638 



NATURE 



[January 13, 192 1 



Many men of science in this country will learn 

 with great regret that Prok. H, A. Blmstead, 

 professor of physics at Yale University, and 

 president of the National Research Council of 

 the United States, died suddenly at Washington 



on January i. Prof. Bumstead was for som. 

 time in London during the war, and was the head 

 of the American organisation for keeping touch 

 between the two countries in matters concernini; 

 the application of science to war. 



Notes. 



We publish in our correspondence columns this week 

 a translation of a letter from Prof. F. M. Exner, 

 director of the Central Meteorological and Geodynamic 

 Institute at Vienna, and Prof. J. Hann, the former 

 director, appealing for financial aid to enable the 

 institute to carry on the valuable work it has done 

 for meteorology for the past seventy years, and to con- 

 tinue its publications. .Mready, both in Great Britain 

 and in the United States, funds have been provided for 

 meeting the personal needs of meteorologists in 

 Vienna who were without the necessaries of life, but 

 meteorologists are not, as a rule, wealthy men, and 

 they cannot do much more than they have done. 

 Other scientific workers have probably approached 

 much the same limit of their capacity to help. While, 

 therefore, we commend the appeal to our readers, we 

 think it would be difficult for private benefactors to 

 provide the means for carrying on the work of the 

 institute. A much more promising course to urge is 

 that some part of the credits made to .Austria by 

 England and France should be ear-marked for the 

 maintenance of essential scientific services. We sug- 

 gest that the Royal Society or the Royal Meteoro- 

 logical Society should take steps with the object of 

 securing support of this kind for the Meteorological 

 Institute at Vienna. 



Mr. C. E. Fagan is expected to retire from the 

 British Museum (Natural History) in the spring of 

 this year. He entered the service of the Trustees in 

 1873, and became assistant secretary in 1889. He 

 received the title of secretary in 1919, in recognition 

 of the conspicuous value of his services. It is safe 

 to say that Mr. Fagan has done more than any other 

 living man in developing the importance of the 

 museum as a centre of scientific activitv. His long 

 experience, his grasp of affairs, and his unfailing 

 capacity for forming a correct judgment have made his 

 co-operation and advice invaluable to the Trustees and 

 to his colleagues. His administrative ability has been 

 of the greatest service to successive directors, whom 

 he has assisted in innumerable ways, while during 

 more than one period of interregnum he has suc- 

 ceeded in maintaining the efficiency of the museum 

 at a high level. .Mthough not himself an investigator, 

 Mr. Fagan has taken a keen interest in many aspects 

 of natural history, and has been quick to appreciate 

 the importance of an opening,, whether the chance of 

 securing a valuable collection or the opportunity of 

 encouraging an expedition to some distant country. 

 He has been closely associated with such societies as 

 the British Ornithologists' Union and the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, the interests of which are connected 

 with those of the Natural History Museum. Oppor- 

 tunities of making the museum practically useful have 

 a special appeal for him, and he has taken great 

 NO. 2672, VOL. 106] 



interest m exhibits of economic importance. From the 

 first he has been a strong supporter of the close con- 

 nection which happily exists between the museum and 

 the Imperial Bureau of Entomology. Mr. Fagan has 

 rendered exceptional services to science by single- 

 minded devotion to his ideal of increasing and 

 developing the scientific importance of the museum. 

 The fact th:it he is suffering from a severe illness at 

 the time which he h.id hoped to devote to putting the 

 finishing touches to his long period of successful ser- 

 vice will command the ready sympathy of his man\ 

 friends. 



We hope that the Victor Horsley Memorial Fund 

 will be well supported. The Times publishes a strong 

 appeal for it, signed by the president of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, the professor of physiology in 

 the University of Edinburgh, and others. "If 

 only each patient whose life he saved," they 

 say, " were to contribute to our fund according 

 to their means, we should have all the money 

 that we require, and more." Contributions ma\ 

 be sent to Sir Frederick Mott, 25 Nottingham 

 Place, W.I, or to Dr. Howard Tooth, 34 Harley 

 Street, W.i. The plan is for a scholarship or a lec- 

 tureship. We all remember the coming of the news 

 of Horsley 's death from heat-stroke in Mesopotamia 

 in July, 1916. Some of us, more fortunate, also 

 remember the wonder of his threefold work in 

 1884-go : his advancement of the physiology and 

 surgery of the central nervous system, his studies of 

 the thyroid gland and of myxoedema, and his uphill 

 fight, as Pasteur's representative, for the stamping- 

 out of rabies. After 1890 Horsley was for a quarter 

 of a century incessantly teaching, incessantly learn- 

 ing. -Mike in hospital practice and in private prac- 

 tice, he set himself to Guy de Chauliac's ideal of a 

 surgeon : " Bold when sure, cautious in danger, kind 

 to the sick, friendiv with fellow-workers, constant in 

 duty, not greedy of gain." Moreover, he worked 

 hard, no man harder, for the betterment of his pro- 

 fession, for its greater efficiency in the all-round ser- 

 vice of national health, and for the protection of its 

 poorer members against exploitation and the insolence 

 of office. Later he was in the forefront of the fight 

 against drink, the fight for the welfare of children, 

 and the fight for votes for women. He was ever a 

 fighter, and he offended by his vehemence, his intoler- 

 ance. But those who were altogether opposed to him 

 in politics are none the less thankful for his magni- 

 ficent work in physiology and surgery ; it went over 

 all the civilised world, and we are bound in honour 

 to commemorate his name. 



We refer elsewhere to the annual meeting of the 

 Mathematical .\ssociation and the presidential address 

 by Canon J. M. Wilson. The assistance given by 



