March i6, 1922] 



NA TURE 



343 



end. This explains the attacks on older people in 

 the later phases of the waves of the war-end epidemic. 

 Their immunity was relative, not absolute. 



(^) All European countries, neutral as well as 

 belligerent, were greatly upset and tried by the war ; 

 and N. America (Canada and U.S.A.) was belligerent. 

 Gerard W. Butler. 



Candahar, Yorke Road, Reigate, Surrey. 



Calcium Carbide and the Board of Trade. 



The decision of the Board of Trade Referee that 

 calcium carbide is not a synthetic organic chemical 

 is characterised by " H. E. A." (Nature, February 23, 

 p. 230) as an offence against both chemical tradition 

 and our chemical conscience. " H. E. A." no doubt 

 may claim to be the keeper of the chemical tradition 

 and conscience of organic chemists, but I should like 

 to dissociate myself personally from his custodian- 

 ship. How any one can regard calcium carbide, a 

 substance that gives calcium oxide as its sole solid 

 product when moistened with water, as an organic 

 chemical, or an electric furnace operation as the 

 fundamental synthesis of organic chemistry, I cannot 

 understand. What do they know of organic chemical 

 synthesis who only the syntheses of organic chemists 

 know ? Frederick Soddy. 



Prof. Soddy is a trifle impetuous : my reference to 

 Hazlitt was not out of place, it seems. If I follow 

 my critic, as only a small heap of solid phosphate of 

 lime will be left of me when I am burnt, I am not 

 organic. Granted that calcium acetylide (carbide) 

 gives lime when wetted, it is a little surprising that 

 the putative father of Emanation and the first to 

 make clear the significance of helium should attach 

 no importance to the escaping gas. If a man have 

 a wooden leg, he is none the less counted a man, I 

 beUevc. Now, when zinc ethide is started swimming 

 in water, it leaves behind it its leg, as it were, in the 

 form of zinc oxide, just as carbide does, though in the 

 form of lime ; yet the ethide ranks as one of the most 

 honourable of synthetic organic chemicals : why dis- 

 card the carbide ? 



One purpose of my article was to direct attention 

 to our lack of logic when using words. Prof. Soddy's 

 comments are but proof that the need to put con- 

 sidered meaning into our words is with us. I was 

 led to respect Trench before reading science : in 

 consequence, I have all my life had my attention 

 drawn to words. The term organic has never had 

 any " organic " or vital significance, in chemistry, 

 in Prof. Soddy's lifetime. Thinking chemists have 

 long and logically attached an entirely conventional 

 meaning to it. Before Prof. Soddy was born, I wrote 

 a text-book entitled an " Introduction to the Study 

 of Organic Chemistry," which had as subsidiary title 

 " The Chemistry of Carbon and its Components." I 

 was but adopting a definition put into my hands 

 by my chemical grandfathers. Both carbon and 

 carbonic acid were considered. I would class not only 

 coal but even limestone among " organic compounds." 



In conclusion, let me say that the proceedings 

 under the Act are becoming more of a scandal every 

 week. The latest riddle asked is, " When is a 

 chemical not a chemical ? " " When it is used as 

 a foodstuff," being the suggested answer. The posi- 

 tion of disputants is that defined centuries ago in 

 " Hudibras" : 



They're catched in knotted law, like nets ; 

 In which when once they are imbrangled, 

 The more they stir, the more they're tangled. 

 And while their purses can dispute. 

 There's no end of th' immortal suit. 



From beginning to end, every proceeding connected 

 with the Act has been " unscientific." H. E. A. 



NO. 2733, VOL. 109] 



The Hormone Theory o£ Heredity. 



I SHOULD be much obliged if you would allow me 

 to correct in Nature, which is, I believe, widely read 

 in the U.S.A. as well as in this country, the erroneous 

 account of my hormone theory of heredity given by 

 Prof. T. H. Morgan in his memoir on Secondary Sexual 

 Characters, Carnegie Institution, No. 285, 1919. At 

 that date Prof. Morgan could only have known the 

 account of my theory in my paper in the Arch. f. 

 Entwicklungsmechanik, 1908. His description of my 

 views is contained in the following two quotations 

 from his memoir : (i) " He imagines these hormones 

 to be collected in the germ cells and transmitted to 

 the next generation, where their presence contributes 

 to the further development of the special region 

 (when it develops) that corresponds to the region in 

 its parent in which the hormone was made." (2) " His 

 special appeal to the hormone theory makes use of 

 that theory in a way to which it was never intended 

 to be put, by assuming that an internal secretion 

 formed in one organ can be stored up in another 

 organ, egg or sperm, an assumption not only un- 

 supported by any evidence, but, as I have stated, 

 quite foreign to the hormone theory." 



The theory suggested by me in 1908, and put for- 

 ward in my recent book, " Hormones and Heredity," 

 is that the increased amount of hormones or waste 

 products given out by a structure in which hyper- 

 trophy has been caused by external stimulation, may 

 stimulate the determinants or factors corresponding 

 to that structure in the gametes, and so cause some 

 degree of inherited hypertrophy in the next generation. 

 One quotation from my 1908 paper will prove this : 



" At the same time the hormone from the in- 

 cipient antler stimulates the determinants in the 

 gametes. ... If the stimulation of the determinants is 

 repeated for an indefinite number of generations the 

 congenital tendency to the hypertrophy will become 

 very strong." 



The idea of stimulation of a determinant or factor, 

 which may be as Prof. Morgan maintains a part of 

 a chromosome, is very different from the storing up 

 in the gametes of hormones derived from parts of the 

 soma, and foi this latter idea I disclaim all respon- 

 sibility. J. T. Cunningham. 



East London College, March 6, 1922. 



Neon Lamps. 



It does not seem to be generally known that neon 

 lamps, for which many applications can be found 

 in a physical laboratory, are now obtainable very 

 cheaply. They are made to fit an ordinary holder, 

 and contain moderately pure neon (usually somewhat 

 contaminated with mercury) at low pressure. The 

 electrodes are of nickel and are made in various 

 shapes according to the purpose for which the lamp 

 is intended, but they are sufficiently close together 

 for the lamp to run at ordinary supply voltages 

 (down to 100 v.). They are particularly useful for 

 stroboscopic measurements ; in this case the lamp 

 is used to illuminate the disc, and may be run from 

 the secondary of an induction coil the primary of which 

 is in series with an electrically maintained tuning-fork. 



Another application is to the detection of oscillat- 

 ing P.D.'s in connection with a Fleming cymometer 

 and similar experiments. Possibly, too, they may 

 be of service in spectroscopic work where the dis- 

 persion is small or the exposure long, as the lines are 

 not too numerous and their wave-lengths are in 

 many cases very accurately known. Their great 

 advantage over the ordinary neon vacuum tube is 

 of course their cheapness ; the last one I purchased 

 cost 3s. gd. W. E. Curtis. 



Wheatstone Laboratory, King's College, W.C.2, 

 March 6. 



