November 22, 1900J 



NATURE 



89 



We learn from Science that the New York Board of Health is 

 building, at a cost of 4000/., a laboratory to be wholly devoted 

 to the study of the bubonic plague. Special care will be taken 

 in its construction. The ground floor will be occupied chiefly 

 with eight stalls for horses that will supply the anti-plague 

 serum. A staircase from the outside will lead to the upper 

 floor, where experiments will be carried on. The walls and 

 floor are to be of steel and cement, so as to be rat proof, and the 

 windows are to be especially screened to keep out flies and 

 mosquitoes. 



It will be remembered that shortly after the death of the late 

 Mr. G. J. Symons, F.R.S., the founder of the British Rainfall 

 organisation, a movement was started for the foundation of a 

 memorial to him. It was resolved that the memorial should 

 take the form of a gold medal, to be awarded from time to time 

 by the Council of the Royal Meteorological Society for distin- 

 guished work in connection with meteorological science. The 

 committee appointed to take the necessary steps to raise a fund 

 for that purpose announce that the appeal has met with a hearty 

 response from meteorologists, water engineers and other admirers 

 of Mr. Symons's work. The fund will be open until the end of 

 January next, and subscriptions should be sent to the treasurer, 

 Dr. C. Theodore Williams, 70, Victoria Street, Westminster. 



The Vienna correspondent of the Times states that two facts 

 of considerable importance, both to sanitary authorities and the 

 general public, are set forth in the definitive report of the 

 Austrian Medical Commission of the Vienna Imperial Academy 

 of Science, sent to Bombay in 1897 to study the issue of a work 

 on the morphology and biology of the bacillus and on artificial 

 infection, &c. It has been prepared by Drs. Albrecht and 

 Ghon, both surviving colleagues of Dr. Miiller, who died of 

 the plague in Vienna two years ago under melancholy circum- 

 stances reported at the time. The experiments recorded in the 

 work now published show that certain species of animals are 

 easily infected by rubbing the virulent matter lightly on the 

 skin even when it is perfectly intact and free from injury. This 

 is said to be the most frequent and important form of infection 

 in the case of human beings. The second result of the experi- 

 ments conducted in Vienna, which were forbidden after the 

 unfortunate accident that cost the life of Dr. Miiller and two 

 other victims in 1898, has been to prove that perfect immunity 

 can be given to the most susceptible animals against injections 

 which would otherwise be absolutely fatal. 



The mode of infection with plague was referred to by Prof. 

 A. Calmette in the second Harben lecture, delivered at the 

 Examination Hall of the Royal College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons on November 14. In the course of his lecture, Prof. 

 Calmette said (reports the Lancet) that certain epidemics of 

 plague had been remarkable for the fact that all the cases pre- 

 sented a primitive pneumonic form, the mode of entry having 

 been, therefore, exclusively through the nose or mouth, while in 

 others the infection had been produced by the skin, either 

 following slight excoriations or bites of fleas, bugs, and other 

 parasitical insects. During the epidemic in Portugal last year, he 

 observed with Salimbeni a case in which the infection was 

 through a bug-bite. Hankin and Simond, in India, had cited 

 several examples of individuals who had contracted plague from 

 touching diseased or dead rats. It was probable that the trans- 

 mission of the plague to the man was by fleas living on the rats. 

 Experiment in the laboratory had shown how quickly a healthy 

 rat would contract the plague if caged with a diseased rat which 

 was infested with fleas, while a healthy rat remained healthy 

 when shut up with one which was diseased but was free from 

 fleas. Whatever the mode of entry of the virus, multiplication 

 of the plague bacillus resulted first in the lymphatic channels and 

 then in the blood. .... 



NO. 162 K, VOL. 63] 



There ought to be a ready and liberal response to the ap- 

 peal for contributions to establish a permanent memorial to the 

 late Miss Mary Kingsley ; for her works on the customs and 

 institutions of the native races of West Africa are admired by 

 a large public. A strong and representative committee has been 

 formed, and it has been decided that, if sufficient funds are 

 obtained, the memorial shall take the form of a small hospital, 

 to be established in connection with the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, and shall also be used to institute " The 

 Mary Kingsley Society of West Africa," to stimulate research 

 and collect information concerning West Africa. Much infor- 

 mation of the required kind as to West African sociology is 

 already on record, scattered through the works of the older 

 writers on those parts, as well as in more recent books of travel, 

 in papers published in periodicals, in Blue-books and in official 

 reports ; and a very great deal more may still be gathered by 

 Government officials, traders, missionaries, travellers and by 

 the small but remarkable band of natives who are already 

 educated. It is proposed that the " Mary Kingsley Society " 

 should employ a trained ethnologist, both to collect and ar- 

 range in scientific form the material which is thus already on 

 record, and to institute and direct research for further material 

 of the same sort. Subscriptions may be assigned by the donors 

 to either the hospital or the society, and the two funds will be 

 kept separate. Contributions for the " Mary Kingsley Memorial 

 Hospital " should be sent to Mr. A. H. Milne, B. 10, Exchange 

 Buildings, Liverpool, and for the " Mary Kingsley Society of 

 West Africa" to Mr. George Macmillan, St. Martin's Street, 

 London, W.C. 



The U.S. Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for Novem- 

 ber gives the longitude at which a number of vessels bound 

 round Cape Horn crossed the latitude of 50" S. in the Atlantic 

 and the Pacific respectively, and shows the courses followed by 

 ships making the best and worst passages. The time occupied 

 varied from eight to thirty days. Some of the captains kept as 

 closely as possible to Cape Horn, while others reached the 

 parallel of 60° S. In no other part of the world are the meteoro- 

 logical conditions more trying, owing to the persistency and 

 violence of the westerly winds, the turbulence of the sea and 

 frequent blinding squalls of hail and sleet. The Hydrographic 

 Office has, therefore, rendered good service in pointing out the " 

 route to be followed, and the necessity of adapting it to the 

 prevailing meteorological conditions, especially with regard to 

 barometric pressure. A vessel fortunate enough to encounter 

 easterly winds in rounding the Horn can only retain them as 

 long as possible by remaining on the southern side of the low 

 barometric pressure which they surround, instead of standing at 

 once to the N.W., regardless of the indications of the barometer. 



The report of the Prussian Meteorological Office for the year 

 1899 points with satisfaction to the increased uniformity of action 

 between all the German States as regards the methods of discus- 

 sion and publication of observations, and to the tendency 

 towards augmenting the number of observing stations where 

 necessary. An important investigation has been carried out by 

 Dr. Edler, at the suggestion of Dr. v. Bezold, on the influence 

 of stray currents from electric tramways on the instruments for 

 measuring terrestrial magnetism, with a view to determining the 

 minimum distance to which magnetic observatories should be 

 removed. The result shows that the observatory must be at 

 least five miles from the line, and, for researches of a delicate 

 nature, at least twice that distance is required. Special atten- 

 tion is paid to the investigation of the upper air by means of 

 kites and balloons. Two of the unmanned balloons reached, 

 during the year in question, about 22,000 and 26,000 feet respect- 

 ively, and we learn from other sources that these important in- 

 vestigations are being actively carried on during the current year. 



