November 17, 192 1] 



NATURE 



387 



are suitable. We would suggest to the Esperantists 

 and Idists that, instead of accentuating their differ- 

 ences, they should endeavour to come to an agree- 

 ment upon points of difference, and thus present a 

 united front in their campaign in favour of an artificial 

 language. 



A FLRTHER communication has reached us from 

 Mr. Cyril Crossland (see Nature, August 4, p. 733), 

 who expresses the view that the use of Hebrew at 

 the Jewish University in Jerusalem is an act of ex- 

 clusiveness against non-Jews. He urges that Hebrew 

 is a dead language, and only the Zionist* are work- 

 ing for its revival, for purely racial and political 

 ends. As a matter of fact, Hebrew is the real living 

 language of the Jews in Palestine. It is the language 

 of instruction of the Jewish schools in Palestine, both 

 elementary and secondary, and is one of the official 

 languages of the country. It would surely be an 

 anomaly to have a Jewish uni\ersity in Palestine 

 without Hebrew as the language of instruction. 

 Hebrew has already been used for scientific work 

 with great success. To urge that the use of Hebrew 

 means excluding non-Jews is the same as urging that 

 the use of English at a British university means ex- 

 cluding Frenchmen or Germans. Mr. Crossland 

 ■objects to the statement that Jews are opposed to 

 clericalism, and asks, "Then how is it they remain 

 Jews?" We suggest that he misunderstands the 

 meaning of the word "clericalism," which signifies the 

 usurpation of political power by the clergy, and to 

 this Jews are opposed everywhere. Mr. Crossland 

 refers to the college at Beirut, where instruction is 

 given in English, and to the fact that there are in 

 Palestine native qualified, energetic, and patriotic 

 medical men who can deal with the public health of 

 the country. These facts are irrelevant. Beirut is not 

 In Palestine. Further, public health has been grossly 

 neglected in Palestine, and to object to this being 

 cared for by Jews is an inadmissible attitude. 



Some of the most striking developments of recent 

 years in the education of the medical practitioner 

 have been concerned with the increasing realisation of 

 the need for placing the curriculum upon a solid 

 foundation of pure science. This has in turn reacted 

 upon the teachers of pure science, for it has stimulated 

 their interest in the medical student, with the result 

 that in various universities courses in pure science 

 have been organised with a special eye to his needs. 

 Such a course is illustrated by a pamphlet which has 

 reached us from the University of Melbourne, dealing 

 with the course in elementary physics for medical 

 students in that university. The pamphlet, which is 

 written by Mr. E. O. Hercus, lecturer in natural 

 philosophy, in collaboration with Prof. Laby, is 

 entitled, " Notes on Colloidal State, the Measurement 

 of Blood-pressure, Conservation of Energy in the 

 Human Body." The pamphlet is not a complete 

 syllabus — probably the authorities of Melbourne Uni- 

 versity have learned what many of our authorities at 

 home have failed to learn — that there is no surer way 

 to deprive university teaching of all life than by 

 forcing it to conform to a cast-iron framework in the 

 shape of a rigid svllabus — but it serses at least to 

 show that the Melbourne course is both interesting 

 and useful. The dispersed condition of matter, solu- 

 tions, colloids, the processes of filtration and dialysis, 

 the scattering of light, Brownian movement, cata- 

 phoresis, coagulation and precipitation, the measure- 

 ment of blood-pressure, and the energv-changes in 

 the animal body — these subjects are all dealt with 

 in the Melbourne course, and every one of them is 

 of the most immediate importance to the student of 

 the animal body and its functions. 



NO. 2716, VOL. 108] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



November 18,* 1854. Edward Forbes died.— Though 

 only thirty-nine when he .died, Forbes was regarded 

 as the leading British naturalist of the first half of 

 the nineteenth century. He wrote important geo- 

 logical, botanical, and palaeontological papers, and 

 furthered the study of marine zoology. Naturalist 

 to the Beacon Expedition of 1841, he became pro- 

 fessor of botany at King's College, London, and just 

 before his death professor of natural history at Edin- 

 burgh. 



November 18, 1887. Gustav Theodor Fechner died. 

 — After resigning the chair of physics at Leipzig, 

 Fechner turned to the study of psychology, which he 

 •endeavoured to make susceptible to mathematical 

 treatment. He is remembered for the useful 

 Fechner 's law. 



November 19, 1910. Rudolph Fittrg died. — Professor 

 of chemistry at Tiibingen, where Ramsay was one of 

 his students, and then at Strassburg, Fittig did 

 original work on the benzene series and made an 

 exhaustive study of unsaturated acids and lactones. 



November 20, 1751. George Graham died. — The 

 maker of Halley's mural quadrant and Bradley's 

 sector, 'honest George Graham" was the first 

 mechanician of his age, and to him we owe the mer- 

 curial pendulum and the dead-beat escapement. He 

 is buried with his master, Tompion, in the nave of 

 Westminster Abbey. 



November 21, 1815. James Archibald Hamilton died. 

 — A pioneer among Irish astronomers, Hamilton in 

 1790 became the first astronomer of Armagh Ob- 

 servatorv, founded by Richard Robinson, first Baron 

 Rokeby.' 



November 22, 1881. Ami Boue died.— Of French 

 descent, but born in Hamburg, Boue studied at Edin- 

 burgh, and in 1820 published the first general account 

 of the geology of Scotland. He played a leading part 

 in the formation of the French Geological Society in 

 1830, and afterwards settled in Vienna, communi- 

 cating to the Academy of Sciences there important 

 papers on the geology of the Balkan States. 



November 22, 1907^ Asaph Hall died. — A contribu- 

 tor to many branches of astronomy, Hall achieved 

 popular fame by his discovery on August 11 and 17, 

 1877, of Deimos and Phobos, the outer and inner satel- 

 lites of Mars. From- 1862 to 1891 he was connected 

 with the Naval Observatory at Washington, and 

 afterwards held a chair of astronomy at Harvard. 



November 23, 1826. Johann Elert Bode died. — The 

 founder in 1774 of the Asironomische Jahrbiich. 

 fifty-one volumes of which he edited, and known for 

 his enunciation of Bode's law. Bode was a Hamburg 

 schoolmaster who was called to Berlin by Frederick 

 the Great and made a member of the Academy of 

 Sciences. 



November 23, 1844. Thomas Henderson died. — ^The 

 first Royal Astronomer for Scotland, Henderson 

 previously was director of the Cape Observator\'. His 

 publication of the determination of the parallax of 

 a Centauri was made only two months later than the 

 publication by Bessel of the parallax of 61 Cygni. 

 These were the first determinations of their kind. 



November 23, 1864. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm 

 Struve died. — The fourth son of a Danish professor 

 of mathematics, Struve in 1820 became director of 

 the Dorpat Observatory, whence he removed tc 

 Pulkowa as the chief of the famous observatory 

 erected by Tsar Nicolas I. and opened in 1830. 

 Under Struve, Pulkox^a became not only a great 

 .centre of astronomical work., but the c^ntr^ also 

 "of important geodetical operations. E. C. S. 



