6o6 



NA TURE 



[April 2S, 1S98 



air barometer, the advantages of which over a mercurial 

 barometer are compactness and portability, greater sen- 

 sitiveness, greater simplicity in the calculations, and, 

 lastly, greater cheapness. 



All those who are interested in the measurement of 

 heights by barometric methods should read these twenty- 

 eight pages. 



Laboratory Directions in General Biology. By Harriet 

 Randolph, Ph.D., Demonstrator in Biology and 

 Reader in Botany, Bryn Mawr College. (New York : 

 H. Holt and Co., 1897.) 

 This booklet of 152 pages small octavo is a guide to 

 a 142 hours' elementary laboratory course. The Fern 

 and Earthworm are first dealt with, and then a series of 

 animal and vegetable forms, in ascending order de- 

 termined by convenience, the whole culminating in a 

 small modicum of comparative embryology. Directions 

 for manipulation are throughout rendered in italics. Of 

 the making of books there is no end, but a pity 'tis 

 that of the making of books such as this should be a 

 beginning ! The whole is but a set of rough laboratory 

 notes of the time-table order, such as are everywhere 

 used under prevailing custom and often destroyed when 

 ■done with. They are of the kind justified only by the 

 necessity for local adaptation of class work ; but of this 

 there is here no evidence, and we consequently regard 

 their publication in book-form as superfluous. 



The Freezing-Point, Boiling-Point and Conductivity 

 Methods. By Harry C. Jones. Pp. vii -|- 64. (Easton, 

 Pa.: Chemical Publishing Co., 1897.) 

 This little laboratory handbook is designed not merely 

 as a guide to the manipulation of the methods of which 

 it treats, but also to give the student an insight into the 

 physical principles underlying them. The theoretical 

 part is, however, in many places so compressed that, it is 

 to be feared, the average student will hardly be able to 

 follow it without some previous knowledge of the subject 

 •derived from other sources. The practical part is, on 

 the other hand, very well done. It includes descriptions 

 of Beckmann's and the author's apparatus for the deter- 

 mination of freezing-points of solutions, of the Beckmann 

 boiling-point apparatus, as well as of the later forms 

 devised by Hite and by the author, and of the Kohlrausch 

 apparatus for the determination of the conductivity of 

 solutions in the form described by Ostwald. The details 

 of manipulation, on which the author's extensive practical 

 experience of these methods entitles him to speak with 

 some authority, should secure a hearty welcome for 

 this book wherever laboratory instruction in physical 

 chemistry is given. 



Philips Artistic Fruit Studies. By R. H. Wright. 



Philips Artistic Animal Studies. By H. A. K. 



Dixon. (London : George Philip and Son, 1898.) 

 In the lower standards of Elementary Schools the 

 children are given various occupations, such as plaiting, 

 crayon drawing, and macrami work, having for its object 

 the training of the hand and eye. The collections of 

 plant and animal studies now before us have been 

 arranged for this purpose, and they will afford the young 

 pupils for whom they are intended both pleasure and 

 instruction. Each collection consists of a series of 

 twelve original designs, simply coloured, and a series of 

 twelve outline drawings for colouring with crayons or 

 paints. From the fruit studies the children will learn a 

 few details concerning common fruits ; and the animal 

 studies, containing coloured drawings of queen, male 

 and neuter bees, the development of the frog, and similar 

 subjects will be of value in interesting the pupils in 

 natural history. 



It would be an advantage to young pupils if the name 

 of the object were in every case distinctly printed under 

 both the outline and coloured drawings. 



NO. 1487, VOL. 57] 



LETTER TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 ■t>ressed by his correspondents Neither can he -undertake 

 to return., or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 inannscripts intatded for this or any other part of Nature, 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. \ 



"The Story of Gloucester." 



May I ask the courtesy of a few words in further consideration 

 of this, not in reply to your contributor, but as a plea for a little 

 consideration to a few thoughts entertained by thousands on the 

 other side of this controversy ? 



Let all the advocates of vaccination reflect that there is in the 

 small-pox a disorder that affects the .skin. That this serious 

 damage to the skin is the real reason of the danger of the 

 disorder ; and that this damage to the skin makes any classifica- 

 tion by skin marks a very unscientific and a very imperfect 

 manner of dividing the cases. It is more serious than that. It 

 makes classification by skin marks of vaccination almost certain 

 to be erroneous. No certainty of correctness can be had, except 

 in the mildest of the cases. In all the confluent cases, classifica- 

 tion of the small-pox cases by skin marks will be in error with 

 certainty. Therefore, as there has always been a most positive 

 refusal to refer to the register of vaccinations, we have not the 

 slightest reason for accepting the classification of hospital small- 

 pox as correct. We have however, no other classification. We 

 therefore must, perforce, accept for argument that classification. 

 But we always do it with reserve. 



These remarks are those which occur to us always in looking 

 at the modern (post-vaccination) unvaccinated fatalities. If 

 you are making a set of fatalities, which are enormously heavier 

 than ever were recorded before Jenner began his %'accinations, 

 then you are entitled to ask if there is in the fatality, taken as a 

 whole, any justification for these unvaccinated fatalities, such as 

 are now shown. 



Per cent. 

 Thus, Von Swieten's fatalities 150 years ago were 



under ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 



The accepted fatality in this country before vacci- 

 nation was ... ... ... ... ... ... 16 



The Royal Commissioners give Chester, 1774 ... i6'8 

 ,, ,, ,, Ware, 1722 ... I17 

 ,, ,, ,, Old Small-pox Hos- 

 pital, 1746 63 ... 25-3 



This last is the very highest I have ever been able to find. 

 And it is fully accounted for by the statement made in the 

 report of the hospital in explanation of it, that " most of them 

 were adults, often admitted after great irregularities, and some 

 when their cure was despaired of." The hospital was small, 

 and there was not a general admission of patients. Only free 

 admission was allowed for those who were to have the inoculated 

 small-pox. We have then to set against those fatalities, which 

 are exhibited, for the most part, as showing how serious a loss of 

 life was risked by the non-inoculated, the fatality of our own 

 hospitals since the enforcement of vaccination. Thus — 



Per cent. died. 



Metropolitan Hospital, 1870-72 i8"6 



Homerton Hospital, 1871-77 I9"43 



Metropolitan Hospitals, 1876 23 



Same Hospitals for 1876-1880 I7'3 



Dublin, 1876-1880 ... 217 



In the recent years, as there has been a crowding of all the 

 cases into hospitals, and a great deal of hospital extension — 

 never known previously — we have a rather lower rate, as was to 

 be expected ; thus — 



Died per cent. 



Fulham, 1879 i6-2 



Metropolitan Hospitals, 1884 15 8 



Fulham, however, for 1885 was ... ... 24*3 



And for Gloucester we have, 1895-96 ... 2i'9 



There is here nothing to boast of in the fatalities of our com- 

 pulsory vaccination period. There is never so low a fatality as 

 that recorded by Von Swieten, or by Isaac Massey at Christ's 

 Hospital, where only one child in some hundreds died (1722), 

 and there is no avoiding the conclusion, that I can see, that if 

 on the whole there is no lessened fatality, there is some error in 

 the division, which makes one set appear to be vastly better off 

 than the other. I have tested that in this way in the Gloucester 

 cases, by asking if there was a single class free from fatality? 



