November 15, 1900] 



NA TURE 



63 



services to education cannot be over-estimated. He maintained 

 that no boy or girl should leave school without possessing a 

 grasp of the general character of science, and without having 

 been disciplined more or less in the methods of all sciences. As 

 regards higher education, he was a strong advocate for science 

 and modern languages, though without wishing to drop classics. 

 There were two things which he said he really cared about — 

 one was the advance of natural knowledge, and the other the 

 bettering of the condition of the masses of the people. How 

 well he furthered both scientific and national progress is known 

 to all of us. 



Prof. A. Calmette, director of the Pasteur Institute at 

 Lille, who is giving the Harben lectures this year, at the Ex- 

 amination Hall of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, 

 has taken the plague as his subject. In his first lecture, delivered 

 on November 7, he pointed out that plague now menaces all the 

 maritime nations of the globe, and it has become necessary to 

 take rigorous measures to stop its extension. The progress 

 of hygiene and the knowledge acquired during the last five 

 years on the etiology, treatment and prophylaxis of the affec- 

 tion enables it to be combated very efficaciously and its centres 

 to be rapidly circumscribed. It is known that the plague bacillus 

 is found in the buboes and sputa of the patient, that it is also 

 frequently found in the blood, that it has the form of a short 

 bacterium, slightly ovoid, that it is easy to stain by the ordinary 

 laboratory methods, and that it can be cultivated on the usual 

 media. Mice, rats and guinea-pigs show the greatest suscepti- 

 bility to plague. It has long been remarked that in localities 

 where the plague appears mice and rats die in great numbers, 

 and from the most ancient times, and even to-day, the Chinese 

 and nomadic peoples inhabiting the northern slopes of the 

 Himalayas, so soon as they notice an abundance of dead rats, 

 remove elsewhere to avoid the epidemic they know must be at 

 hand. Of other animals the pig and ox are said to be subject to 

 the plague, but observations show that they cannot take the 

 disease, at least spontaneously. Nor can birds easily contract 

 it ; the vultures that devour the corpses of the plague-stricken in 

 the Towers of Silence in the suburbs of Bombay suffer no ill 

 after their funereal repast, though they may distribute plague 

 microbes through their excreta. A monkey was found to con- 

 tract the plague spontaneously when placed in a cage side by 

 side with another monkey ; in this and similar cases the infection 

 was apparently carried by flies or by fleas and other parasites of 

 the skin. 



In connection with the International Exposition at Paris, a 

 number of balloons recently ascended from Vincennes with the 

 object of testing which could remain in the air for the longest 

 pariod. La Nature gives the following results : — Count Henri 

 de la Vaulx descended, after a journey lasting 35h. 45m., at 

 Korostichew, in Russia, the distance from the starting-point 

 being 1925 kilometres, and the greatest altitude 5700 metres. 

 M. Jacques Balsan descended after a voyage of 27h. 5m., having 

 attained a maximum altitude of 6540 metres, and reached a 

 distance of 1345 kilometres from the starting-point. M. Jacques 

 Faure descended n Germany, 950 kilometres from the starting- 

 point, after a journey of igh. 24m. Upon these results, and 

 those of previous contests, the grand prize in aeronautics has 

 been awarded to Count Henri de la Vaulx. 



M. DE FoNViELLE informs us that Dr. Janssen has asked the 

 Aero-Club at Paris to organise a series of three balloon ascents on 

 the nights of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, in 

 order to see whether the Leonids make an appearance or not. 



A Pan-American Exposition will be held at Buffalo, New 

 York, from the beginning of May to the end of October next 

 year. There will be a large building for electrical exhibits, and 



NO. 1620, VOL. 63] 



in it will be the service plant, for the transformation and distri- 

 bution of the 5000 horse-power transmitted from Niagara Falls, 

 for lighting and power purposes ; a collective exhibit of historical 

 interest, containing illustrative models and apparatus showing 

 important advances in the art ; and the commercial exhibit, 

 showing articles possessing distinctive merit, whether consisting 

 of workmanship, novelty or usefulness. 



The opening meeting of the new session of the Society of 

 Arts, the 147th since the foundation of the society in 1754, will 

 be held on Wednesday evening, November 21, when an address 

 will be delivered by Sir John Evans, K.C.B., F.R.S., vice- 

 president and chairman of the Council. For the meetings 

 previous to Christmas the following arrangements have been 

 made: — November 28, Major Ronald Ross, "Malaria and 

 Mosquitoes;" December 5, Prof. H. S. Hele-Shaw, F. R.S., 

 " Road Traction ; " December 12, Prof. Frank Clowes, "The 

 Treatment of London Sewage." 



At a recent meeting of the committee of the Liverpool School 

 of Tropical Medicine it was unanimously resolved to invite Dr. 

 R. Fielding Ould, Dr. Balfour Stewart and Dr. A. S. Griinbaum 

 to become assistant lecturers. These gentlemen have already as- 

 sisted the work of the school in many different ways. On the 

 motion of Mr. Alfred L. Jones it was resolved that the best 

 thanks of the school are due to Drs. Annett, Dutton, and Elliot 

 for their very valuable services in West Africa whilst members of 

 the second malarial expedition of the school. These gentlemen 

 have just returned, bringing with them a quantity of valuable 

 material for future work. 



Renewed interest in the mosquito theory of the propagation 

 of yellow fever, propounded by Dr. C. I. Finlay, of Havana, is 

 aroused by a paper read at the recent meeting of the American 

 Public Health Association at Indianapolis, by Surgeon Walter 

 Reed and Assistant-Surgeons J. Carroll, A. Agramonte and 

 J. W. Lazear. From experiments and observations made in 

 Cuba, in the course of which Dr. Lazear died from yellow fever 

 apparently conveyed to him by an infected mosquito, the follow- 

 ing conclusion is arrived at : — " The mosquito serves as the inter- 

 mediate host for the parasite of yellow fever, and it is highly 

 probable that the disease is only propagated through the bite of 

 this insect." 



The Times states that the whaler Eclipse, which arrived at 

 Dundee on November 7 from Davis Strait, landed Dr. Leopold 

 Kann, who has for eighteen months been connected with a 

 scientific expedition to the Arctic regions. The expedition, 

 which consisted of Dr. Kmn, Mr. Robert Stein, of Washington, 

 U.S.A., and a Boston taxidermist named Mr. S. Warmbath, 

 left Sydney, Nova Scotia, in July 1899, on board the Peary re- 

 lief ship Diana. The Peary expedition was seen in the begin- 

 ning of August 1899, in three divisions. At that time Lieutenant 

 Peary had been badly frostbitten, having lost several toes, and 

 being only ably to walk with difficulty. The party, which had 

 a large number of sledges and Eskimo dogs, was determined to 

 make a dash for the North Pole. 



Arrangements have been made for the issue, by the Cam- 

 bridge University Press, of a journal devoted to the publication 

 of the best original work on hygiene. The periodical will be 

 entitled The Journal of Hygiene, and will be issued quarterly. 

 It will be edited by Dr. G. H. F. Nuttall, in conjunction with 

 Dr. John Haldane, F.R.S., and Dr. Arthur Newsholme. The 

 scope of the new journal will be similar to that of the Archivfiir 

 Hygiene and Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene, and the aim will be to 

 become the chief medium for original workers in hygiene among 

 English-speaking people. The first number of the journal will 

 appear on January i, 1901. 



