Repository: UIHistories Project: UI Foundation Series - Bulletin 3 (1936) [PAGE 3]

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T H E U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R Y was built in three units, from 1924 to 1929, and houses over a million volumes. The book stacks are independently supported on separate foundations and not as usual by the walls themselves. This building also houses the Library School of the University.

T H E COMMERCE AND B U S I N E S S A D M I N I S T R A T I O N B U I L D I N G was built in 1925. In it are held practically all of the classes in this rapidly growing College. The building also provides accommodations for the offices of the dean of the College and members of the Commerce faculty.

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Improvement in Photo-electric Cell. Professor Jakob Kunz of the Department of Physics, who is now in Germany for study, has developed a signal improvement in the photo-electric cell. Professor Kunz first developed his photo-electric cell in 1909 and further improved it during the next two years. H i s was an alkaline cell and was a great improvement over the selenium cell which had been used for some time, particularly because the. alkaline cell showed no fatigue with use. While the Kunz cell is already so sensitive that it reacts to light from a star invisible with the naked eye, the new cell promises to be even more sensitive. T h e new method involves the use of colloidal alkali vapor. The uses of the photo-electric cell or electric eye, as it is now called, have multiplied in the last few years, and it has taken a very prominent place in motion pictures, television and in industry. University of Illinois Hospital A s s o ciation. T h e d e v e l o p m e n t of the hospital association at Illinois shows an interesting study as given in figures and statistics released by David M. Larrabee, assistant to the dean of men. In its first year, 18991900, six students were treated and the benefits paid amounted to $48; while in the year, 1934-35, those benefited numbered 1,821 and the benefits were $23,641.93. Further figures show that during the first eight years of its existence the association benefited 122 students or an average of 15 a year; during the last 8 years, 10,796 students, or 1,349 a year. The hospital association is self-supporting with the aid of a voluntary student membership costing $3 per semester. According to a recent report of Mr. Larrabee, a total of 5,150 memberships have been sold this semester, 146 above the previous high mark of 5,004 set the second semester of 1930-31. The present figure includes 400 members of the faculty, also a new record. The hospital association is the oldest University plant in operation, according to C. Rufus Rorem, consultant of the American Hospital association. Mother's "Blood Bank." A recent announcement at the University of Illinois College of Medicine was that of a "blood

University News Reels—Recent Findings of Our Research Departments

bank," into which expectant mothers may deposit as much as a quart of their own blood shortly before confinement, and which may be drawn upon for strength during childbirth. It is hoped that this plan will reduce maternity death rates. Dr. Bernard Fantus, professor of therapeutics in the department, says, "Taken from the patient during the last stages of pregnancy when she has stored up a healthy surplus of rich blood, the reserve blood is preserved by electric refrigeration for possible use at any time." Our Splendid Agriculture Experiment Station. " M o r e n e w wealth for Illinois comes out of the institution at Urbana than can ever be created under the dome of the Capitol at Springfield," so speaks Wheeler McMillen, Editor of The Country Home, "Scientists at work at the Illinois Experiment Station," he says, "and the educators who cooperate by carrying their finding to farmers, are the most powerful of agents for increasing the output of new dollars from Illinois soil "It is splendid for the citizens of a democracy to pay generous attention to the political phases of their public affairs . . . . but I do think we should pay vastly more attention to what happens around our scientific and educational institutions "I doubt if any of the dollars invested anywhere out of the huge budget of the State of Illinois do more for the people of the state than the few dollars expended annually in the scientific work at Urbana.". Fighting Typhoid C a r r i e r s with X-Ray. Dr. Lars Gulbrandsen, instructor in bacteriology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, reports that he has been able to use x-ray treatments over the liver and gall bladder of chronic carriers of typhoid germs so as to sterilize these germs. There still exists in the State of Illinois about 1200 cases of typhoid fever per year. Doctors know that these are infected from people who have recovered from typhoid fever and are apparently healthy, but who still pass the germs in their feces. The x-ray treatments are not severe, but are light doses given once every two weeks and are repeated only five or six times. The new method has the advantage of being practical, economical and effective. University of Illinois Speaking Bureau. In response to the large number of requests for speakers which comes to the University

of Illinois each year, announcement was recently made at the organization of a speakers' bureau to cover such requests. These speakers will be furnished as far as possible to school assemblies and teachers' institutes, civic clubs, women's organizations and the like. In order to make the bureau self-supporting, a fee sufficient to meet travel and incidental expenses will be charged. T h e Bureau functions under the Extension Division of which Robert B. Browne is director. A N e w Skin Disinfectant. A n e w skin disinfecting solution three hundred and fifty times as powerful in killing germs as phenol (carbolic acid) and three times as powerful as tincture of iodine, yet costing only $1.60 per gallon to manufacture in the laboratory, has been announced by the University of Illinois. The development of this solution is the work of doctors Lloyd Arnold and J. A. Vaichulis of the University's Department of Bacteriology and Public Health. T o get some idea of the saving, tincture of iodine (U.S.P.) costs approximately four dollars a gallon, while tinctures of metaphen, merthiolate and mercurochrome cost over twenty dollars per gallon. Oral Vaccination Possible as a S u b stitute for the Time-honored Needle Method. Successful oral vaccination was recently heralded by Dr. Lloyd Arnold of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, which will soon open up a new field in public health and preventive medicine. Dr. Arnold has pursued his studies of oral vaccination for fifteen years and presented his new method to the combined meeting of the Indiana-Michigan-Ohio Societies of Bacteriologists. T h e method involves "playing a trick on the stomach." The laboratory workers have discovered that by taking a bile pill thirty minutes before the vaccine, the bife prevents the production of digestive acids which would otherwise destroy the vaccine. T h e stomach remains quiescent for one or two hours and the vaccine passes through unchanged. Once in the small intestines, it is slowly but persistently absorbed. •of®

T H E N E W A G R I C U L T U R A L B U I L D I N G , built in 1922-23, shares with the old AK building in providing accommodations for the Departments of Agricultural Engineering, Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Husbandry, Home Economics, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. T H E A R C H I T E C T U R A L B U I L D I N G (1927) houses not only the Department of Architecture but also the Department of Art and Kindred Subjects. The Hall of Casts, the Art Gallery and the Ricker Architectural Library are also found in this building.

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