power of clear self- expression. the revival of english folk-song, however, in which he became absorbed, unlocked his latent creative powers. the norfolk rhapsodies for orchestra (founded on folktunes), and the symphonic impression j2 the fen country, on original themes of folk-song character, show his development. other types of distinctively national music, notably the tudor church com- posers and purcell, strengthened his technical resources and helped to determine his own style in the direction of vigorous melodic outline, the free use of model scales, an untlinching con- trapuntal texture and a high-handed attitude towards harmony. among poets, walt whitman specially attracted him, and his setting of toward the unknown region, for chorus and orchestra (leeds festival, r907), made its impression through the unaf- fected and sincere aspiration of the music and its close contact with the poem. a sea symphony for soprano and baritone soli, choir and orchestra (leeds festival, rgro0), with the words selected from several poems of whitman, was the crowning achievement of this period. a londen symphony for orchestra only (produced at the queen’s hall, london, 1914) is a vividly imaginative piece in which poetry is discovered in such common places of london life as the noise of traffic and the street urchin playing a mouth-organ. during the world war he served in the r.a.m.c. and later gained a commission as a gunner. afterwards he took up his music where he had left it. a pastoral symphony for orchestra vassar college—venereal disease (royal philharmonic society, 1922) might be described as the deep breath of content which a man draws on recovering the wholesome sanity of the english country. a afass in g afinor (westminster cathedral, 1923) is one of the noblest pieces of pure church music since byrd’s setting of the liturgical text for five voices. a choral work called an oratorio, suncta civitas (oxford, 1926), shows the composer dwelling in a phase of mystic thought which he had already touched on in the scene for the stage from the pilgrim’s progress, called the shepherd of the delectable mountains. the ballad opera, hugh the drover (words by harold child), belongs to the earlier period when folklore and folk-songs were the primary inspiration of his work. as musical director of the english folk dance society vaughan williams carried on the work which cecil sharp initiated. he also became conductor of the london bach choir and professor of composition at the royal college of music. vazoff, ivan (1850-1921), bulgarian poet and novelist, was born at sopot. in common with the founders of bulgarian literature, rakovsky, karaveloff and boteff, he was first inspired by the sufferings of his countrymen before the liberation. his trials of bulgaria describes the nation’s struggle for freedom. a bard of the people, vazoff’s style is simple and unaffected; his epic poem to the forgotten, celebrating the great deeds and sacrifices of the bulgarian people, thrilled the nation, as also under the thunder of victory (1914), songs of alacedonia (1916) and new echo (1917). vazoll’s most inspired poems and novels of a descriptive character are those relating to the bulgarian countryside and village life. he diced at sofia sept. 22 1921. | his chief novels are: under the yoke (eng. trans. 1894); sretosiav terter (1907), hfadjt ahil and kazalarskata tsaritsu; and his dramas include: borislav (1910) and towards the abyss. veblen, thorstein b. (1857- ), american author and teacher, was born july 30 1857. ie was educated at carle- ton college, where he took the a.b. degree in 1880, and did post- graduate work at johns hopkins, yale and cornell universities. he was appointed reader in political economy at the university of chicago in 1893, becoming successively instructor and assis- taunt professor. he was associate professor of economics at stanford university, t906-9, lecturer in economics at the uni- versity of missouri in 1911-7, and lecturer in the new school for social research, new york city, 1918. he made contributions to the theory of economics, especially as modified by current business practices. among his works are the theory of the leisure class (1899); the theory of business enterprise (1904); the instinct of workmanship (1914); imperial germany and the industrial revolution (1915); an iinguiry into the nature of peace and the terns of its perpetua- tion (1917); the iligher learning in america (1918); vested interests and the state of the industrial arts (1g19); the engineers and the price system (1921); absentee ownership and business enterprise in recent times (1923). vedder, elihu (1836-1923), american artist (sce 27.964), died at rome jan. 29 1923. his book, doubt and other things, was published a few days before his death. vejdovsky, frantisek (18409- ), czech zoologist, studied in prague, trieste and naples and specialised in zoology, comparative anatomy and embryology. in 1877 he qualified as. a lecturer at the prague technical institute by a work entitled monographie der enchytraciden (1879), and in 1879 was ap- pointed professor at the charles university in prague. of his numerous works the most noteworthy are those dealing with the problem of the ripening, fertilisation, segmentation and cleavage of ovum cells, on which he became widely known as an authority. in addition to numerous articles in periodicals his most important works are: die siisswusserschwdmme behmens (1883); neue untersuchungen iiber die reifung und befruchtung (1907). prof. vejdovsky received many academic distinctions and was made a corresponding membcr of numerous native and foreign biological and zoological socicties. venereal disease.