524 



NATURE 



fJUNE 15, 191 I 



knowledge of climate, stars, plants, and nature gener- 

 ally possessed by the old-fashioned shepherd, who, as 

 1 have mentioned on a previous occasion, was, despite 

 his frequent inability to write or read, thoroughly 

 and conipk'tely educated and equipped for the purposes 

 of his callinfiT. 



Much has been made in works on the Bible and in 

 sermons, of the fact that Syrian shepherds lead, in- 

 stead of driving, their flocks; but, as the author 

 points out, and as everyone who has lived in the 

 country ought to be aware, this is by no means a 

 pt'culiarity of Eastern lands. Very interesting are 

 the notes on sheep-bells, which are stated to date 

 from a remote antiquity, and it is therefore the more 

 remarkable to find that they are apparently unknown 

 in the Isle of Man and Scotland. With this I rruast 

 take leave of a delightful book. R. L. 



DR. ALEXANDER BRUCE. 



NEUROLOGY and medicine have sustained a 

 heavy loss in the death of Dr. Alexander Bruce, 

 of Edinburgh, physician and editor of The Review of 

 Neurology and Psychiatry. It was known for some 

 time that Dr. Bruce was in ill-health. The news of 

 his death, however, came as a shock to many. , 



Born in Aberdeenshire in 1854, Dr. Bruce entered 

 tiie arts faculty of Aberdeen University in 1870. He 

 j^raduated in 1874 widi first-class classical honours, 

 being awarded the Town Council gold medal as the 

 most distinguished graduate of his year. He had an 

 equally brilliant career in medicine at Edinburgh 

 University, and, on his graduation in 1879 as M.B., 

 CM., with first-class honours, he obtained the Ettles 

 Scholarship as the best student of his year. During 

 his tenure of the Leckie-Mactoir Fellowship he studied 

 at Vienna, Heidelberg, Frankfort, and Paris. 



Returning to England, he commenced his profes- 

 sional career by being for a time assistant clinical 

 clerk at the West Riding Asylum, Wakefield. In 

 1882 he took his M.D. degree, obtaining a gold medal 

 for his thesis. Settling in Edinburgh, he gradually 

 built up a large general practice. He became a lec- 

 turer on pathology at the Surgeons' Hall and path- 

 ologist to the Royal Infirmary, to the Royal Hospital 

 for Sick Children, and to the Longmore Hospital for 

 Incurables. He also lectured at the Surgeons' Hall 

 on neurology, and later on the practice of medicine, 

 while he was appointed a physician and lecturer on 

 clinical medicine at the Royal Infirmary. 



By this time he had acquired a considerable repu- 

 tation as a consultant, especially in diseases of the 

 nervous system. His contributions to the literature 

 of this subject were very numerous, being marked 

 especially by the care with which pathological lesions 

 were investigated and described. The chief character- 

 istic of his work was thoroughness, and in the pre- 

 paration of these published reports of cases no labour, 

 whether of bedside observation or of microscopic work, 

 was spared. He did not restrict himself to neuro- 

 logical subjects, but published communications on 

 general pathology and medicine. He also translated 

 Thoma's " Lehrbuch der Pathologie." 



It was characteristic of Dr. Bruce that he should 

 undertake pioneer research into the minute anatomy 

 of the brain and spinal cord. It is with this work that 

 his name will perhaps be most associated. He beean 

 by publishing "Illustrations of the Mid and Hind 

 Brain " and "Topographical Atlas of the Spinal Cord." 

 Numerous researches on the nuclei of the cerebral and 

 spinal nerves, on cranial nuclei, and on the nerve- 

 fibre connections of these we owe to him. A notable 

 example of this work is " Distribution of the Cells in 

 th? Intermedio-Lateral Tract of the Spinal Cord " 



NO. 2172, VOL. 86] 



(Trans. Roy. Soc., Edin., 1906), a research which 

 must form the basis of all subsequent work on this 

 subject. Feeling the need of a "Centralblatt " in 

 English which should contain short, originul com- 

 munications and provide abstracts and a complete 

 bibliography of recent work on neurological subjects, 

 he founded in 1903 The Review of Neurology and 

 Psychiatry. To the interests of this work he devoted 

 a large part of his time, with what success only those 

 who work on neurological subjects can adequately 

 appreciate. Just before his last illness he had finished 

 a translation into English of Oppenheim's great 

 " Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten," while he was 

 busily engaged, along with Dr. Dawson, in an in- 

 vestigation on the lymphatics of the spinal cord. 



Dr. Bruce was a strenuous worker. It was only 

 bv systematic economy of his time that he was able 

 to keep abreast of his multifarious duties. His in- 

 fluence over the younger workers with whom he was 

 .associated was great. AmontgiJs co»/rercs he was 

 held in highest respect, as \^iP%r his uprightness 

 and generosity as for his ability. As a mark of his 

 distinction in neurology he was in i8qq made a corre- 

 sponding member of the Ncuroloe^ical Society of Paris. 

 In iqo6 the Royal Society of Edinburgh awarded him 

 the Keith prize for his work on the intermedio-lateral 

 tract, and in 1009 the University of Aberdeen con- 

 ferred on him the degree of LL.D. He is sur\ived 

 by a widow, two daughters, and three sons, one of 

 whom has already made important contributions to 

 neurological science. 



NOTES. 

 The council of the London Mathematical Society has 

 awarded the De Morgan medal for 191 1 to Prof. H. Lamb, 

 F.R.S., in recognition of his researches in mathematical 

 physics. 



The British Empire League and the British Science 

 Guild are combining to entertain the Colonial Prime 

 Ministers and other distinguished visitors at a banquet at 

 the Savoy Hotel to-morrow, June 16. His Grace the 

 Duke of Devonshire (president of the British Empire 

 League and vice-president of the British Science Guild) 

 will take the chair. 



The annual meeting of the Association of Economic 

 Biologists is to be held at the rooms of the Linnean 

 Society, Burlington House, London, on July 6. 



.\ccoRDiNG to the June number of The Selborne 

 Magazine, the annual conversazione of the Selborne Society 

 held in London on May 5 was the most successful of the 

 whole series. It was announced that the original MS. of 

 Gilbert White's Nature Calendar is to be published 

 shortly. 



Mr. Frank A. Ferret, of Springfield, Mass., is proceed- 

 ing to Hawaii to open and take charge of the volcanic 

 observatory which has been established there through the 

 combined efforts of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. 



A PROPOSAL will be laid before the members of the 

 Aeronautical Society to reconstitute the society by the 

 institution of the following five grades of membership, viz. 

 ordinary members, associate members, fellows, associate 

 fellows, and students, the last three categories being re- 

 served for persons engaged in technical work connected 

 with aeronautics, while the first two are open to all who 

 are interested in the work of the society. 



