650 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



they were based, namely that parental metabolic toxaemia 

 may be the cause, or at least the chief cause, underlying the 

 origin of monstrosities. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. By A. G. Thacker, A.R.C.Sc. 



Few sciences are habitually treated in a more purely academic 

 spirit than anthropology, but few have in reality such im- 

 portant practical implications. On previous occasions I have 

 drawn attention to the fact that no nation has more need, or 

 so much need, to encourage anthropology as Great Britain has ; 

 since the Imperial State which rules some 400,000,000 of 

 people of almost every living race has constantly to deal or 

 attempt to deal with all those extremely complex problems 

 which arise when white men come into contact with other 

 races and cultures. On these problems the scientific anthro- 

 pologist has as yet scarcely made his voice heard, although, 

 of course, it is he who should be in a position to make the 

 most important contribution towards the settlement of ques- 

 tions connected with the political and social treatment of 

 " natives." Our attention is drawn to this aspect of anthro- 

 pology by an official report, which was recently issued, dealing 

 with a small but significant negro rising which occurred in 

 Nyasaland early in 191 5. This rising was not a sudden blow 

 struck by an aboriginal tribe against the ever-encroaching 

 Europeans, nor was it connected in any way with the Anglo- 

 German war which was in progress contemporaneously along 

 the Nyasaland border. It was a politico-religious movement 

 carried out by negroes who had come into the closest contact 

 with European civilisation, and was under the leadership of 

 an American negro. The rising was small and was speedily 

 suppressed ; but several murders were committed, and these 

 " Christian " negroes carried off the head of one of the mur- 

 dered white men, and deposited this gruesome relic on the 

 altar of one of their churches, where a thanksgiving service 

 for the supposed success of the rising was held. A Commission 

 was appointed to investigate the causes of the rising, and the 

 commissioners' report was published last year. (See the 

 Nyasaland Times for February 10, 19 16.) The commissioners 

 found that the chief cause of the rising was the inflammatory 

 character of the religious propaganda of certain Christian (or 



