242 



NATURE 



[December 22, 1910 



consequence of advice founded on such results — to 

 insist that local governments and local bodies serv- 

 ing under it shall no longer fail to class anti-malarial 

 measures as practicable, but shall estimate for and 

 finance them when feasible. 



As to the combined anti-larval measures and quinine 

 prophylaxis, of the " great possibilities " of which the 

 committee is hopeful, obviously they could be con- 

 ducted continuously, at the least feasible cost, by the 

 Government of India insisting that a correctly 

 organised and well-educated executive sanitary ser- 

 vice should be available in each province, as, if the 

 still incomplete service in the Madras Presidency be 

 excepted, not even the skeleton of such an organisa- 

 tion yet exists in India. 



As for "education," the only form that will appeal 

 to the average Indian villager for the next century is 

 practical demonstration of what correctly conceived 

 anti-malarial works can accomplish. His acquiescence 

 in Western theories would be but a polite fiction, 

 although no race can more quickly, or more grate- 

 fully, appreciate sanitary works demonstrably decreas- 

 ing sickness and death ; nor, in the face of his con- 

 viction as to their utility after their completion, would 

 he grudge his contribution towards them. 



Municipalities do at the present time undertake 

 large sanitary works (other than anti-malarial) at a 

 cost from Rs.4 to Rs.12 per head of the population 

 served. But it is apparently the typical " small town " 

 under district board jurisdiction that presents to the 

 committee the insuperable difficulty of financing 

 "inajor schemes." But in this is involved an erroneous 

 method of regarding the matter. In severe cases of 

 malaria justifying major schemes, when a town is 

 impoverished by sickness and mortality, and, more- 

 over — as such places must be — is a danger to the sur- 

 rounding inhabited areas of the district in which it is 

 situated, by reason of its wandering human malaria 

 germ-bearers, it is sound political economv to require 

 not solely the alreadv impoverished locality but the 

 district board, and, in exaggerated cases, the pro- 

 vincial government concerned, to afford financial aid, 

 in part or whole. Nor need such a distribution of 

 responsibilitv be regarded as financiallv impracticable 

 if these principles be recognised. The borrowing 

 powers of district boards remain practically un- 

 exploited. whilst the expenditure of funds in their 

 charge is so erratic, and in such ill-considered 

 proportions to the various requirements of the 

 Acts they administer, that the best value is not 

 obtained. 



Average taxation for district board purposes does 

 not exceed three half-pence per head per annum ; but 

 a single attack of fever (against several possible) per 

 annum in the case of an adult, if the standard treat- 

 ment by quinine approved by the Simla Conference be 

 resorted to, would cause an unproductive expenditure 

 of lod. for this single drug, besides that due to extra 

 luxuries during sickness, adjuvant medicines, and 

 ceremonies, &c., irrespective of loss of labour. Yet, 

 in the Punjab, where, during 1908, in round figures, 

 there occurred 700,000 deaths from malarial fevers 

 (giving a rate from this cause alone of 346 per mille 

 of the population), the district boards concerned 

 thought it proper to spend 24 per cent, of their in- 

 comes for education, against i'5 per cent, for sanita- 

 tion, including nothing for new water supplies. In 

 connection with malarial fevers and " the drain upon 

 the resources of India " they bring about, it is worth 

 remembering that, during 1908, there were treated in 

 the civil hospitals of India (where necessarily but a 

 fraction of the oooulation resort) a total of 5,211,851 

 cases of malarial fevers. 



W. G. King. 

 NO. 2147, VOL. 85] 



THE VOLUME OF THE KILOGRAMME OF 

 WATER. 



'HP HE volume referred to below* contains three im- 

 A portant memoirs relativ'e to determinations 

 which have been made during recent years by the 

 Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, or under 

 its auspices, on the volume of the kilogramme of 

 water. 



Since the fundamental work of Lefevre-Gineau and 

 Fabbroni, made towards the end of the eighteenth 

 century, on which the prototype standard kilogramme 

 was based, the question of the specific mass of water 

 has been the subject of a number of inquiries in 

 various countries. In spite of the critical and de- 

 tailed examination to which these inquiries have been 

 subjected, it is not easy to institute an exact com- 

 parison between the results, partly because the 

 measures have been made and expressed in units of 

 which the relation to the metric units is more or less 

 uncertain, and partly because certain elements in the 

 reductions and calculations have not been set out in 

 sufficient detail. 



A resume of this work is given bv M. Guillaume 

 in the first of the three memoirs above referred to. 

 From this account, in which the previous work has 

 been carefully revised, and all corrections introduced, 

 so far as known data would permit, it appears that 

 the most probable values for the mass of a cubic 

 decimetre of water deducible from the most important 

 of the determinations subsequent to those of Lefevre- 

 Gineau and Fabbroni, are as follows : — 



The original work on which Lefevre-Gineau and 

 Fabbroni established the first standard kilogramme 

 has also been minutely examined and discussed bv 

 several authorities, and M. Guillaume has subjected 

 these revisions to a further scrutiny, from which it 

 would appear that the following are the most probable 

 values of the mass of the cubic decimetre of water : — 



kg. 

 According to the revision of Broch (minimum) o"99988o 

 ,, ,, ,, Mendelecff o"999966 



,, ,, ,, Guillaume 0*999970 



These numbers, it will be seen, differ notably among 

 themselves, and even after due weight has been given 

 to their relative probable value, it still remains un- 

 certain in which direction the difference between the 

 kilogramme as defined and as it actually is really lies. 



The exactitude of these values ultimately depends 

 upon the precision with which the linear and hence 

 the cubical dimensions of bodies can be ascertained. 

 Within recent years great increase in accuracy has been 

 secured in such measurements by the application of 

 the phenomena of optical interference as worked out 

 by Fizeau and Michelson. In 1897 the late M. Mac^ 

 de Lepinay ascertained the precise dimensions of a 

 cube of quartz bv this method and by means of it 

 made a series of determinations of the mass of a kilo- 

 gramme of water, and obtained the value 0*999959. 

 In 1899, MM. Fabry and Perot made similar deter- 

 minations by a modification of the method on the 

 same cube of quartz, and found the value 0999979. 



These methods, with all the improvements which 

 experience has suggested, have formed the basis of 

 the series of determinations made by M. Chappuis. on 



1 "Travaitx et Memoires du Bureau International des Poids et Mesures." 

 Tome xiv. (Paris : Gauthier-Villars, 1910.) 



