342 



NATURE 



[Septembi 



to meet modern requirements, should appeal to the 

 intelligence of a progn niinunity. Meteorology 



would be followed on ■ md more original lines. 



Magnetic observation;^, unu.li unfortunately have 

 never formed a part of the Observatory work, would 

 be actively pursued, and the inconvenience occasioned 

 by the want of accurate magnetic constants removed. 

 The attention already given to scismometry could be 

 increased with advantage. Clas.ses are now held in 



f>ractical surveying and geodesy, and these, at presei 

 II ' I id convenience, could I 



III' ;. 



i iKii- IV, ,1 (iiiiu uiiy Ml lUKiing the n- ' 



especially at this juncture, but if a 

 gramme is submitted to the attention <m mw^i i .ij.^n- 

 of carrying it into execution, the past history ■ 

 Liverpool leads one to anticipate that <-^ '■" »' 

 obstacle will not be found insurmountable. 



The Eleventh International Physiological Congress. 



N- 



ATIONAL congresses of a general scientific char- 

 acter, like the British Association, have been 

 held in various countries for about a century, but 

 international meetings, limited to a particular branch 

 of science, present greater difficulties, and are of more 

 recent date. The disruptive effect of the Franco- 

 Prussian war was long felt, and the meetings of 

 physiologists, started on the initiative of Michael 

 Foster thirty-five years ago, were at first anxiously 

 confined to the smaller countries, like Switzerland 

 and Belgium. In 1898 a Physiological Congress met 

 at Cambridge, but no meeting took place in Germany 

 until that at Heidelberg in 1907. After Vienna in 

 1910 and Groningen in 1913, Paris was chosen as the 

 next meeting-place, but the regular succession was 

 broken by the War. The Paris congress was indeed 

 held in 1920, but some nations, who have contributed 

 much to physiology, were not represented. As Prof. 

 J. E. Johansson said in an impressive speech at the 

 closing meeting of the congress held at Edinburgh on 

 July 23-27, many will feel grateful to its president, 

 Sir Edward Sharpey Schafer, for the return to an 

 earlier tradition. It was, indeed, the truly inter- 

 national character of the Edinburgh meeting which 

 contributed largely to its success. For successful it 

 certainly was, both as regards scientific interest and 

 personal relationships. Some twenty nationalities 

 were represented, doubtless a record for physiologists 

 and for Scotland, if not for Britain. The membership 

 of 460 exceeded that of the very successful Groningen 

 meeting (if ladies, not engaged in physiological studies, 

 be deducted). 



As regards the programme, the customary informal 

 reception was held on the ^Monday evening, by Sir 

 Edward and Lady Sharpey Schafer, in the Old College 

 of the University. At the opening meeting on Tues- 

 daj'^ morning, July 24, addresses of welcome were 

 delivered by Capt. Walter E. Elliot for the Govern- 

 ment, by the Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas Hutchison, Lord 

 Provost of the City, and by Sir J. Alfred Ewing, 

 Principal of the University; Prof. J. J. R. Macleod, 

 of Toronto, delivered a lecture on insulin. Then 

 followed a panoramic photograph of the whole con- 

 gress. The Lord Provost and Lady Hutchison held 

 a largely attended reception in the evening, and two 

 days later the Congress visited the Scottish Zoological 

 Park ; for the rest it was occupied with a crowded 

 scientific programme of about 200 communications, 

 which were given concurrently in three lecture rooms, 

 with additional laboratory demonstrations in the 

 afternoons. 



The so-called New University Buildings, which 

 mainly constitute the Edinburgh Aledical School, were 

 not planned very satisfactorily, and are not entirely 

 up-to-date, but they possess at least one advantage : 

 they form a compact whole round a central quad- 

 rangle, and this feature was of great value for a meet- 

 ing like the present one. The lecture rooms and 

 other resources of several contiguous departments 

 were simultaneously available. An indicator in each 

 lecture theatre, kept continuously up-to-date, an- 



NO. 2809, VOL. 112] 



nounced what papers or exp>eriments were in nr 



in the other rooms. Occasionally the c 



tions and their polyglot discussion took r 



the 15 minutes allotted to each, and not all n 



36 chairmen were sufficiently strict, but in ti 



end the programme was completed without serioi; 



delay. 



In addition to the opening lecture on insulin, 1- 

 Prof. J. J. R. Macleod, two other addresses wei 

 given to the whole congress. Prof. Ch. Richet, 

 Paris, spoke on " I^es voies de la connaissance autr^ 

 que les voies sensorielles ; 6tude de physiolopi 

 perimentale," and at the closing meeting a pai 

 Prof. I. P. Pawlow, of Petrograd, on " The Id 

 of Inhibition, as a Constant Factor in the W 

 State, with Hypnosis and Sleep," was read in Li.^..a.. 

 by his son, Prof. W. Pawlow. On the conclusion of 

 this paper, describing recent experimental work on 

 conditioned reflexes, the enthusiastic audience rose to 

 its feet to applaud the veteran physiologist, whose 

 participation in the congress was almost prevented 1 

 the refusal of a British visa on leaving New ^"orl. 

 Permission to land at Southampton (instead ot 

 Cherbourg) was, however, obtained by wireless tele- 

 graphy during the voyage, through the enterprise of 

 an American colleague and fellow-passenger, who 

 communicated with an English physiologist. 



At the closing meeting an invitation to meet in 

 America was conveyed by Prof. A. J. Carlson, of 

 Chicago, as president of the American PhN-siological 

 Society, and an international committee was ap- 

 pointed to consider the possibility of accepting it. 

 and should the economic obstacles prove too great, 

 to select another place for the meeting in 1926. 



It is naturally difficult to single out, for individual 

 mention here, a few of the numerous communications, 

 abstracts of which were issued in advance, arranged 

 alphabetically in book form. They will appear later 

 as a supplementary number of the Quarterly Journal 

 of Experimental Physiology. On the first afternoi 

 the section dealing with insulin attracted the large> 

 audience ; here F. G. Banting and C. H. Best, of 

 Toronto, reported that they had found insulin in 

 normal rabbit's blood, one unit for about 30 c.c. In 

 the vitamin meeting, held at the same time, it was 

 evident that the subject is attracting more and more 

 attention on the continent. K. Hotta, a Japanese 

 investigator working at Frankfort, described how the 

 characteristic convulsions of pigeons, fed on fwlished 

 rice, may be entirely prevented by feeding with 

 cholesterol. In yet another section W. R. Hess, of 

 Zurich, reported on the plans for founding a station 

 for high altitude research near the terminus of the 

 Jungfrau railway (about 11,500 feet above sea-level). 

 The peculiar advantage of this site is its ready 

 accessibility, as compared with the Mosso laboratory 

 on the Monte Rosa, which can only be reached 

 with difficulty and during a ver}' limited period of 

 the year; 120,000 francs have already been sub- 

 scribed, and a further sum of 100,000 francs is con- 

 sidered necessary. This Swiss station is not intended 



