638 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



German. The issue for 1919-20 contains accounts of the ceremdties of dis- 

 tribution on June i, 1920, and December 10, 1920, with portraits and 

 biographical notices and the Nobel lectures delivered by the laureates. These 

 were Max Planck, Johannes Stark, Fritz Haber, Charles-Edouard Guillaume, 

 Jules Bordet, August Krogh, Carl Spitteler, Knut Hamsun, Woodrow Wilson, 

 and Leon- Victor- Auguste Bourgeois. 



The Jenner and Pasteur Centenaries (Col. W. G. King, C.I.E., I.M.S., 

 M.B., D.P.H.). 



According to the Registrar-General, in 1922 London, which (including 

 its " outer ring ") has a Census population of over seven millions dependent 

 on water derived from a source which sanitarily must be classed as " suspici- 

 ous," and on the removal of waste products which demand for safe-conduct 

 that not a lapse of structure nor a default in organisation of personnel shall 

 mar its daily routine, had a general death-rate of 13-4 per mille of its popula- 

 tion, and an infantile death-rate of 73 per 1,000 births. The rest of England 

 and Wales, implying inclusion of both urban and rural populations — the latter 

 supposedly rich in possession of abundance of unused air — yielded 0-5 per mille 

 less in its general death-rate ; but for every 1,000 births consigned 4 more to 

 premature death than crowded London. But in this London, in 1660-79, the 

 general death-rate was 80, in 1746-55, 35-5, and in 1881-90, 20-3 per mille. 

 In 1730-49, of children living under five years of age the death-rate was 

 75-4 per cent. From the single disease small-pox, the average annual death- 

 rate of the population of England, during the period 1730-49, was 5 per mille. 



These figures, when reckoned upon populations of many millions, imply 

 in difference of rates enormous saving of life per annum in this country and, 

 further, that the increments of saving have been attained within the past 

 century. There can exist no difference of opinion that this result has been 

 brought about by the application of methods of disease prevention which 

 have become available in that period. 



Up to the end of the seventeenth century, the protection of life was based 

 on methods which were empirical. Conditions which might be but adjuvant 

 were, by their repeated yet exceptional occurrence, forced upon attention, 

 and were interpreted as the causative agents. Thus, foul odours and fluctua- 

 tions in meteorological conditions^ gave much room for grave discussion. 

 But, in the process of evolution, man in common with other denizens of the 

 earth has purchased his improved condition at the cost of experiences — 

 many of which, though impressive, might, at the time of infliction, have been 

 decidedly disagreeable. Certainly, subjection to epidemics of small-pox 

 might be so described. In England, its demand upon life sufficed to provoke 

 the proverb, " A mother's son is not her own until he has had the small- 

 pox." But, those who survived the infliction were living witnesses to the 

 possibility of immunity to a recurrence of the disease, and gladly submitted 

 to inoculation with its hopeful but dubious issue. It was soon forced upon 

 observation that when the disease attacked bovines and was subsequently 

 acquired by man, it not only afforded protection but was mild in type — an 

 experience which was put in practice by the farmer Jesty. But it required 

 the genius of Jenner to investigate and substantiate the potentiality of the 



1 The latter factor had the merit of irresponsibility in ascribing to Provi- 

 dence that which was beyond the cognisance of the physician. In illustration 

 of this mental attitude may be quoted a report on the health of British troops 

 in India for the period 1829-38, when a death-rate from cholera of 10 per 

 Toxlle was no rare occurrence. The Medical Officer compiling the report 

 stated he did not think it necessary to add the cholera deaths to the general 

 rate, because " in the latter year, as has been mentioned, an unusual state 

 of atmosphere prevailed." 



