March 9, 1922] 



NATURE 



305 



in the light of recent discoveries, to point out an 

 accurate scientific procedure, whether operative or 

 other, according to the character of individual injuries, 

 and to urge the general practitioner, as well as the 

 surgical specialist, to the study of methods which, as 

 \[)erience indicates, have given the best results. 



As a consequence of experience gained during the 

 v\ar, the treatment of gunshot and other wounds of 

 bones has been revolutionised, because the distinction 

 between aseptic fractures with unbroken skin and those 

 breakages of bone which have been exposed to infection 

 has been fully grasped. The authors insist that much 

 of the old teaching as regards the treatment of fractures 

 still holds good, as, for example, Lucas-Championni^re's 

 dogma as to early mobilisation and gentle massage 

 being valuable for restoring contour and function in 

 fractures of shafts and joint-ends of bones. They urge 

 the critical, intelligent, and frequent examination of 

 fractures instead of a too absolute reliance on radio- 

 graphic interpretations by inexperienced laboratory 

 workers. The illustrations so very necessary in a 

 descriptive book of this nature are, without excep- 

 tion, excellent, and will be found a great help in 

 following the text. Indeed, it is the most complete 

 and comprehensive book on a very important branch 

 of surgery that we have yet seen and it may be regarded 

 as one of the few good results of the world-war. 



The Raw Materials of Perfumery : Their Nature, 

 Occurrence and Employment. By E. J. Parry. 

 (Pitman's Common Commodities and Industries.) 

 Pp. ix-f- 112. (London : Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 

 Ltd., n.d.) 35-. net. 



During the last half-century perfumery has in part 

 become a branch of synthetic organic chemistry. 

 Many of the odoriferous constituents of natural per- 

 fumes {e.g. vanillin and heliotropine) are prepared 

 synthetically in a pure state, and some substitutes 

 {e.g. " artificial musk," trinitrobutyl xylene) for 

 natural perfumes are now in use. The rare natural 

 perfumes such as musk have not yet been produced 

 in the test-tube. With the production of the materials, 

 however, the perfumer's art has made only a beginning 

 and much depends on the skilful blending of the con- 

 stituents. Mr. Parry has given a simple and interest- 

 ing account of his subject. It is non-technical, and 

 perhaps might have included a little more of the 

 chemistry involved. The latter is of so complicated 

 a character that it would perhaps not have been in- 

 telligible to the ordinary reader. The address of the 

 president of the Chemical Section of the British Associa- 

 tion last year (Nature, October 20, 192 1, p. 243) shows, 

 however, that something can be done in this direction. 



Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden. Edited by 

 Prof. Dr. Emil Abderhalden. Leiferung 45, Abt. 5, 

 Methoden zum Studium der Funktionen der einzelnen 

 Organe der tierischen Organismus. Teil 7, Heft 2, 

 Sinnesorgane. Pp. 197-260. (Berlin und Wien : 

 Crban und Schwarzenberg, 1921.) 28.80 marks. 

 The section on the analysis of sounds in Prof. Abder- 

 halden 's extensive " Handbuch " is written by Dr. E. 

 Budde. It contains accounts of the use of mechanical 

 integrators for the analysis of a periodic curve, and of 

 the method of calculating the terms of the Fourier 



NO. 2732, VOL. 109] 



series from ordinates at regular distances apart. 

 Tables are given to facilitate the calculation when 

 seventy-two ordinates are measured per period. It is 

 not often that so many ordinates are taken, but when 

 it is necessary or desirable the tables will save much 

 time and trouble. 



A Course of Practical Organic Chemistry. By Dr. T. 

 Slater Price and Dr. D. F. Twiss. Third edition. 

 Pp. xiv + 239. (London: Longmans, Green and 

 Co., 1922.) 6^. 6d. 



In this edition minor alterations have been made to 

 bring the subject-matter up to date. The methods of 

 preparation of typical organic compounds and the 

 quantitative analysis of compounds of carbon, hydro- 

 gen, nitrogen, the halogens, sulphur, and phosphorus, 

 are well described. The scheme given for the identifica- 

 tion of "an organic compound " is too incomplete to 

 satisfy ordinary requirements, and could usefully be 

 extended in future editions. Mixtures should also be 

 considered. 



Letters to the Editor. 



iThe Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return., or to correspond with 

 the 7vriters of rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Natuke. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications?^ 



The Langley Machine and the Hammondsport Trials. 



The leading articles in Nature of November 3 and 

 January 26 last appear to have missed the point of my 

 discourse on the Langley Machine and the Ham- 

 mondsport Trials. My paper was written to expose 

 a fallacy in which officials of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution had used their great opportunities for im- 

 posing upon the public a false belief that the Langley 

 machine had been flown in 191 4. 



The leading articles in Nature, instead of making 

 any denial of the charge that vital changes were made 

 in the Langley machine at Hammondsport before 

 any flight was attempted, contend that my " paper 

 tends to give an erroneous impression of the import- 

 ance of the part played by the Wright Brothers " in 

 the producing of the first man-carrying aeroplane. 

 Nature suggests that it was Langley who did the 

 laborious work of preparing the scientific data upon 

 which the first aeroplane design was based, and that 

 the Wright Brothers merely contributed the system 

 of wing warping — the final step or " keystone " — in 

 the problem of flight. The writer of the articles in 

 Nature refers to Sir Richard Gregory's book " Dis- 

 covery," from which he makes two quotations. 



I agree with the author of " Discovery " that many 

 great inventions are based upon pure science, and 

 that often the person who receives the credit for an 

 invention is the one who has added some mechanism 

 which turns the scientific knowledge of another to 

 practical use. In the facts in regard to the invention 

 of the aeroplane, however, the author of " Discovery " 

 and the writer of the leading articles in Nature are 

 in error. The real truth of the discovery of flight is 

 that the Wright Brothers first established a scientific 

 basis for aeroplane design ; they then invented the 

 mechanical means for putting this scientific know- 

 ledge to practical use. The spectacular nature of the 

 latter has blinded the public to the importance of the 

 former. 



