February 2, 1911] 



NATURE 



455 



MODERN ARGENTINA."^ 

 17 EW countries outside the British Dominions are more 

 -*■ interesting to the inhabitants of Great Britain than 

 the Argentine Republic. Enormous amounts of British 

 capital are invested there — some 170,000,000/. in the rail- 

 ways alone, indeed Great Britain has financed most of 

 the developments — about a quarter of our imported food- 

 stufTs come from there, and a number of young English- 

 men go out to find employment on the great estancias. 

 At present the bulk of the population centres round 

 Buenos Aires, the enormous hinterland being only thinly 

 populated, and in many regions not thoroughly explored. 

 And yet the country is not new ; it has a history of three 

 centuries, two of which, however, were under the old 

 Spanish regime, when only Spanish emigration was per- 

 mitted, and the few adventurers and officials who went out 

 preferred the life of the town to that of the country. 



The administration in 1907 very wisely determined to 

 take stock of the present agricultural position, and a 

 scheme for a census, or, more strictly, a great inventory, 

 was drawn up. It was, however, necessary to proceed 

 cautiously, and for some time an advertising campaign 

 was conducted informing the people exactly what informa- 

 tion was wanted, and why. The census was taken in 

 1908, and the results are now published ; there are two 

 volumes of figures, and one volume devoted to monographs 

 dealing with the physical conditions, the agriculture, and 

 the people. 



From these volumes we learn that the Argentine is now 

 growing at a good, but not very rapid, rate. Of its 

 4,500,000 inhabitants in 1900, about a million were 

 foreigners, nearly half being Italians, followed by 

 Spaniards and Americans ; under 22,000 are English. 

 The exports are wheat, maize, linseed (.Argentine being the 

 chief producer of this) and other cereals, meat, both 

 chilled and tinned, hay, quebracho (used for tanning), and 

 similar commodities, the total value being in 1909 

 79,000,000/. Formerly it was mainly a grazing country, 

 but of late years crops have been grown extensively. 



The wheat supply from the Argentine has an interest- 

 ing history. As in other newly settled countries — e.g. 

 Canada — wheat is one of the earliest crops the newcomer 

 grows, because it requires but little capital and trouble, 

 and is always saleable. But wheat does not necessarily 

 remain the staple crop ; in the more closely settled parts 

 of Canada mixed farming comes into greater prominence, 

 and in the .Argentine wheat gives place to lucerne, which 

 yields valuable hay, and is also excellent for cattle food. 

 In improving land, the usual method is to plough it up and 

 sow maize, then linseed, then wheat, and finally lucerne, 

 which is left for hay and the cattle, the colonist moving 

 on to break up more ground. There is this difference 

 between the .Argentine and other new countries, that in 

 the Argentine much of the land is already owned by 

 absentee landlords, who put in a manager — commonly an 

 Englishman, who does well as a rule — but do not them- 

 selves take any part in the development. The system is 

 admittedly bad, but it is a legacy from the old days, and 

 is not easily displaced. The agriculture is, however, 

 sound ; lucerne enriches the soil in nitrogenous organic 

 matter, and leaves it in a fertile condition for any sub- 

 sequent arable crop that may be taken. 



Geolc^ically, the surface of the country is mainly derived 

 from Tertiary and later formations ; the .Archaean occurs 

 only in small and isolated patches ; the Silurian occurs 

 extensively in a few districts ; the Devonian runs from 

 north to south, and contains a certain amount of coal : 

 the lower Triassic has not yet been found, but the Jurassic 

 has, and agrees well with the formation as found else- 

 where. It is, however, not prominent in the Argentine, 

 and has not been found east of the Pampean ranges and 

 on the plains. The Cretaceous system is well marked, 

 running north to south, but does not cover a wide tract 

 of country. The great plains and the Pampas are formed 

 of loess, a fine-grained sand varying from light to dark 



1 Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, December. 1910. 



Argentine Republic — Aencultural and Pastoral Census of the Nation. 

 Stock-breeding and .Agriculture in 190S. V"l. i., Stockbreeding, pp xviii + 

 4'5 ; vol. ii., Agriculture, pp. x+441 ; vol. iii.. Monographs, pp. XCV+705+ 

 xlivplates. 



