664 



NATURE 



[November 3, 192, 



Current Topics and Events. 



• award of the X(jIm;1 

 ,, TV.,f A V Hill ..ihI 



Tin: anil 



prirc for im.«..v...i i;,i J 

 I n.( Otto Meyerhof, an 



and J*i ' *•■ •^rod, is gi ..i>.li 

 in medi icc, Thi ■ dis- 

 covered iiisulm share with uork< is .m I. iiiTion 

 inheritance of srifntifir tradition; ii 1. has 

 :\\' ,.,, I , ■• . ' I, , ,'An. The 

 .li I 1 I Hill and 

 I 111' p!. Im' 1 emphasises the 

 ii 1.11,11' 1,1. 111,11 kc(l their work 



; ■ ' '■ t ll<- 111 \ r ,t l'_;,l t II •11-. ' 't 



now srt iit,n \ of tlic Me' : 



I'ldf Ilill's tutor .tt ( '.mil u n i.'c ,iii'i iii;m-,i imih Io 

 l.iki- lip pliv>iolo^\'. Wdik on muscle .it lli.it Inne 

 awaitii! tlu' elaboration of a new technique of in- 

 vest it;. it ion. It w^as Langley who suggested the line 

 of ap})roach which h.is since proved so prodnctiNc 

 in tlie liands of A. \'. lliil, \s liose ino(iilic;ilion of the 

 thcnnopilc niaili- }»ossihle the investigation of the 

 total heal produced in a musenlar contraction, of 

 the time-relations of tlu- lu at production, either 

 " initi.d " or " recovery,' and of the thermal changes 

 .Ls.-.oci.itid witli the passive lengthening or shorten- 

 ing of the muscle. Oxygen is not used in the primary 

 break-down processes of rest or activity, but only in 

 what, strictly speaking, may be called the recovery 

 processes. Prof. Hill has shown that but for the 

 bod\ s ability to meet its oxygen liabilities in arrears, 

 it would not be possible to make more than the 

 most moderate muscular effort. The muscle " goes 

 into debt " for oxygen on the security of the lactic 

 acid liberated in activity. Mechanical response is 

 probably due to the production of lactic acid during 

 contraction, its sudden appearance changing the 

 electrical and colloidal state of protein interfaces in 

 the muscle. Prof. Hill and his collaborators then 

 passed to the consideration of the efficiency and speed 

 of the recovery process, to the use of the " oxygen 

 debt " as an indicator of the absolute amount of 

 lactic acid present in the body at the end of exercise 

 and to other problems of muscular exertion in man. 

 Meyerhof continued in the use of the calorimetrical 

 and chemical methods, his account of the rdle of lactic 

 acid in contraction running parallel to A. V. Hill's. 

 Muscle problems apart, Meyerhof. following Hopkins, 

 has done notable work on the mechanism of oxida- 

 tion ; while A. V. Hill's work on blood-gases and on 

 nervous excitation is also very widely known. 



If committees and talk could satisfy the biblio- 

 graphic needs of the present-day researcher, he would 

 be happy indeed. Even a body no less august than 

 the International Commission on Intellectual Co- 

 operation, instituted by the assembly of the League 

 of Nations, and presided over by Prof. Bergson, has 

 been discussing the question. Meanwhile, the Com- 

 mittee on Bibliography and Publication appointed 

 by the Union of American Biological Societies has 

 presented its first report (Science, September 28. 

 1923). It proposes to publish one comprehensive 

 NO. 2818, VOL. I 12] 



.series of liiolo^ical Abstract at the rate of 



6S titles to the page, would ,,; cc 6000 pages a 



year. This would be issued in 12 monthly numtsers. 

 with a thirteenth, also of 500 pages, for the classifie*! 

 index. The estimated cost of manufacture and 

 distribution is 52,144 dollars, which is to be met by 

 1000 institutional subscriptions of 15 dollars and 

 6000 individual subscriptions of 6.20 dollars. These 

 estimates do not include cost of binding (at least 

 4 dollars per < opv jx r aiiniun), nor do they seem to 

 allow for eihtoti.il 1 ,ii,lif ktmuIh, .,'1,1 < if-rical work. 

 N'aln.d.Ir til. ,11: would Still 



leave ii et by such 



a woi r could its 



classihed index, hased on \n\i\ .1;. tr.i'.ts, reallv be 

 what the committee calls " the modern, detailed, 

 searching subject in I he prospect, therefore, is 



somewhat appalling ^gests anew that modem 



s( icritific authorship will perish under the weight of 

 Its own products. But are tliese 6500 pages, for 

 biolog>' alone, rea]i\ ? Would not an 



analyti' i-'-i-v 1 honestly compiled, 



be bot trr ultimate value ' 



Major H. H. King, writing,' from iJie Central 

 Research Institute, Kasanli. I'nnjab, directs attention 

 to the statement made by I'rof. I. P. Pawlow. in his 

 lecture before the International Physiological Con- 

 gress held in Edinburgh last July, to the effect that 

 he has experimentally demonstrated the inheritance 

 of an acquired nervous character [British Medical 

 Journal, August 11, p. 256). The statement, as 

 Major King suggests, is so far-reaching in its signifi- 

 cance, that the results of the further experiments 

 now in progress will be eagerly awaited. Up to the 

 time of his leaving Russia, Pawlow's experiments had 

 not demonstrated the direct inheritance of an acquired 

 or " conditioned " reflex in the form of an inborn or 

 " unconditioned " reflex; what he claimed to have 

 shown was that the acquisition, under identical treat- 

 ment, of a " conditioned " reflex became increasingly 

 rapid in successive generations of mice. It is clear, 

 however, that his results had led him to regard it as 

 probable that eventually, after a sufl5cient number of 

 generations had been exposed to the training, the 

 period of training needed would fall to zero, and the 

 reflex, acquired in the earlier generations by oft- 

 repeated association, would e\entiiallv appear as an 

 inborn, unconditioned character. It would be worse 

 than useless at this stage to discuss the possible 

 meaning or mechanism of such a process. We must 

 await the confirmation and full exposition of the facts. 

 But it must, in any case, be regarded as an event of 

 the highest significance that an observer of such pre- 

 eminence, and so intensely objective in his methods, 

 should have been led even to such preliminary con- 

 clusions. 



A VALUABLE addition to the collection of old maps 

 in the British Museum has been made by the purchase 

 of a hitherto unknown Itahan world map dated 1506. 

 A reproduction of the map is given in the Geographical 