—the period from 1910-25 has been marked by the commencement of a campaign which has devel- oped into a world-war against venereal diseases. in this work great britain has taken a prominent part but the campaign has also been carried on in other parts of the world. venereal disease in 1913 a royal commission under the chairmanship of lord sydenham was set up to inquire into “ the prevalence of venereal diseases in the united kingdom, their effects on the health of the community, and the means by which those effects can be alleviated or prevented.’ the royal commission reported in 1916, and their recommendations were immediately acted upon by the local government board of england and wales (now the ministry of health), and the public measures for combating ven- ereal diseases in england and wales are now as mentioned below, while in scotland and ireland the campaign is being conducted on the same principles. ; legislative action.—1. by an act of parliament passed in 1917 the treatment of patients for venereal disease by others than regis- tered medical practitioners and the sale without the prescription of a registered medical practitioner or the advertisement to the lay public of remedies for the treatment or prevention of venereal diseases are forbidden. 2. there are 193 centres chiefly in voluntary hospitals for the treatment, free of charge, of persons suffering from venereal disease. 3. fourteen hostels exist for the care and treatment of females who are infected, and would, unless helped by shelter, become pro- fessional prostitutes. 4. seven institutions are specially for the care of pregnant females who are infected. 5. treatment of venereal disease is also provided in poor law institutions. 6. arsenobenzol (salvarsan) compounds are given free of charge to medical practitioners qualified to administer these remedies. 7. specimens from persons suspected to be suffering from venereal disease can be examined free of charge in 73 laboratories which have been approved for the purpose. 8. the work of educating the public in the dangers of venereal diseases and the importance of early and continued treatment 1s carried out by the british social hygiene council gormerly the national council for combating venereal diseases), which receives from the government a grant in aid of its expenses. propagandist work is also undertaken by the county councils and county borough councils, either directly or in conjunction with the british social hygiene council. the arrangements for establishment of free treatment facilities for distribution of arsenobenzol compounds and for laboratory examina- tions are under the control of county councils and county borough councils, which receive from the government 75 °5 of their approved expenditure on this account. resulis obtained —some idea of the results obtained may be gathered by comparing the returns of cases seen for the first time in 1920, when the numbers were highest, with those scen for the first time in 1924, as presented hereunder :— gonor- rhoea soft chancre total non-ven. 40,284 31,272 the table ‘discloses a substantial reduction in the number of cases of syphilis, and the figures indicate that the incidence of syphilis in the community has declined considerably. similar results have been reported by other countries which have set up venereal-disease schemes on the principle of treating the in- fected. the attendance at the centres in 1920 was 1,488,514 and in 1924 had increased to 1,645,415. gonorrhoea.—no outstanding remedy has been discovered analogous to that of arsenobenzol in syphilis, but, particularly since 1914, improvements in detail have made the diagnosis and cure of gonorrhoea more certain. in diagnosis, improvements in methods of cultivating the gonococcus on artificial media have placed the surgeon on firmer ground when determining the ques- tion of cure. in treatment the practice of administering vac- cines to raise the patient’s resistance has become much more common. in complications of gonorrhoea, such as gonorrhoeal rheumatism and iritis, what is known as protein-shock therapy has proved useful. the remedies employed in this form of treatment are quite varicd; for example, colloidal silver or anti-typhoid vaccine injected into a vein: milk or