444 



NATURE 



[December i, 192 i 



devastating epidemics make the merest ephemeral 

 flicker in the steady onward march of population 

 growth. 



In recent papers, Marshall and Vassalls described a 

 method of treatment of sleeping siclcness which, they 

 claimed, gives results better than any other (Nature, 

 vol. 107, p. 540). It consists in giving intra-venously 

 a dose of neo-kharsivan, and afterwards withdraw- 

 ing blood and injecting the serum into the spinal 

 ■canal. In a critical review on the subject in the 

 Tropical Diseases Bull., vol. i8, 1921, p. 155, Dr. 

 Warrington Yorke expresses the opinion that the 

 theoretical grounds upon which the treatment is based 

 .are probably incorrect, that the treatment is not new, 

 and that the results so far published fail to substan- 

 tiate the claim that this treatment gives better results 

 than other methods. 



The Ministry of Health has published as No. 9 

 of the series of Reports on Public Health and Medical 

 Subjects (H.M. Stationery Office, 1921, 3d. net) a 

 paper by Dr. J. M. Hamill entitled "Diet in Rela- 

 tion to Normal Nutrition." Dr. Hamill 's object was 

 to provide the general public with a straightforward 

 account of the present state of knowledge. The 

 study of nutrition involves a knowledge of highly 

 technical matters, and it is difficult to present even 

 the end results both clearly and truthfully to the 

 mind of an untrained reader. Dr. Hamill has suc- 

 ceeded in combining intelligibility with veracity, and 

 his report should be of great value to those who 

 wish to know more of dietetics than just sufficient 

 to provide material for chatter about vitamins. As 

 so often happens, the daily Press has been respon- 

 sible for evil as well as good in popular scientific 

 education regarding nutrition. Recent discoveries in 

 connection with accessory food factors have been so 

 striking that the newspaper reader has perhaps rather 

 lost sight of the more prosaic, but not less important, 

 subject of energy values. 



The relationship of climate to disease has received 

 more attention in popular talk, based on impressions 

 .and individual experiences, than from the exact 

 inquiries of the medical statistician. There can be 

 few places in this country that have not been at 

 -one time or another described as "bad for rheu- 

 imatism " by some inhabitant. A paper by Dr. Matthew 

 Young (Journal of Hygiene, vol. 20, p. 248) on the 

 regional distribution of rheumatic fever is therefore 

 all the more welcome. He shows that it is definitely 

 more common, as judged by fatalities, in the north 

 and west than in the midlands, east, and south of the 

 British Isles, and finds substantial correlations, posi- 

 tive between the death-rate and the mean annual 

 irainfall and negative between the death-rate and the 

 mean annual temperature. The data are plainly open 

 to the criticisms which can be made of any of the 

 mass figures of the Registrar-General, but Dr. Young 

 seems to have made out a strong case for an associa- 

 tion between acute rheumatic infection, a high rain- 

 fall, and a low temperature. There are many things 

 -which show the same difference between the north- 



NO. 2718, VOL. 108] 



west and south-east in this country — e.g. many 

 animals and plants, the relative abundance of oats 

 and wheat in cereal crops — and one which is par- 

 ticularly relevant in questions of disease and scarcely 

 susceptible of numerical expression is the general 

 standard of civilisation. 



No definite instance of sexual differences in colour 

 among Chelonia appears to have been clearly estab- 5 

 lished. Considerable interest, therefore, attaches to 

 the observations of Mr. S. F. Blake (Proceedings of 

 the United States National Museum, vol. 59) on sixty 

 specimens of the spotted turtle, Cletnmys guttata, 

 showing that this species possesses colour characters 

 distinctive of each sex. The male has dusky jaws, no 

 mandibular yellow-orange stripe, the throat but 

 sparsely speckled with yellow, a slightly developed 

 supra-auricular streak of yellow, and the crown of the 

 head without spots. The female, on the other hand, 

 has yellow jaws, a well-marked mandibular yellow- 

 orange stripe, the throat densely spotted with 

 yellow, a well-developed supra-auricular streak of 

 yellow, and the crown of the head with several 

 yellow spots. It is of special interest to learn 

 that these sexual differences in colour can be 

 detected clearly in ven,' young specimens only a few 

 weeks old. 



The director (Dr. E. J. Russell) and librarian (Miss 

 Mary S. Aslin) have published "A Catalogue of 

 Journals and Periodicals in the Library of the 

 Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden." The 

 library began to develop in 19 13, when the late Lady 

 Gilbert presented the books and journals belonging 

 to Sir Henry Gilbert. These were added to others 

 previously given by Sir John Lawes. Expansion 

 became possible through the support of many indi- 

 vidual donors, learned societies, and Departments of 

 Agriculture throughout the world. The library now 

 contains most of the books and journals which the 

 agricultural expert needs to consult. Though the 

 library is not open to the general public, permission 

 to use it for purposes of reference can be obtained on 

 application to the director. The catalogue, which 

 occupies 70 pages, is divided into sections according 

 to subjects, the first and largest section dealing with 

 agriculture, to which 50 pages are devoted. Other 

 sections are devoted to animal husbandry, bacterio- 

 logy, biology, botany, chemistry, education, entomo- 

 logy, forestry, horticulture and market-gardening, 

 irrigation and reclamation, meteorology, general 

 science, technology, and zoology. A large number of 

 reports on special subjects are included in the cata- 

 logue, but no attempt is made to index individual 

 papers contained in the regular journals. Names of 

 authors do not, therefore, appear. The catalogue 

 should be useful to those who are able from time 

 to time to visit Rothamsted and use its library. It 

 should also serve as an excellent guide to those who 

 wish to get together a collection of authoritative 

 reports on agriculture. 



The Kenya Department of Agriculture has published 

 the meteorological records for 1920, the twelfth annual 



