December 6, 1900] 



NATURE 



135 



another sign of the same fact that the heads of this great 

 technical college have asked me, a student of pure science, 

 to distribute your prizes to-night. I should be misusing 

 the opportunity you have given me if I did not assert 

 the conviction, common both to you and me, that it is 

 by means of the scientific study of various industries, 

 study such as you here carry on, and such as will be 

 carried on in the National Physical Laboratory, that 

 trade and science alike will prosper. 



The first nuggets in gold-bearing districts are often 

 picked up upon the surface ; but mines can only be 

 worked on a large scale by organised industry. As we 

 penetrate deeper into the secrets of nature, as the in- 

 dustrial struggle grows keener, the rough and ready 

 methods of the past will not win either knowledge or 

 wealth. 



We cannot aflford to dispense with the old virtues. If 

 we become slack and idle, if we devote to sports, inno- 

 cent and useful in their place, the energy and attention 

 which others are giving, not to the amusements, but to 

 the business of life, we shall be, as we shall deserve to 

 be, beaten. But to the old virtues we must add new 

 methods, and among these none seems to me more 

 praiseworthy than that a great municipality should de- 

 termine that the lads who embark on the principle in- 

 dustries of the town shall have an opportunity of master- 

 ing the scientific principles on which those industries are 

 based, and shall be shown, as they master them, how 

 the principles are to be applied to the business of life. 



THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND 

 INDUSTRY. 



T AST September Prof. Carhardt communicated to the 

 ■*— ' American Institute of Electrical Engineers a very 

 complete account, which has recently been printed in 

 Science, of the Reichsanstalt at Berlin. He had worked 

 there as a guest for some months in 1899, and had thus 

 gained an insight into its management and organisation. 

 The details he gives of these are very interesting, and 

 the proof of the value of the work done, and of its conse- 

 quences to German industry, most striking. The cost 

 of the Institution, we may note, was about 200,000/. ; the 

 annual expenditure amounts to about 15,000/. After 

 mentioning these figures he continues, " A very pertinent 

 inquiry is, what are the results of all this expenditure?" 

 and a careful analysis leads him to the conclusion that, 

 " The results have already justified, in a remarkable 

 manner, all the expenditure of labour and money. The 

 renown in exact scientific measurements formerly pos- 

 sessed by France and England has now largely been 

 transferred to Germany. Formerly scientific workers in 

 the United States looked to England for exact standards, 

 especially in the department of electricity, now they go 

 to Germany." And agaih, " Germany is rapidly moving 

 toward industrial supremacy in Europe. One of the 

 most potent factors in this notable advance is the per- 

 fected alliance between science and commerce existing 

 in Germany. Science has come to be regarded there as 

 a commercial factor. If England is losing her supremacy 

 in manufactures and in commerce, as many claim, it is 

 because of English conservatism and the failure to utilise 

 to the fullest extent the lessons taught by science." 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE ROYAL 

 SOCIETY. 



THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society was 

 held as usual on St. Andrew's Day, November 30, 

 in the apartments of the Society at Burlington House. 

 The auditors of the treasurer's accounts having read 

 their report, and the secretary having read the list of 

 Fellows elected and deceased since the last anniversary, 

 the president (Lord Lister) proceeded to deliver the 



NO. 1623. VOL. 63] 



anniversary address. After referring to the losses by- 

 death sustained by the Society since the previous anni- 

 versary, and briefly noticing the work and careers of the 

 deceased Fellows, the president continued his address as- 

 follows : — 



Through the Malaria Committee the Society has kept in touch 

 with the progress that has been made in unravelling the rnystery 

 of the greatest scourge of our tropical colonies, and with the 

 steps that advancing knowledge has suggested for its suppression^ 

 The subject has now reached a stage at which it may be not un- 

 fitting to refer briefly to what has been accomplished. 



The term "malaria" implied the belief that some vitiated 

 state of the atmosphere was the cause of the disease. But the 

 knowledge gained of late years of the parasitic nature of infective- 

 disorders pointed clearly to such an origin of the intermittent 

 fevers, as the various manifestations ofmalaria have been termed. 

 Accordingly diligent and long-continued search was made in the 

 water and the soil of malarious districts in Italy for the suspected 

 living agent, but without success. The discovery was made in 

 1880 by Laveran, a French army surgeon stationed in Algiers, 

 who observed in the red blood corpuscles of malarious patients- 

 what he regarded as adventitious living organisms ; not of veget- 

 able nature like the bacteria which constitute the materies morbt- 

 of so many infective diseases, but a very low form of animal life. 

 In what he believed to be the youngest condition of the or- 

 ganisms, they appeared in the red blood-discs as tiny specks of 

 colourless protoplasm, possessing amoeboid movements. These, 

 growing at the expense of the red corpuscles which they 

 inhabited, consumed them more or less completely, at the same 

 time depositing in their own substance a peculiar form of dark 

 brown or black pigment, such as had long been known to form, 

 characteristic deposits in the organs of malarious subjects. As- 

 they grew they assumed various forms, among which was what 

 Laveran termed the " rosace," a rounded body bearing at its 

 circumference little spherules, while the pigment was accumu- 

 lated at the centre {vide Laveran, Du Paludism, Paris, 1891). 



This discovery of Laveran's, at first regarded with the gravest 

 suspicion by pathologists, was the first great step in the etiology 

 of malaria. It supplied the means of distinguishing the disease 

 from its counterfeits, and it explained the wonderful specific 

 efficacy of quinine, till then given only empirically. Quinine is 

 remarkable in the circumstance that it acts with deadly effect 

 upon some microbes, in dilutions which are quite unirritating to 

 the human tissues. It can thus be given in sufficient doses to- 

 kill the malaria parasite in the blood without injuring the 

 patient. 



Nine years after Laveran's discovery, Golgi, of Pavia, ^yho• 

 had been specially studying the " rosace" form of the parasite, 

 and who had become convinced that the spherules at the circum- 

 ference of the rosace were sporules of the microbe, announced 

 that he had observed differences between the rosaces of the 

 tertian and quartan forms of the fever so great and so constant 

 as to make him satisfied that they were two distinct species of 

 organism. At the same time he had made the extremely 

 important observation that the periods of occurrence of the 

 fever corresponded with the times of maturation of the rosaces. 

 These, all coming to maturity about the same time, shed their 

 sporules into the blood, and this determined the febrile attack.. 

 The free sporules then, according to his view, attached them- 

 selves severally to other red discs, constituting Laveran's tiny 

 amoebse, and grew in the red copuscles without causing symptoms- 

 till they had produced a fresh crop of sporules ripe for extrusion, 

 the time for this being two days in the tertian and three days- 

 in the quartan form. Thus the periodicity of the intermittent 

 fevers and their variety in that respect were alike explained. 

 ( Vide Laveran, op. cit. ) 



A few months later a third species 01 the parasite was. 

 recognised, having the peculiarity that some of its individuals, 

 instead of being of rounded form, were of crescentic shape. 

 This species received the title sestivo-autumnal, on account of 

 the season in which it showed itself in Italy. It was not sa 

 regular in its periods as the others, and was much more dan- 

 gerous. The existence of these different species was at first 

 very generally doubted, but it is now universally accepted and is 

 of very great importance. The examination of a drop of blood 

 from the finger of the patient enables the physician to decide, 

 not only whether the disease is malaria, but which of the three 

 types it will follow. The more dangerous crescent form is 

 commonest in the tropics, and hence has been termed by Koch 