Live Stock and .Agricultural Census of the Areentine R<'DubIic, May, 

 1908. 5 maps. (Buencs Aires : Argen'ine Meteorological Office, igoj.) 



NO. 2153, VOL. 85] 



grey in colour, and containing calcareous nodules ; the 

 origin of this deposit is not settled, but the current idea 

 seems to be that sea water, fresh water, and wind have all 

 played an important part in its formation. One general 

 feature is that the soil is so rich in salts that it not 

 infrequently deposits a white efflorescence containing, 

 sodium chloride and sulphate with other salts. Nine 

 different groups of flora are distinguished : the Antarctic 

 forest in the south, consisting mainly of beech with some 

 cypress; the Patagonian, in a dryer region, comprising 

 herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees ; the Pampean, in a 

 moister region, absolutely without trees, consisting of 

 Gramineae, Composite, and Leguminosae ; then further 

 north, in another dry region, the Chanar, or bush flora, 

 especially mimosas ; and further north again the sub- 

 tropical region, the garden of the Argentine. Of the other 

 four regions, one in the north-west is desert and one in 

 between the rivers is bush. Why the Pampas should be 

 without trees when trees occur in the surrounding dryer 

 regions is not clear. 



Turning again to the agriculture, cattle are of great 

 importance, but sheep, as in other countries, are diminish- 

 ing in number. The stock is being steadily improved ; 

 some of our best pedigree bulls and rams are imported, 

 and the Argentine buyer never hesitates to secure what 

 he considers suitable animals, whatever the price may be. 

 The decrease in the number of sheep is considerable, and' 

 i is attributed to two causes : certain " worms " have 

 ; proved very fatal, and the sheep have been found to injure 

 I lucerne, and therefore have lost favour with the- 

 ' estancieros. This result can only be regretted ; sheep are 

 I as much wanted as ever, and they are a very valuable 

 ! support for the agriculture of a country. To cut them 

 i out is to narrow the basis on which the system of agri- 

 ,, culture is built. 



It is clear that the Argentine has some serious problems 

 to face, but the rapid increase in its volume of trade and' 

 in its area of land under cultivation justifies the hope that 

 continued progress will be made, and that the country will 

 still retain its high rank among the food-producing 

 countries of the world. 



MET.IBOLISM IN DIABETES MELLITUS.^ 



T^HE depth of the tragedy into which the most recent 

 investigators of the disease " diabetes mellitus,"" 

 whose observations are described in the memoir referred 

 to below, have inquired, is sufficiently indicated by the 

 fact that seven of their ten " severe cases " have died" 

 since coming under observation in the early part of 1908. 

 Diabetes is considered as being primarily a disturbance of 

 nutrition tending to develop a condition of starvation, and 

 yet it will be noted that in six of these cases the fatal 

 result is attributed to "diabetic coma." Diabetic coma 

 is in no sense due to any deprivation of nutriment experi- 

 enced by the central nervous system, but rather to a very 

 real poisoning assignable to an appearance in the bloo^ 

 of unusual chemical compounds or to an appearance of 

 compounds in an unusual quantity w-hich are normally 

 pr&sent only in minute traces. Nutrition, in short, is not 

 only deficient, leading to a great emaciation of the 

 patient, but is also disordered, leading to death by 

 internally developed poisons. Medical treatment of this 

 disease, its causation having been fully developed prior to 

 the arrival of the doctor, is therefore directed to maintain 

 nutrition in very adverse circumstances by expert adjust- 

 ments in the diet, and to secure the elimination, or at 

 least neutralise, the effects due to the presence of these 

 poisons. .As a valuable contribution to our knowledge of 

 the principles underlying such treatment, this account of 

 the extremely precise and varied observations of Benedict 

 and Joslin will meet with a wide welcome. 



Everyone, taught by numerous and by no means reticent 

 guides to the true ritual of diet, is aware that diets neces- 

 sarily contain certain nitrogenous materials, " proteins "" 

 and certain non-nitrogenous materials, " fats and carbo- 

 hydrates." Almost as many know that the diabetic 

 patient is incapable of dealing with more than a minimal 

 quantity of carbohydrate material. In his alimentary 



1 "Metabolism in Diabetes Mellifus." By F. G. Penfdict and E. P. 

 Joslin. Pp. vi+234. (Washington, U.S.A. : Carnegie Institution, 1910.) 



