November io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



331 



tion would best be undertaken by such a 

 central body. The question of publication 

 in particular is one which at the moment 

 is becominij acute. Many of the younger 

 workers in these days of high printing- 

 charges find a difficulty in securing facilities for 

 publishing their work, and the same applies to 

 officials who have made a study of the people 

 under their charge. Publishers are unwilling to 

 undertake the risk of publishing this material 

 without a substantial subsidy which the authors 

 are not, as a rule, able to afford. It is well 

 known that at the present moment there is 

 material dealing with the native peoples of our 

 dependencies waiting to appear, which would, 

 when published, be of the greatest value to ad- 

 ministrators. Further, in the official publications 

 of the various administrations there is much valu- 

 able material waiting to be made more readily 

 accessible to students. The preparation of ab- 

 stracts or even bibliographies of such material 

 would be an essential function of the bureau. 

 Owing to its position as a centre for the collection 

 and collation of facts, and owing to the fact that 

 it would be in close touch with those who could 

 speak with authority on any and every part of 

 the Empire, however remote, its value as an intel- 

 ligence bureau would be incalculable, while 

 Government departments, officers in the ser\ice 

 of the Crown, missionaries, traders, and others, 

 would naturally turn to it for information and 

 guidance. 



-V duty of equal or even greater importance, 

 though not so immediately apparent, would fall 

 to this body in the diffusion of anthropological 

 knowledge and the inculcation of an anthropo- 

 logical point of view among the general public. 

 The need for such knowledge is becoming more 

 urgent day by day for the proper understanding 

 of imperial problems which we in this country or 

 those in the Dominions are called upon to face. 

 Further, it is often forgotten that anthropology 

 does not deal exclusively with back^vard races or 

 with the physical characters of the civilised. The 

 culture and the underlying psychological basis of 

 that culture among civilised races are equally 

 within its scope. Even our own population is as 

 yet a field which, anthropologically speaking, is 

 largely unexplored. .\s was pointed out by Prof. 

 Patrick Geddes and others at Edinburgh, it is 

 the lack of the anthropological point of view 

 in dealing with our own and other peoples 

 which lies at the base of much of our present 

 troubles. 



NO. 2715, VOL. 1 08 "I 



Chemical Warfare. 



The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in 

 Peace and War. By \'ictor Lefebure. Pp. 279. 

 (London: W. Collins, Sons, and Co., Ltd., 

 192 1.) I05. 6d. net. 



EVERY great war within the last hundred 

 years has been characterised by some new 

 development in the means of offence, based upon 

 the applications of science. Each successive war, 

 in fact, is, in greater or less degree, a reflex of 

 contemporary scientific knowledge concerning the 

 most effective practicable measures by which 

 belligerents may destroy human life; but it was 

 reserved for the last great war — the greatest of 

 all wars — to witness the introduction of a method 

 of warfare which, in its savage ferocity and in its 

 callous disregard of human suffering, is unparal- 

 leled in history. April 22, 191 5, when the Germans 

 sent great volumes of the deadly chlorine gas 

 against the Allied lines, is a black-letter day in 

 the annals of warfare. It was thought at first to 

 have been a last desperate effort to dislodge the 

 I'^rench from a position which all recognised 

 methods of fighting had failed to take. The truth, 

 however, is now beginning to appear. It was the 

 first trial of a new war method, deliberatelv con- 

 ceived and worked out by the Germans, even 

 before the outbreak of war, and in flagrant dis- 

 regard of their undertaking at the Hague Con- 

 vention to abstain from the use of asphyxiating 

 or deleterious gases. According to the author of 

 the book before us, 



"there is evidence that the Kaiser Wilhelm In- 

 stitute, and the Physico-chemical Institute near 

 by, were employed for this purpose as early as 

 -\ugust, 1914. Reliable authority exists for the 

 statement that soon after this date thev were 

 working with cacodyl oxide and phosgene, both 

 well known before the war for their very poison- 

 ous nature, for use, it was believed, in hand 

 grenades. Our quotations are from a neutral then 

 working at the Institute. ' We could hear the 

 tests that Professor Haber was carrying out at 

 the back of the Institute, with the militarv authori- 

 ties, who in their steel-grey cars came to Haber 's 

 Institute every morning.' ' The work was pushed 

 day and night, and many times I saw activity in 

 the building at eleven o'clock in the evening. It 

 was common knowledge that Haber was pushing 

 these men as hard as he could.' Sachur was Pro- 

 fessor Haber's assistant. ' One morning there was 

 a violent explosion in the room in which most 

 of this war work was carried out. The room was 

 instantly filled with dense clouds of arsenic oxide. ' 

 ' The janitors began to clean the room by a hose 

 and discovered Professor Sachur. ' He was very 

 badly hurt and died soon after. ' After that acci- 

 dent I believe the work on cacodyl oxide and phos- 

 gene was suspended, and I believe that work was 



