December 22, 1923] 



NA TURE 



909 



Current Topics and Events. 



Dr. G. D. Liveing, who reaches his ninety-sixth 

 birthda}' on Friday, December 21, may be assured 

 that, in addition to the many personal friends who 

 offer him congratulations on the maintenance of 

 activity and intellectual interest at so great an age, 

 chemists and other men of science, not only in Great 

 Britain but also abroad, think of him with affection 

 and esteem. He has had a remarkable life, and 

 his contributions to scientific knowledge will long 

 remain a permanent testimony to his care in ex- 

 periment and caution in conclusion. Dr. Liveing 

 went to St. John's College, Cambridge, was eleventh 

 Wrangler in 1850, and in the following year was 

 placed at the top of Class I. in the newly instituted 

 Natural Sciences Tripos. He was elected to a fellow- 

 ship at St. John's College in 1853, and became professor 

 of chemistry in the University in 1861, a post which 

 he filled until 1908. His name will always be 

 associated with the growth and development of the 

 Chemical Laboratories of the University. In 1879, 

 Dr. Liveing was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, 

 of which he was vice-president for two periods, 

 1 891-2 and 1903-4. He was awarded the Davy 

 medal in 1901 for his contributions to spectroscopy, 

 and in making the presentation, the president of 

 the Royal Society referred to Liveing's work as "one 

 of the most valuable contributions to this department 

 of chemical physics yet made by British workers." 

 The work on spectroscopy was given to the world 

 in numerous papers in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society and the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 

 and was brought together in 1915, in collaboration 

 with the late Sir James Dewar, under the title 

 " Collected Papers on Spectroscopy." Dr. Liveing 

 holds the unique distinction of having been in 

 residence at Cambridge for more than seventy-five 

 years in unbroken succession, and his figure is probably 

 well known to most living members of the University. 



Prof. Kleine of Berlin, who has just returned to 

 I'-urope, has been investigating the therapeutic prop- 

 erties of a drug known as " Bayer 205 " in Rhodesia 

 and the Congo in cases of human sleeping sickness 

 and trypanosomiasis of domestic animals — diseases 

 which are such a serious handicap to the development 

 of Africa. It is well known that salts of arsenic and 

 antimony are able in many oases to control these 

 diseases, but these remedies are far from satisfactory, 

 and the remarkable results which were reported in 

 <^'.ermany in 1922 in the treatment ol experimental 

 trypanosomiasis in animals and in dourine of horses 

 with the new drug " Bayer 205," the composition of 

 which has not yet been made public, aroused much 

 enthusiasm. The completely satisfactory treatment 

 of a human case in Hamburg, after arsenic and 

 antimony had failed at the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, excited considerable interest. 

 Other patients were treated at the London School of 

 Tropical Medicine, and it became evident that in 

 Tuany cases the drug had a rapid action on the trypano- 

 ' )mes, and, so far as can be said at present, has effected 

 <i permanent cure. The one disadvantage is a 



NO. 2825, VOL. 112] 



certain irritative action on the kidneys, which, 

 however, is not of a permanent nature. Prof. Kleine 

 was granted permission by the British Government 

 to conduct experiments in Rhodesia, and the published 

 accounts of his work show that the hopes which were 

 entertained were fully justified, and that cures can 

 be effected in a large percentage of natives suffering 

 from sleeping sickness even in its advanced stage. 

 As regards the trypanosomiasis of domestic animals, 

 he has noted that it is only efficacious in ridding 

 them of trypanosomes which are most closely related 

 to those which produce disease in man. Experi- 

 ments on the prophylactic action have shown that if 

 cattle which are to be exposed to the bites of tsetse 

 flies are given an injection of the drug before exposure, 

 the chances of infection are reduced, and even if 

 infection does occur its course is considerably modified. 

 It is understood that Prof. Kleine will, in the near 

 future, give an account in London of his experiences. 



In some cases the American graduate appears to 

 receive a farewell address of the nature of a " pastoral 

 charge " before he leaves the university to make his 

 own way in the world. Such an occasion obviously 

 encourages platitudes, but we may be grateful that the 

 issue of Science for October 19 enables Prof. Millikan's 

 address to a graduate class at Stanford University, 

 California, to reach a wider public. He recalls that 

 Senator John Sherman, when addressing a class of 

 graduates in 1891 in which Millikan was included, 

 told them their problem was to make democratic 

 government work in a country three thousand miles 

 one way, by two thousand the other, a government 

 and a country which had been preserved to them by 

 the sacrifices made to them by his generation. Now, 

 as the result of untold sacrifice, 1923 finds the world, 

 by no means yet ready for the task, presented with 

 the problem of making democracy work on a huge 

 scale, not only in the United States of America but 

 also in almost every important nation on earth. Prof. 

 Millikan finds that one of the greatest contributions 

 that science makes to the problem is the discovery 

 that progress is in general made by the evolutionary 

 process. " The whole of Newton is incorporated in 

 Einstein." He decides that if bullets are to be 

 replaced by ballots it will only be " because the nations 

 of the earth learn to take a more rational, a more ob- 

 jective, a more scientific attitude towards life and all 

 its problems." ..." For in the jungle ignorance and 

 prejudice and impulse and emotion must determine 

 conduct, and so long as that is the case none other 

 save the law of the jungle is possible." Prof. Millikan 

 has no nostrum to propose to eliminate the jungle in- 

 fluence, but looks to " the slow growth of a larger 

 degree of both public intelligence and public con- 

 science than we now have. Intelligence enables one 

 to know better what he ought to do, while conscience 

 keeps him doing as he knows he ought." He con- 

 cludes that " science, imbued with the spirit of 

 service, which is the essence of religion, and religion 

 guided by the intelligence, the intellectual honesty, 

 the objectiveness and the effectiveness which is char- 