turpentine injected into the muscles. they have the immediate effect of raising the patient's temperature and by the next day there is usually a definite improvement in the symptoms. another form of treatment which has been in use by a few for a number of years but is only now becoming more general is 935 diathermy (see electro therapy). the principle of its use in gonorrhoea and its complications is that the gonococcus is very sensitive to heat, being killed at temperatures which are supported with comparative ease by human tissues. good results have been obtained in gonorrhoea of females by this method, but undoubtedly its most pleasing effects are in epididymitis and in gonorrhoeal rheumatism in men. in gonorrhoeal rheumatism and iritis the reservoir from which the joints and eyes are continually being infected is commonly in the prostate and the seminal vesicles, both situated at the base of the bladder. the current is applied by means of an clectrode placed in the rectum and 1s increased in strength until the patient feels the part becoming uncomfortably hot. soft chancre or chancroid.—the figures showing the new cases which have been seen at treatment centres indicate that chan- croid is not now very prevalent in great britain. the treatment is now more conservative than formerly. the chancroid is viewed as possibly harbouring also the germs of syphilis, and with the object of avoiding any action which may prejudice the micro- scopical search for the more severe disease, the surgeon withholds for as long as possible the application of antiseptics. when a bubo forms in the groin, a comparatively rare event under modern practice, it is more usual now to attempt to secure resolution by protein-shock therapy (see gonorrhoea) and by aspiration of the abscess followed by injection into the abscess cavity of some drug which will lead to the destruction of the germs. svphilis—improvements in methods of detecting the germ of the disease, spirochacta pallida, under the microscope, viz., by dark-ground illumination, have made it possible to diagnose the disease very rapidly en the day it makes its first appearance. the wassermann, or the bordet-wassermann, test has heen modified considerably in its details and is generally more delicate than formerly. in 1918 sachs and georgi published the details of a new test which, either in its original or a modified form is now being practised very extensively. it depends on the fact that, if a suitably diluted extract of heart muscle, with some cholesterol, is incubated at 37°c. for a number of hours with the blood serum of a syphilitic person, small flocculi appear in the previously clear or very slightly turbid mix- ture. jn great britain, dreyer and ward have devised a test which depends on the same principles but is much more precise in technique and i ese the strength of the reaction numerically. in the u.s.a, kahn has produced a modification which is extremely easy to carry out. so far these flocculation tests have not reached the degree of perfection which would justify their substitution for the wassermann test, but often they give positive results when the original gives negative and vice versa, so that they supplement usefully the wasser- mann test. the examination of the nuid in the spinal canal is now carried out much more frequently than formerly, and a patient is not regarded as cured unless all tests of this cerebro-spinal fluid have given negative results. as to all these tests it must be emphasised that negative reactions to all of them do not prove the absence of syphilis. it is therefore customary to pursue the treatment far beyond the stage of the first negative reactions. great strides have been made in treatment since rg10 when ehrlich introduced dioxy-diamino-arsenobenzol dihydrochlo- ride, commonly known as “ 606 ” or salvarsan, as a remedy for syphilis. the effect of a single dose of this remedy is usually to cause the spirochaetes to disappear from the discharge of syphili- tic sores in 24 hours and syphilitic lesions heal with a rapidity which was a source of great wonder to those who had toiled in the treatment of syphilis with the help of only mercury and prep- arations of iodine. the original preparation has largely been supplanted by a com- pound introduced by ihrlich in 1912 under the name of neosal- varsan or “ 914," which is much more convenient to use and less disturbing to the patient than was the original preparation. these advantages are somewhat offset by a lower therapeutic activity of the newer preparation. combinations of arsenobenzol with silver and with zinc are also used. the manufacture of arsenobenzol prep- arations spread during the war into the hands of a number of firms each of which has attached to the same chemical compounds trade names of their own to an extent which may be somewhat bewilder- ing to the uninitiated. every arsenobenzol compound is made in batches cach of which receives a distinctive mark and must pass a certain