254 



NA TURE 



[January 13, 1898 



The President of the Executive Committee is Prof. Julian 

 Calleja, the Vice-President the Marquis del Busto, Professor in 

 the Madrid Faculty of Medicine. As far as relates to hygiene, 

 the work of the Congress will be divided among ten Sections as 

 follows : microbiology in relation to hygiene ; prophylaxis and 

 transmissible disease ; medical climatology and topography ; 

 urban hygiene ; hygiene of alimentation ; hygiene of infancy and 

 of schools ; hygiene of exercise and labour ; military and naval 

 hygiene ; veterinary hygiene, civil and military ; sanitary archi- 

 tecture and engineering. The part of the work relating to 

 Demography will be divided among three sections as follows : 

 technics of demographic statistics ; statistical results in relation 

 to demography ; dynamical demography (movements of popula- 

 tion, &c.). A British Committee, of which Sir Douglas Gallon, 

 K.C.B., is Chairman, has been formed to secure the co-operation 

 of sanitarians in this country, and generally to promote the 

 success of the Congress. Programmes of the subjects to be dealt 

 with, and all other particulars, may be obtained from the 

 Honorary Secretary to the British Committee, Dr. Paul F. 

 Moline, 42 Walton Street, Chelsea. 



A CABLEGRAM through Reuter's agency, dated January 6 at 

 Bombay, states that plague returns for Bombay show 142 cases 

 and 105 deaths during the preceding forty-eight hours. Later 

 news states that on January 8-9 there were 159 cases and 126 

 deaths. The total mortality during the present outbreak is 406. 

 The epidemic is now following closely the lines of the original 

 outbreak, and ominous rumours are circulating to the effect that 

 unless things improve by the time of the forthcoming solar 

 eclipse, there will be a serious exodus and a general suspension 

 of business. 



The memorial presented to the Department of Woods and 

 Phoresis by the Guildford Natural History Society, asking that 

 Wolmer Forest be reserved as a sanctuary for wild birds and 

 other animals, has been passed on to the War Department, 

 to which the forest, including the rights of shooting and sport- 

 ing, is in lease. In doing so, Mr. Howard, Commissioner o^ 

 Woods and Forests, takes the occasion to remark that he is 

 disposed to think that the best mode of arriving at the objects 

 which the petitioners have in view is to take advantage of the 

 game laws and the present system of game preservation in 

 order to protect animal life generally. He thinks that where 

 game preservation is carried out only those creatures which are 

 specially destructive of birds are kept down, and animal life 

 generally flourishes better than it would be likely to do in 

 other circumstances. 



Dr. E. Zintgraff, whose death we have already an- 

 nounced, was one of the most energetic of the German pioneers 

 to whom fell the work of exploring the interior of the Came- 

 roons, after that territory had, in 1884, become a dependency of 

 the German Empire. Born at Dusseldorf in 1858, Dr. Zintgraff 

 obtained his doctor's degree at the University of Heidelberg, 

 and gained his first experience of African exploration as 

 member of Dr. Chavanne's expedition to the Congo (1884). A 

 year or two later he proceeded to the Cameroons, at that time a 

 veritable terra incognita in respect of all but its coast line. For 

 the space of six years his activity was unabated, and to him 

 belongs the honour of being the first to push his way through 

 the belt of dense forest lying behind the Coast Settlements to 

 the open grassy plains which occupy the interior plateau, and to 

 reach by this route the populous regions of Adamaua in the 

 Southern Sudan, with their enterprising population of Hausas. 

 This successful journey to the north was not made until 1889, 

 the previous years having been occupied by detailed explora- 

 tions north of the Cameroons Mountain, and by the establish- 

 ment of the Barombi Station as a base from which the ultimate 

 advance could be made. Dr. Zintgraff subsequently did much 



NO. 1472, VOL. 57] 



to encourage agricultural enterprise in the Cameroons. His 

 arduous journeys had undermined his health, and the latter years 

 of his life were spent at Teneriffe, where he died on December 

 5, 1897. 



The work which the late Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard did for the 

 cause of science is made the subject for appreciative comment 

 in Science. In 1883 Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Alexander Graham 

 Bell founded the old series of Science, the first editor of which 

 was Mr. S. H. Scudder. He was what the French language 

 terms an entrepreneur of scientific ideas, inventions and dis- 

 coveries — the man of affairs who pushed them into the service 

 of mankind. He was the entrepreneur of oral speech for the 

 deaf, and also of the telephone, for it was through his energy 

 and business ability that the instrument was introduced to the 

 world and made a practical agency of intercommunication. 

 Having accomplished this he retired to Washington, and when 

 the National Geographic Society was founded there, he was 

 elected first president. The function of the National Geographic 

 Society is the discussion of the principles of geography and the 

 diffusion of geographical knowledge among the people. To 

 carry out this purpose Mr. Hubbard organised the National 

 Geographic Magazine. Then he organised a system of 

 bulletins designed to discuss the elements of physiography as a 

 compendious library for teachers in the public schools, and 

 finally he organised in the city of Washington a system of 

 public lectures on geography, enlisting not only the members of 

 the Society, but many other able public men in this enterprise. 

 In all of these agencies the working geographers of Washington 

 most heartily co-operated, and the National Geographic Society 

 has within very few years attained remarkable influence and 

 efhciency. 



The January number of the National Review has an admirable 

 article by Mr. Gerald Arbuthnot, entitled " In Defence of the 

 Muzzle." The temperate spirit in which it is written, and the 

 conscientious manner in which the statistics referred to have 

 been collected, ought to materially strengthen the hands of those 

 who are upholding the muzzling order for dogs, in the face of 

 the selfish and short-sighted opposition which it is receiving 

 from a certain section of the public. In the same magazine we 

 note also a paper by Mr. Arthur Shad well, dealing with the 

 recent outbreaks of typhoid fever. The writer permits himself 

 to affirm that the medium by which the poison of typhoid fever 

 is diffused "can hardly be anything else but water, acting 

 directly or indirectly." The diffusion of typhoid fever is far too 

 complicated a problem, and involves too many factors to enable 

 water to become thus wholly responsible, as the writer seems to 

 consider. Whilst contaminated water is undoubtedly an im- 

 portant — a very important — factor in the dissemination of this 

 disease, there are other conditions which must be considered 

 in this connection, and amongst such sewer-gas would seem 

 to deserve a prominent place. Several years ago now, it was 

 shown by an Italian investigator that the inhalation of sewer- 

 gas markedly increased the predisposition of the subject under 

 experiment, to suffer from the effects of typhoid poison. 



L\ the early days of railway engineering, little circumspection 

 was used in laying down lines, and many tunnels were con- 

 structed which would nowadays be avoided by following the 

 policy of evading obstacles wherever possible. An unnecessary 

 tunnel of this kind, built fifty years ago by the North British 

 Railway Company, and running for 3000 yards at a depth of 60 

 feet below the streets of Edinburgh, was afterwards discarded, 

 another line having been constructed which carries the traffic 

 outside the city. For a time the old tunnel remained unused, 

 but ten years ago it was taken over by Messrs. R. and J. Baton, 

 of Glasgow, and has since been used by them for the purpose of 

 cultivating mushrooms. The story of this industry is briefly 



