NOTES 455 



suggested only that some relation holds between malaria and mosquitoes. 

 They were more often wrong than right, and failed entirely even to indicate 

 those two great unknown quantities, the species of mosquito concerned and 

 the form and position of the parasites within it. Both these unknown quan- 

 tities were disclosed simultaneously by my very lucky observation of August 20, 

 1897, which provided the key of the whole mystery, and even helped to unlock 

 the yellow fever problem in 1900. (2) The sanitary measure of mosquito- 

 reduction was fully described in 1899, before Gorgas used it ; but he was able 

 to employ it (and other measures) against yellow fever as well as against 

 malaria. (3) The whole work has been an international one, in which the British 

 have taken a considerable part. But the British work has been due almost 

 entirely to the initiative of private medical men ; and I, for one, have never 

 been employed by my countrymen in an executive capacity to give effect 

 to my own suggestions. On the other hand, Gorgas worked with the whole 

 support of the American State behind him. 



Right well did he do it ; and we are all glad that the King recognised his 

 achievement before he died. 



THE "SCIENTIFIC" LOVER 



By CLOUDESLEY BRERETON 

 From the Laboratory he came 

 And in Love's incandescent flame 

 Annealed his soul ; of chemic school 

 Alumnus, he reduced to rule 

 And theorem, every excellence 

 To which his Love could make pretence. 

 And first he strove to analyse 

 The prismic colours of her eyes. 

 And when he stroked her waving hair, 

 On the electric fluid there 

 He made deductions ; each sensation 

 Provided him a new equation. 

 And when he kissed her in the dark 

 He calculated out the arc 

 Her lips described, correcting it 

 When she the tell-tale gas relit ; 

 And when she raised her under-jaw, 

 Applying each kinetic law 

 He found in n and r and a 

 Her masticating formula. 



Her shapely figure does but serve 



As typic of some lovely curve ; 



And when about her voice he raves, 



His mind is full of tonic waves ; 



Weeps she, he finds her tears ancillary, 



To thinking out of things capillary ; 



And since he finds her, like her sex, 



A mystery, he calls her ' x,' 



And when to get him she doth try 



To name the day, he answers, Why ? (y) 