test of toxicity and of therapeutic activity before it can be issued to the public. the testing in great britain is carried out by the medical research council. experience has shown that, although the 936 arsenobenzol preparations act very promptly, a number of in- jections in successive courses must be administered to secure eradication of syphilis and that it is advisable to supplement them by administering another metallic compound. arsenobenzol will not penetrate into the nerve tissue of the brain, and this limitation has led to the introduction of an arsenical prep- aration of another order, viz.: tryparsamide or n-phenyl glycine- amido-p-arsonic acid into the therapy of locomotor ataxy and general paresis. the results show gencrally that tryparsamide is valuable | for this purpose. in 1920 sazerac and levaditi showed that tartro-bismuthate of potassium and sodium is more powerful than mercury in destroying the spirochaetes of syphilis, and a large number of bismuth preparations have been placed on the market since it was found that it 1s the metal rather than the compound which matters in the therapeutic action. generally it can be said that bismuth injections effect more towards the cure of syphilis than do mercurial and that preparations of bismuth can be used which cause less discomfort than do any mercurial. bismuth is useless for the cure of syphilis if given by the mouth and its injection into veins is practised very little on account of its greater toxicity when administered by this route. bismuth is gen- erally considered to be an adjuvant rather than a substitute for arsenobenzol treatment. it is retained in the tissues for long after a series of injections has been given, and it thus prolongs the anti- syphilitic effect after all the arsenobenzol has been excreted. the powerful effect of the arsenobenzol and bismuth com- pounds on the germ of syphilis has led to a number of experi- ments to determine whether or not they prevent the develop- ment of syphilis after inoculation. there is strong evidence to the effect that a few arsenobenzol injec- tions given after contamination with syphilitic virus does protect against the disease. kolle has produced experimental evidence tending to show that the injection of bismuth carbonate protects against infection resulting from inoculation with syphilitic virus so long as the compound remains in the muscles. rabbits treated thus proved resistant to inoculation with syphilitic material for as long as 109 days after injection of the bismuth. the disadvantage of injections as a method of preventing syphilis after venereal risk led levaditi to try an arsenical compound called stovarsol or acctyl-oxyamino-phenyl arsenic acid, which is admin- istered by the mouth. there is good evidence that the ingestion of stovarsol in suitable doses prevents infection, but considerably more work on the subject will be necessary before stovarsol can safely be given to the public as a prophylactic against syphilis. treatment of general paralysis of the insane.—a great advance has been made in the treatment of a form of syphilis which is ac- knowledged to be the most incurable of all, namely general paral- ysis of the insane. this disease is one which has almost always ended fatally, defying the most intensive treatment by anti- syphilitic remedies. its course is marked by remissions of vary- ing length, during which the patient may appear to have recovered. it has been known for a century or more that an intercurrent infection accompanied by fever often results in a long remission, and this knowledge has led wagner von jauregg and his colleagues in vienna since 1887 to inoculate patients with a variety of substances designed to make their tempera- tures rise. the best of all the agents has proved to be the para- site of benign tertian malaria and since its introduction in 1919 the method has been tested all over the world. the results have been very encouraging. the inoculation is by injection of malarial blood or by the bites of infected mosquitoes, and eight to twelve attacks of fever are allowed before quinine ts given. bibliography.—l. w. harrison, ‘‘ the public control of venereal diseases,”’ si. thomas’ hospital gasetie, vol. 29, nos. 7 and 8 (1923); l. w. harrison, the modern diagnosis and treatment of syphilts, chancroid and gonorrhoea (1924); w. iolle and k. zieler, zandbuch der salvarsantherupie, bd. 1 and 2 (1924 and 1925); royal commission on vencreal diseases, final report, cd. 8189 (1916); ministry of health reports on public health and medical subjects, no. 1, the complement fixation test in syphilis, commonly known as the wassermann test, hals.o; (1920). ministry of health, annual reporis (stationery office, london); medical research council, special report’on laboratory diagnosis of gonococcal infections, no. 19; on laboratory tests of syphilis, nos. 14, 19, 21, 25, 45, 47, 55 and 78; on salvarsan, nos. 44 and 66 (stationery ar wees: 7 a eae bs baa venezuela