SCIENCE IN 1901. 429 



lowering of the temperature^ and even after the immediate action of the 

 injection has passed off the patient experiences relief from the malaise 

 which is so distressing a consequence of high temperature. The drug 

 appears to possess in particular a controlling inflvience on streptococcic 

 and staph3dococcic infection, and it seems probable that its use may be 

 extended to the treatment of other diseases. 



Increased light is being thrown on mosquitoes as agents in the propa- 

 gation of disease. Not only has more detailed information been gained 

 as to the part they play in the causation of malaria, preventive measures 

 based on that information being put in operation with a certain amount 

 of success, but evidence has been brought forward which indicates that 

 the spread of yellow fever also is due to them. That disease, at least, 

 has developed in persons who have been bitten by mosquitoes, while 

 others protected from mosquitoes have escaped, even though they courted 

 infection, according to older ideas, by wearing clothes and sleeping in 

 bedding which had been used by yellow fever patients. In Glasgow there 

 was an outbreak of smallpox in the early part of the year, and plague 

 appeared in one of the large hotels ; but, owing to the vigorous measures 

 adopted, neither disease succeeded in gaining any stronghold. In Lon- 

 don, too, smallpox is prevalent to a greater extent than it has been for 

 a considerable period, though there can scarcely be said to be an epidemic 

 in the sense in which that term was used twenty or thirty years ago. 



In natural history the most interesting discovery was that of a new 

 mammal in the Congo Hinterland. Sir Harry Johnston obtained from 

 the Semliki Forest a complete skin and two skulls, and a reconstruction 

 of the animal may now be seen in the jSTatural History Museum at South 

 Kensington. At first it was thought to be of a zebra-like character, on 

 the evidence of certain stripes on its skin, but further investigation dis- 

 pelled that notion, and Professor Eay Lankester has diagnosed it as a 

 giraffine animal. It has been named Ohapi Johnstoni. 



The men of science who died during the year include three who took 

 high rank among physicists — Professor Tait, of Edinburgh, Professor 

 Fitzgerald, of Dublin and Professor Eowland, of Baltimore. The first- 

 named had reached the age of three score and ten, but the other two 

 were both comparatively young men from whom much good work, in 

 addition to what they had already achieved, might confidently have been 

 expected had they lived. Both education and science were the poorer by 

 the death of Principal Viriamu Jones, of University College, Cardiff, in 

 succession to whom another physicist has been appointed in the person 

 of Mr. E. H. Griffiths. On the other hand, two veterans of science — 

 Virchow in Germany and Berthelot in France — celebrated the comple- 

 tion of fifty years of scientific work. 



