January 26, 191 1] 



NATURE 



427 



Hibbert be elected president for the year 191 1." Sir 

 Henry Hibbert will deliver his presidential address upon 

 " The Duties and Difficulties of Education Authorities so 

 far as Regards Evening Continuation Schools." The 

 formal business of the association will then be transacted, 

 including the election of the officers and council. On 

 Saturday morning there will be two discussions, one upon 

 the Board of Education's new regulations for the registra- 

 tion of evening and other students, to be opened by 

 Messrs. Crowther, Graham, and Sumpner, and the other 

 upon the course system, to be opened by Messrs. Coles, 

 Duthie, and Graham. 



Is a message from Cape Town, a Times correspondent 

 points out that the agenda paper for the forthcoming 

 Imperial Education Conference includes a large number 

 of questions particularly concerning South Africa. Dr. 

 Muir, F.R.S., the superintendent-general of education in 

 the Cape Province, has suggested the following subjects, 

 which it is expected will be discussed : — school curricula ; 

 bilingualism in the case of white children ; the boy-scout 

 movement and its relation to nature-study ; problems con- 

 nected with the education of aborigines ; the collection 

 and dissemination of information regarding the cost of 

 instruction and cost of living in connection with advanced 

 technical colleges and ix>st-graduate departments of 

 universities ; the desirability- of the formation of a per- 

 manent imperial education bureau ; and arrangements for 

 the mutual recognition of teachers' certificates. The 

 director of education for the Transvaal has proposed for 

 discussion the problems arising from the use of two 

 languages as media of instruction, and the organisation 

 of education in sparsely populated districts. In addition, 

 one suggestion each from Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone 

 has been received, so that it would appear likely that 

 great prominence will be given at the conference to South 

 African educational needs. 



Copies of the general and departmental reports for the 

 session 1909-10 of the Bradford Technical College have 

 been received. We notice that the total number of 

 students in attendance during the session under review 

 was slightly greater than in 1908-9, and that the college 

 is in the front rank in the country as regards the number 

 of day students in attendance. It is anticipated that the 

 additional facilities provided in the new buildings, which 

 are now approaching completion, will result in a decided 

 increase in the number of such students. A gratifving 

 feature of all the reports is the information provided 

 showing the interest in the college of the various manu- 

 facturers in the district. Their gifts towards the equip- 

 ment of the different departments and the other assistance 

 given b}- them to the principal and his staff are evidences 

 of their desire to make the college a centre for the 

 technical education of their workmen. Though the regu- 

 larity of attendance of evening students has been well 

 maintained, there are, the principal points out, many 

 causes of irregular attendance, the chief of which are 

 overtime in the mills, changes of residence, and ill-health. 

 It is not probable, he says, that a higher percentage 

 attendance can be attained until the question of the over- 

 time work of students is dealt with by legislation or in 

 some other general manner. The large and increasing 

 amount of testing and experimental investigation carried 

 out in the engineering department for k>cal firms and for 

 trade purposes is further evidence of the close connection 

 between the work of the college and the industries of the 

 neighbourhood. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, January 19.— Sir A rchibald Geikie, K.C.B., 

 president, in the chair. — G. S. Walpole : The action of 

 B. lactis aerogenes on glucose and mannitol. Part ii. 

 The " crude glycol " obtained by the action of B. lactis 

 aerogenes on glucose contains two optically inactive 

 2 : 3-butane diols, the diphenylurethanes of which melt at 

 199-5° and 157° respectively. The former constitutes well 

 over 90 per cent, of the material. If fructose be sub- 

 stituted for glucose in one of the flasks, the yield of 

 " crude butylene glycol " and acetylmethyl carbinol is of 

 NO. 2152, VOL. 85] 



the same order as when glucose is employed. .Acetyl- 

 methyl carbinol is formed abundantly when the bacillus 

 is cultivated in a solution of butylene glycol in i per cent, 

 peptone in a current of oxygen. — Dr. W. E. Dixon : The 

 pharmacological action of Gonioma Kamassi (South 

 African boxwood). South African boxwood, Gonioma 

 Kamassi, has been employed occasionally in Lancashire as 

 a substitute few common boxwood in the manufacture of 

 shuttles ; it is stated that symptoms of poisoning have 

 occurred in a small proportion of the 'men engaged in 

 sawing this wood or finishing the chiselled shuttles. From 

 the wood an alkaloid can be obtained to about 0-07 pef 

 cent. This has a very characteristic physiological action, 

 which places it in the curare group of drugs. The 

 members of this group may be regarded as possessing 

 three actions in common : — (i) paralysis of certain nerve 

 cells ; (2) increase of spinal and medullary reflexes ; 

