552 



NATURE 



[April 29, 1922 



emotions resemble their instinctive prototypes that 

 they are often thus described — as when a woman 

 shrinks from untruth or a caterpillar, or when a 

 boy dodges a blow. Habits are, in fact, pseudo- 

 instincts ; they have the same function ; they are 

 substitutes. Unlike real instincts, they are not in- 

 fallibly useful, but, on the whole, they are superior, 

 for they fit the individual to his particular environ- 

 ment, and, since they may change in future genera- 

 tions otherwise than by slow processes of natural 

 selection, may be improved more rapidly. 



On the other hand, the traits created by curiosity 

 bear no resemblance to instincts. They are intel- 

 lectual, not emotional. In the little child the two 

 instincts work hand in hand, but in the adult they 

 are often opposed ; for the traits derived from imita- 

 tion (faith, right belief, and morality, as we term 

 them in ourselves ; bias, prejudice, fanaticism, and 

 superstition, as we call them in others) may prevent 

 the development of those traits which curiosity 

 should bestow — as is best seen among savages, 

 creatures of custom and emotion, who, following from 

 age to age in the ancestral footsteps, add little to 

 their command over nature. Among modern civilised 

 peoples the ecclesiastical mind is especially a product 

 of imitation, the scientific mind of curiosity. Con- 

 sider how unlike they are, and how different all societies 

 trained mainly through imitation [e.g. medieval Chris- 

 tians and modern Mohammedans) are from those 

 trained through curiosity {e.g. ancient Greeks and 

 the more " enlightened moderns "). 



G. Archdall Reid. 



9 Victoria Road South, 

 Southsea, Hants. 



Walaeus and the Circulation of the Blood. 



It has been my good fortune to come across two 

 epistles written by Johannes Walaeus (1604-1649), 

 professor of medicine in the University of Leyden 

 in the year 1640. The two epistles occur at the end 

 of Bartholini's "Anatomy," published by Nich. 

 Culpeper, Gent., and Abdiah Cole, Doctor of Physick : 

 printed (in English) by Peter Cole ; London, 1665. 



Walaeus was greatly interested in the discovery 

 of the circulation of the blood by Harvey, and in 

 order to confirm it performed a large number of 

 experiments on dogs, cats, rabbits, and monkeys. 

 Having arrived at the conclusion already reached 

 by Harvey, that the blood does not move itself, but 

 is driven, he asks the questions " How is it driven ? " 

 and " What is the mechanism ? " The answer is 

 given in these two epistles written by Johannes 

 Walaeus to his friend Bartholini, the professor of 

 anatomy at the University of Copenhagen, and is 

 as follows : — 



" And that the Blood is driven by the Vena Cava into 

 the right EarJet of the Heart, I have manifestly seen in 

 the dissection of live Creatures : for in all motions 

 of the Heart, the first beginning of Motion is so or 

 no, because the Cava was knit to the Earlet [i.e. 

 Auricle] and the Heart, we cut the Heart and the 

 Earlet quite off in living Dogs, at the Vena Cava, 

 and we observed, that even then the Vena Cava did 

 a very little pulse, and at every time did send forth 

 a little Blood. And therefore the Vena Cava hath 

 certain fleshy fibres, for the most part about the 

 Heart, which elsewhere you shall not find in Vena 

 Cava. Now the motion of the Vena Cava is most 

 evident near the Heart." 



Writing in 1913 Sir James Mackenzie says : " Until 

 very recent times no definite remains of the sinus 



venosus had been found. Keith and Clark have 

 described a small node of tissue — the sino-auricular 

 node — at the mouth of the superior vena ca,va. 

 This tissue consists of fine, delicate, pale fibres 

 faintly striated." In the same year Dr. (now Sir 

 Thomas) Lewis tells us that " the wave of contrac- 

 tion starts in a small and newly discovered mass of 

 tissue the sino-auricular node, which lies embedded 

 in the upper and anterior end of the sulcus 

 terminalis." 



On the subject of auricular fibrillation Walaeus is 

 also very interesting for he tells us that " the Impulse 

 into both Earlets and into both Ventricles happens 

 at one and the same moment of time ; save in 

 Creatures ready to die, in which we have observed 

 that both Earlets, and both Ventricles do not pulse 

 at one and the same time. But when the Blood is 

 thus driven into the Ventricles of the Heart, the 

 Heart hath no motion evident to the Eye, but 

 putting our Finger upon the Heart we perceive 

 something to enter into the Heart, and that the 

 Heart becomes fuller, which also Harvey hath 

 observed. Yea, we have observed that the Earlet 

 hath pulsed seventy, sometimes an hundred pulses 

 before any motion of the Heart followed." Some- 

 what similar observations had, however, already been 

 made by Harvey (" De motu cordis et sanguinis," 

 1628, Chapter IV.). 



G. Arbour Stephens, 

 Consulting Cardiologist, King Edward VII. 

 Welsh National Memorial Association. 



61 Walter Road, 

 Swansea, 

 April 2. 



Transcription of Russian Names. 



Some 35 years ago I made in the columns of Nature 

 the proposal to adopt for the transcription of Russian 

 names a few letters from the Bohemian alphabet. 

 My letter was submitted to the authority of the editor 

 of the Journal of the Chemical Society (for I was at 

 that time Abstractor of that Journal for Russian 

 literature), but he did not agree with my proposal, 

 though later he accepted it for the Journal. 



I beg to repeat my old proposal ; for a great part of 

 Russian scientific life is concentrated in Prague, and 

 the Bohemian mode of transcription has, moreover, 

 been accepted by philologists and by many geo- 

 graphers. Bohemian is now the State-tongue of an 

 independent State. It is necessary to introduce only 

 the following few letters: c = tch, d = dj, e = ye, 

 ch = kh, n = nj, s = sh, t = tj, and z-zh (joli) ; a = long 

 a, and if you add the Bohemian f which has two 

 pronounciations : rz and rs, you can pronounce also 

 all Bohemian names. 



The following comparison between the old and new 

 mode of spelling shows that the latter has also the 

 advantage of a great economy in printing : 



Tchitcherine (12) 

 Zhemtch u zhny j (13): 

 Mendeleeff 

 Konj (4) 

 Tatjana (8) 

 Pushkine (8) 

 Djadja (6) 

 Metchnikoff (11) 



:Ci^erin (7) 



:ZemCuznyj (9) 

 MendSlSjev 



:Kon(3) 



:Tatana (6) 



:Pu§kin (6^ 

 Dada (4) ' 

 Mecnikov (8). 



NO. 2739, VOL. 109] 



BOHUSLAV BraUNER. 



Chemical Laboratory, 



Bohemian University, Prague, 

 March 9. 



