December 15, 192 1] 



NATURE 



507 



distinctive substance which is, generally speaking, 

 brought into being by a chemical reaction, or primarily 

 used for taking part in a chemical reaction ; whilst 

 " fine " chemicals are those which are manufactured 

 by processes involving chemical skill. Furthermore, 

 he ruled that santonin be removed from the list, on 

 the ground that it is not brought into existence by 

 processes of chemical action, and is not applied in 

 chemical changes ; thus its inclusion would not benefit 

 the industry, but would only tend to raise the price 

 of a useful drug. 



We regret to note that the Irish Naturalist has 

 reached a very critical stage in its existence, and 

 unless a practical scheme is forthcoming which will 

 place the magazine in a better financial position, pub- 

 lication will cease at the end of the year. At present 

 costs the annual loss is estimated at ^ol. per annum. 

 The Irish Naturalist has served for thirty years with 

 conspicuous success under the able guidance of the 

 present editors as the mouthpiece of students of 

 natural history in Ireland, and we hof>e that a work- 

 able scheme will be evolved to save the periodical for 

 future workers. But the general question is a much 

 larger one. All magazines of this kind, with a special 

 appeal and a limited circulation, are labouring under 

 similar difficulties, and unless something is done many 

 will be forced to cease publication. Raising the price 

 onlv results in a reduction of the number of sub- 

 scribers. It would be a thousand pities if they have 

 to be abandoned. They perform a useful and valuable 

 service in the stimulation of interest in natural history, 

 and by the publication of the results obtained by local 

 workers. We feel that the whole question is one 

 which demands sympathetic consideration by one or 

 other of the national scientific societies, such as the 

 Royal Society, the British Association, or the Conjoint 

 Board of Scientific Societies, or even by the Govern- 

 ment itself through the Board of Education. 



A Chadwick public lecture on "The History of the 

 Doctrine of Infection " was delivered by Dr. Charles 

 Singer on December 8 in the Barnes Hall, Royal 

 Society of Medicine. Dr. Singer pointed out that 

 primitive folk regard everything as being "infectious " 

 — that is, communicable — and believe that, by a pro- 

 cess of "sympathetic magic," moral qualities and 

 powers pass from person to person, and that physical 

 attributes are similarly conveyed from object to object. 

 Sanitary legislation among many primitive peoples is 

 based on this doctrine of "sympathy." The classical 

 writers of antiquity who deal with medical topics for 

 the most part regarded epidemic diseases as being con- 

 veyed by an atmospheric element, or "miasma," and 

 only a few diseases as being transmitted from person to 

 person, while the laymen of the same period laid more 

 stress on conveyance from person to person. From the 

 twelfth to the sixteenth centuries medical teaching 

 was mainly derived from Arabian writers, who adopted 

 much the same view as the classical writers. In 1543 

 Hieronymo Fracastoro, of Verona, published a work, 

 " De Contagionibus," in which infection was regarded 

 as being due to small seeds or semina, too minute to 

 be seen, but capable of multiplication, and specific for 

 NO. 2720, VOL. 108] 



each infectious disease. These views became widely 

 adopted, and the general phenomena of epidemics were 

 closely studied, so that by the commencement of the 

 eighteenth century the materials for a theoretical solu- 

 tion of the problem of the nature of infection were 

 well-nigh complete. 



The Air Ministry has announced that the second 

 Air Conference will be held at the Guildhall, London, 

 on February 7-8 next. The conference, which will 

 be opened by the Lord Mayor of London, will deal 

 chiefly with the future of aviation, with special refer- 

 ence to its development as a regular and speedy form 

 of commercial transport. The papers presented will 

 be divided into two main groups, the one dealing with 

 civil aviation in general and the other with technical 

 problems. The whole of the second day will be 

 devoted to discussions arising out of the previous day's 

 papers. The Secretary of State for Air will preside 

 during the civil aviation portion of the proceedings, 

 and Lord Weir of Eastwood during the technical ses- 

 sions. The principal paper on civil aviation will be 

 read by Lord Gorell, Under-Secretary of State for 

 Air, who will give a general account of progress at 

 home and abroad, and will direct attention to the 

 ways and means whereby the development of civil 

 aviation may be best furthered ; in this connection 

 Lord Gorell will endeavour to enlist the practical co- 

 operation of business and other interests. The chief 

 technical paper will be read by Mr. F. M. Green, of 

 Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth Aircraft, Ltd. The 

 London terminal aerodrome at Croydon will be open 

 for inspection on February 6, and demonstrations of 

 amphibian aircraft alighting on the Thames wiU also 

 take place during the period of the Conference, 



The library of the Chemical Society will be closed 

 for the Christrrias holidays at i p.m. on Friday,^ 

 December 23, and will reof>en at 10 a.m. on Thurs- 

 day, December 29. 



According to the Times, a report has reached 

 Norway from Moscow that a Russian expedition, at 

 present exploring in Siberia, has found the bodies of 

 the two lost men of Capt. R. Amundsen's expedition- 

 near the mouth of the Yenisei river. These two men 

 left the Maud in October, 1918, in the vicinity of Cape 

 Chelyaskin in the hope of making their way to the 

 fishing settlements on the Lower Yenisei, a distance 

 of some 700 miles across the barren tundra. Thev 

 carried dispatches from Capt. Amundsen. A Nor- 

 wegian search expedition looked unsuccessfullv for 

 traces of the two men along the coast of north-western 

 Siberia in the autumn of 1920, as soon as news from 

 Amundsen reached Norway reporting their departure. 



The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is again- 

 without a president. Dr. Ernest Fox Nichols, who- 

 was inaugurated last June to succeed the late Dr. 

 R. C. Maclaurin in that office, was taken ill imme- 

 diately after the ceremony. The Illness has resulted, 

 his physicians report, in "certain physical limitations, 

 some of them probably permanent," which would 

 make it unwise for him to assume the responsibilities 

 of the position. He has therefore sent in his reslgna- 