 (3) paralysis of motor nerve endings. Boxwood exerts all 

 these effects. It paralyses the nerve cells in the brain and 

 medulla, as well as those on the course of the vagus and 

 sympathetic nerves, and therefore after its exhibition to 

 animals the stimulant action of nicotine cannot be 

 obtained. In small doses the reflexes are increased, and 

 if an injection be made into a vein going to the spinal 

 cord of an animal, strychnine-like conx'ulsions are pro- 

 duced. Boxwood causes death by paralysing the respira- 

 tion ; this is central in origin, but it occurs at a time 

 when the phrenics and intercostals are depressed, though 

 not paralysed. Boxwood has no direct action on the heart 

 or on other form of muscle. Reasons are given for 

 believing that the recorded cases of poisoning are not due 

 to the specific action of the drug after absorption, but to 

 the effect of the drug in facilitating certain local reflexes, 

 principally of a respiratory nature, in the predisposed. — 

 Dr. W. Yorke : Autoagglutination of red blood cells in 

 trypanosomiasis. Autoagglutinin exists in small quantity 

 in the blood of many newmal animals. It is frequently 

 present in much greater quantity in the blood of animals 

 infected with trypanosomes. Reaction between auto- 

 agglutinin and erythrocytes takes place only at low 

 temperatures. The strongest reactions are obtained when 

 a suspension of washed enrthrocj^tes in normal saline solu- 

 tion is treated at 0° C. with plasma, which has been pre- 

 pared by defibrinating blood at 37° C. Autoagglutinin can 

 be removed from plasma by absorption with the er\-thro- 

 cytes of the same animal. The reaction between auto- 

 agglutinin and red blood cells is reversible, the clunips 

 disappearing on warming and reappearing on cooling. 

 Iso- and hetero-agglutinin are also often present in much 

 greater amount in the blood of infected animals than in 

 that of normal animals of the same species. From the 

 red blood cells of an infected animal, which have been 

 agglutinated in the cold by the plasma of the same animal, 

 an active substance can be extracted with normal saline 

 solution at 37° C. This substance agglutinates, not only 

 the red cells of the same animal and other members of 

 the same species, but also those of many animals of 

 different species. Observations of this kind indicate that 

 auto-, iso-, and hetero-agglutinin are not different highly 

 specific substances, but have closely related affinities. 

 That a clumping together of the red blood cells is fre- 

 quently observable in coverslip preparations of the fresh 

 blood of animals and man infected with trypanosomiasis 

 is due to the existence of an excess of autoagglutinin in 

 the plasma, which reacts with the en,throc}-tes to a certain 

 extent at the temperature (i5°-20° C.) at which the pre- 

 parations are usually made. It is to be inferred from the 

 information at present available that a marked degree of 

 autoagglutination of red blood cells is an extremely rare 

 occurrence apart from an infection with trypanosomes. 

 The phenomenon is therefore of some value as a diagnostic 

 sign. — M. Nierenstein : The transformation of proteids 

 into fats during the ripening of cheese (preliminary com- 

 munication). Contrary to the accepted view, it was found 

 that the so-called ripening of cheese is not accompanied 

 by a transformation of proteids into fats, the increase 

 of weight of the latter, as observed by other workers, 

 being due to the presence of free cholesterol, aminovaleric 

 acid, putrescine, and cadaverine in the etherial extract. 

 This investigation disproves one of the frequently quoted 

 evidences in favour of the theory that proteids ser\-e as a 

 source few the fat-formation in the animal body. — J. F. 



