26 



NATURE 



[September i, 192 i 



all parts of the world will co-operate. The pro- 

 ceedings will open with Sir A. Daniel Hall's presi- 

 dential address on the morning of November i6. 

 Papers on the breeding and selection of potatoes in 

 Great Britain and the United States, and on wart disease, 

 potato blight, and other diseases which are botanically 

 and economically important, will be read, and time 

 has been allowed for their discussion. Invitations 

 to attend the conference have been extended to the 

 Dominions and Colonies and to foreign countries, 

 and it is hoped that the meeting will be thoroughly 

 representative from both the scientific and the com- 

 mercial aspects. Arrangements for the meeting are 

 in the hands of a committee representative of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society, the Agricultural Depart- 

 ments of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the National 

 Institute of Agricultural Botany, and the National 

 Potato Society. The chairman of the committee is 

 Lord Lambourne, and the joint secretaries are Mr. 

 W. R. Dykes, of the Royal Horticultural Society, and 

 Mr. H. V. Taylor, of the Ministrv of Agriculture. 



Information is to hand in a circular from the 

 Brazilian Department of Agriculture that henceforth 

 the meteorological and astronomical Government 

 services united under the name " Directoria de 

 Meteorologia e Astronomia "" are to be separated, and 

 will be known as the " Directoria de Meteorologia " 

 and " Observatorio Nacional " respectively. The new 

 Directoria de Meteorologia, of which Senhor Sampaio 

 Ferraz has been made director, will, no doubt, lead 

 to a desirable unification of ofificial meteorology in a 

 vast country like Brazil, and it is to be expected that 

 the co-ordination of effort which should ensue will 

 provide material for the study of a climate which is 

 more or less unknown except in general outline. 

 The publication before the end of the present year of 

 climatological data of Brazil for the last nine years 

 is anticipated, and among the activities promised 

 under the new directorate are forecast, aviation, 

 coastal navigation, agricultural, and rain and flood 

 services. It is pointed out that Rio Grande do Sul, 

 Minas Geraes, and San Paulo will continue their 

 State services, but under tlie supervision of the Direc- 

 toria, and that the Reclamation Service of semi-arid 

 north-eastern Brazil will retain its rainfall organisa- 

 tion. Information on Brazilian climatology will be 

 gladlv given in answer to inquiries, and the Direc- 

 torate hopes to exchange publications with foreign 

 institutions. The official address is : Directoria de 

 Meteorologia, Morro do Castello, Rio de Janeiro, 

 Brazil. 



An interim report relating to alleged dangerous 

 lights in kinema studios has been issued by the Depart- 

 mental Committee on the Causes and Prevention of 

 Blindness, acting on behalf of the Ministry of Health. 

 Cases of inflammation of the eyes have been reported 

 by Sir Anderson Critchett and others, but fortunately 

 these injuries have been of a transient nature, and no 

 instances of permanent serious injury are recorded. 

 According to the evidence of experts, the trouble is 

 due mainly to the use of very powerful arcs of the 

 searchlight pattern in an unshaded condition. Such 



NO. 2705, VOL. 108] 



lamps are considered liable to cause injury owing to 

 the unimpeded access of ultra-violet rays, and it is also 

 possible that artists looking direct at the lights, even 

 if properly screened, may suffer owing to the intense 

 visible light. Moreover, irritating vapours may be 

 given off by some forms of carbons and occasion 

 trouble at close quarters. The Committee, however, 

 considers that the possibilities of injury would be 

 slight if all lamps were properly screened, and the 

 evidence of photographic and other experts supports 

 the view that these methods of diffusion are also pre- 

 ferable from the technical point of view. An assur- 

 ance has been given by the Incorporated Association 

 of Kinematograph Manufacturers that in future no 

 open arc lights without glass filters will be used in 

 their studios. Now that the source of the trouble is 

 recognised, no further action is considered necessary 

 for the present. The Committee, however, remarks 

 that the industry is in a state of development, and 

 that furth'er research is desirable. It accordingly 

 welcomes the information that the Illuminating En- 

 gineering Society is forming a joint committee to 

 study these problems in detail. 



A COMPLETE list of awards and grants from the 

 Rumford Fund for Research in Light and Heat forms 

 No. 10 of vol. 56 of the Proceedings of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences (July, 192 1). In pre- 

 vious publications in 1905 and 1912 dealing with the 

 Rumford Fund, outlines of the history of the funds 

 of that name of both the American Academy and the 

 Royal Society were given, together with lists to date 

 of the awards. In the present publication the awards 

 of the American Academy only, from the date of its 

 foundation to the end of 1920, are given in chrono- 

 logical order. The first award of the Rumford 

 Premium was made in 1839 to " Robert Hare, of 

 Philadelphia, for his invention of the compound or 

 oxyhydrogen blowpipe," and the last recorded, that of 

 1920, to " Irving Langmuir, of Schenectady, for his 

 researches on thermionic and allied phenomena." The 

 grants for research from the Rumford Fund extend 

 from 1832 to 1920, and the names of manv illustrious 

 men of science appear in the list. The pamphlet con- 

 cludes with an alphabetical list of recipients of the 

 grant. 



In his Croonian lecture on " Release of Function 

 in the Nervous System " (delivered at the Royal 

 Society on May 5, and now published in the society's 

 Proceedings) Dr. Henry Head has given an illu- 

 minating summary of his great work in neurology. 

 Dr. Head is the successor of Hughlings Jackson, and 

 the fundam.ental principle on which his investigations 

 are based is the rule laid down by Jackson more than 

 fifty years ago that "destructive lesions never cause 

 positive effects, but induce a negative condition which 

 permits positive symptoms to appear." In other 

 words, in his interpretations of the clinical significance 

 of the symptoms of injuries involving the central 

 nervous system he has avoided the fashionable and 

 misleading device of accepting all active manifesta- 

 tions of disease as the effects of irritation. "Removal 

 of a dominant neural mechanism permits the activity 



