December 17, 1914] 



NATURE 



425 



in some cases in pap>ers or addresses before the 

 sections, was carried on during the voyage out by 

 some members of the "Advance Party." On the 

 blue-funnel liner Ascanius Prof. G. W. Duffield 

 made observations on the variation in the force 

 of gravity over the floor of the ocean, and Prof. 

 W. A. Herdman examined and preserved samples 

 of the plankton from the surface waters running 

 continuously through fine nets, day and night, 

 between Liverpool and Fremantle. Both these 

 researches were very materially promoted by the 

 jnanagers of the Blue Funnel Line, who most 

 generously fitted up a special laboratory for each 

 of these purposes, and gave great assistance on 

 board and other facilities for carrying on the 

 scientific work. Some other researches were also 

 carried out on other routes, and on the return 

 voyages. Preliminary accounts of these investiga- 

 tions were given at the .\ustralian meetings, but 



Fig. 3. — One o f the " Glas.s-bouse " mountains of Queensland named by 

 Capt. Cook in 1770, visited by the British Association in 1914. 



further results, both from the work on board ship 

 and from some of the field work in Australia, 

 mav confidently be expected in the future. 



W. A. H. 



THE HEALTH OF THE EXPEDITIONARY 

 FORCE. 



W/^ may well be thankful that the news from 

 ^ ' the Front continues to report favourably of 

 the general health of our men. It need scarcely 

 be said that the labour of housing and treating 

 so many severely wounded is colossal ; and we 

 know, all of us, that the proportion of heavily 

 infected wounds is unhappily and inevitably high. 

 Indeed, the wonder is, that every wound is not 

 heavily infected : for we may be sure that no 

 clothes, no hands, no skin, can be clean in 



NO. 2355, VOL. 94] 



; action: we must not talk of "clean wounds," 



■ where complete cleanliness is impossible : we 

 I must only say that some wounds healed well, in 

 ; spite of the conditions under which they were 



made. 

 I The urgency and the frequency of the heavily 



■ infected wounds have brought all men to recog- 

 ' nise the abiding rightness of "Listerism." There 



was a popular notion that "antiseptics " had been 

 abandoned for " aseptics " ; that the surgeons 

 merely sterilised their instruments, dressings, etc., 



' by heat, and no longer needed to use carbolic 

 acid and other antiseptic substances ; and, for a 

 great part of the work of surgery, this popular 

 opinion had reason. The set and formal opera- 

 tions, done after due preparation under conditions 

 chosen for the patient's safety and convenience, 

 have come to be more aseptic than antiseptic in 

 their method — so far as it can be excusable to put 

 the two words against each other. But, even 

 over these formal exercises of surgery, there is 

 room for some individualism ; and the entire 



j disuse of antiseptic agents is neither possible nor 



I to be desired. Xow, across the fine-drawn details 

 of surgical practice in peace, and all the nicely 

 calculated less and more of the antiseptic method 

 and the aseptic method at this or that quiet 

 hospital, comes the overwhelming rush of legions 

 of gunshot wounds, many of them frightfully 

 extensive, many left for days without sufficient 

 treatment, and all of them more or less heavily 

 infected. 



The surface of the soil, cultivated and manured 

 to the very utmost of its capacities, is loaded with 

 bacteria of all sorts. Among them, are those of 

 gangrene and of lockjaw. It is a hard fact, that 

 the earth which our men are defending is one of 

 their enemies : dug-up for trenches, ploughed-up 

 by artillery fire, churned-up into mud, it provides 

 " infective material " alike for the just and the 

 unjust. Against these evils. Army surgeons are 

 employing the full strength of "Listerism." 

 Iodine, that excellent antiseptic, used in French 

 surgery long before Lister, is coming into its own 

 again ; and the use of carbolic acid and of spirit 

 is general and resolute. Of course, regard must 

 be observed to the time which is lost between the 

 infliction of the wound and the first systematic 



: dressing of the wound ; he is fortunate, who 

 receives thorough treatment within 24 hours. 

 Happily, against tetanus, our surgeons have the 

 tetanus-antitoxin : it is a second line of defence, 



• beyond the use of antiseptics. It can scarcely be 

 reckoned on to cure tetanus, once the infection 

 has flared up. But it can be reckoned on, with 

 full confidence, to prevent the flaring up. 



On the medical side of news from the Front, a 

 matter of great interest is the occurrence of 

 tvphoid in the Belgian army. We may be sure 

 that the fever is not limited to that army ; and we 

 may be fairly sure that there will be, before lontr. 

 many more cases. It is, of course, the mild 

 unsuspected cases, and the carrier cases, which 

 are the danerer. Something would be gained, if 



; only the soldier would cover up his excrement, 

 after the rule ordained bv Moses; but he will not 



