April 14, 192 1] 



NATURE 



197 



at our barracks one evening in the last week of 

 April, 1919, furnished thrice as much disease as 

 2000 in two years and four months." 



In chap. X., "Quick Disinfection," the author 

 attacks the policy of the National Council of 

 preaching and treating, and the Army authorities 

 for not adopting the one thing necessary for 

 success — to insist on, and enforce, the careful in- 

 struction of the men in the use of the disinfectant. 



In chap. xi. the author gives "Comparative 

 Statistics," and he quotes some remarkably satis- 

 factory results of Surgeon-Commander P. H. 

 Boyden : "Amongst 496 men employing this 

 method, one case of syphilis is recorded, but in 

 this case the treatment was used six hours after 

 exposure." 



Civilian early-treatment centres were advocated 

 by the National Council, but, as might have- been 

 expected, both borough and county councils re- 

 jected them as impracticable and costly, and 

 Manchester alone has made a trial of this means 

 of preventing venereal disease. There are 183 

 treatment centres, and where these are necessary 

 prophylactic measures are more necessary, and it 

 is to be hoped that the Ministry of Health will 

 now see that the simple and inexpensive measure 

 of self-disinfection is the only practical method of 

 dealing with this problem — a procedure which, in 

 the hands of Sir Archdall Reid, has proved so 

 eminently successful, and which the Society for 

 the Prevention of Venereal Disease .has con- 

 sistently advocated. 



In chaps, xv. and xvi. Sir Archdall Reid gives 

 an adequate explanation of a misapprehension 

 that might have arisen from the evidence he gave 

 before the Inter-Departmental Committee regard- 

 ing the trustworthiness of his figures and the 

 value of his work, and it is not surprising that 

 he should make and prove charges of misrepre- 

 sentation of facts by officials through the mouth 

 of Lord Sandhurst when the latter took part in a 

 debate upon a motion by Lord Willoughby de 

 Broke in the House of Lords. The author in 

 chap, xvii., "Lord Sandhurst's Apologetics," 

 vindicates his position regarding his statistics of 

 venereal disease in Portsmouth Town, which is 

 not the Portsmouth area that was quoted. 



The report of a Committee appointed by the 

 Birth Rate Commission to take evidence upon the 

 prevention of venereal disease found in favour of 

 immediate self -disinfection ; but the only sure 

 method they advised is to avoid promiscuous 

 sexual intercourse. Having regard to the com- 

 position of this Comrpittee, Sir Archdall Reid has 

 therefore the satisfaction of knowing that he is a 

 pioneer who has convinced those whom he thought 

 were irreconcilable to his views. 

 NO. 2685, VOL. 107] 



We can cordially recommend this work to all 

 readers of Nature, on account of its philosophic 

 and scientific character and the fearless courage 

 with which the author has successfully resisted 

 and attacked the authorities who stood in the way 

 of the adoption of scientific methods for the pre- 

 vention of disease at a critical period of the 

 nation's history. 



Plant Evolution. 



Studies in Fossil Botany. By Dr. Dukinfield H. 

 Scott. Third edition. Vol. i. Pteridophyta. 

 Pp. xxiii -f 434. (London : A. and C. Black, Ltd. , 

 1920.) 255, net. 



IN the preface to the first edition of his 

 "Studies," Dr. Scott stated that his object 

 was not to write a manual of fossil botany, but 

 to present to the reader "those results of palaeo- 

 botanical inquiry which appear to be of funda- 

 mental importance from the botanist's point of 

 view." The fact that the third edition of vol. i., 

 which deals with the Pteridophyta, needed as 

 thorough a revision as the second edition shows 

 that recent palseobotanical research has not been 

 barren of results. "The only direct evidence 

 which is possible in questions of descent among 

 plants is from the ancient plants themselves." 

 The interpretation of the evidence is the difficulty ; 

 not only did many of the types preserved in the 

 rich plant-bearing beds of the Carboniferous period 

 greatly exceed in size their modern representa- 

 tives, but they were also more complex in struc- 

 ture. Generalised or synthetic types are common 

 enough, and the inference is usually drawn that 

 these extinct genera indicate the common origin 

 of groups or families now comparatively remote; 

 ancestral stocks are imagined, not discovered. 

 Even the oldest known land plants, though in 

 some respects simpler than those which followed 

 them, appear to be far advanced in their ana- 

 tomical differentiation, and the mechanism of the 

 plant machine is essentially similar to that of 

 existing plants. 



We have, it must be admitted, not progressed 

 very far towards " the completion of the natural 

 system." The farther we penetrate into the past, 

 the more fascinating becomes the search for 

 origins. Lines seem to converge; but it may be 

 that, with our imperfect vision, we see parallel 

 lines of evolution as though they converged. The 

 author, in speaking of Asteroxylon, one of the most 

 ancient of terrestrial plants, with his usual 

 caution suggests that the characters of the genus 

 are indicative of a union of the fern and lycopod 



