NOTES 289 



" I sprayed benzine on dry grass in the caves and at the entrance of the 

 caves and set it on fire. Sometimes lighted torches were moved quickly 

 close to the resting mosquitoes. Next day the caves had cooled and seemed 

 to be just as full of mosquitoes, and they were again burnt. This was repeated 

 daily for about a fortnight in some thirty caves and cisterns, when no more 

 mosquitoes were found. In the meantime, pumps to empty the lake were 

 worked day and night, larvicide was used, and weeds were cleared. 



" In Cyprus the principal breeding-season of mosquitoes is usually limited 

 to April and May, and the destruction of adult Anophehne mosquitoes, if they 

 are found in large numbers, as they were at Famagusta last year, seems to 

 be a valuable anti-malarial measure. The caves formed natural traps, and 

 it was an easy matter to burn the mosquitoes in them." 



Research Defence Society 



The Research Defence Society has made a change in the distribution of 

 its quarterly reports. They have hitherto been sent only to Members and 

 Associates, but are now being forwarded to the chief public libraries, and may 

 be obtained through any bookseller or newsagent. The Society hopes to be 

 able to publish them bi-monthly instead of quarterly. The Report of April 

 of this year contains an account of the hospital stalls in the Efficiency Ex- 

 hibition at Olympia in February, which, the Society says, pleased the public 

 greatly. Six short lectures were given there with success, three by Dr. W. B. 

 Tuck, D.Sc, on chemical research as a foundation-stone of general medicine, 

 on industrial health, and on pharmacology ; and three by Professor Lazarus- 

 Barlow, on fluorescence and ultra-violet light. X-rays and their uses, and 

 radium. 



Income-tax Abatement (A. G. Church) 



One of the first matters to receive the attention of the Economic Aims 

 Sub-Committee of the National Union of Scientific Workers was the position 

 of salaried professional members relative to the Income-tax Laws. It was 

 found that the salaried professional worker was at a disadvantage, relative 

 to the Income-tax Surveyors, in comparison with scientific workers in private 

 consultative practice, and manual workers and other wage-earners. Before 

 the war, the matter was not given any prominence because the average 

 amount realisable from abatement on account of expenses was not worth 

 the expenditure of time and energy in pressing the claim, scientific bodies 

 were apathetic, and individual scientific workers were unaware of the con- 

 cessions which had been made to other classes of the community. 



The post-war position of salaried workers in research institutions and 

 universities, the continual depreciation of salaries, with the rise in the cost 

 of living, the ever-increasing expense of materials, renewals of apparatus, 

 and books, and the alarming increase of the income-tax rates, caused scientific 

 workers to regard income-tax assessment in a new light and to seek for relief 

 from undue burdens. Certain members of the National Union of Scientific 

 Workers forwarded claims for abatement on account of expenses incidental 

 to their occupation to their local surveyors, and in some cases they were 

 successful in obtaining relief. But there was no uniformity of treatment 

 of the claimants by the assessors. 



Accordingly, in January 1920 the National Union approached the Institute 

 of Chemistry and the British Association of Chemists, with the object of 

 securing joint action by the three bodies in pressing the claim of all scientific 

 workers that certain expenses should be allowed as a charge against income 

 in arriving at the assessment for income-tax. A joint committee was ap- 

 pointed, and a draft of a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury was submitted 

 to the three bodies for their approval, and subsequently sent to practically 



