440 



NA TURE 



[March 7, 1901 



induction of each section of the armature, a certain 

 amount of energy is used twice in each revolution to 

 establish the current in it. This energy is lost so far as 

 the external circuit or the effective output of the machine 

 is concerned" (the italics are ours). This sentence shows 

 that the author has never attempted to study the ex- 

 tremely complicated problem of commutation ; it would, 

 therefore, have been wiser to say nothing about it in an 

 elementary text-book. 



But we must stop, though we have by no means ex- 

 hausted the various errors which mar the book. We have 

 noted a few quite as glaring as those which have been 

 adduced as samples. The book possesses some good 

 features, notably the attempt to explain everything by 

 considering the stresses in the medium ; but it is so full 

 df error that we feel bound to condemn it very strongly. 



A. H. 



Die Lehre vom Skelet des Menschen unter besonderer 



Beriicksichtigung entwickelungsgeschichtlicher und 



vergleichend-anatomischer Gesichtspunkte und der 



Erfordernisse des anthropologischen Unterrichtes an 



hoheren Lehranstalten. Bearbeitet von Ur. F. Frenkel. 



Pp. vi + 176. Mit 81 textfiguren. (Jena: Gustav 



Fischer, 1900.) 



The author has in course of publication, for use in the 



Gymnasia and Realschulen, a series of wall plates in 



which the anatomy of the human body is represented, 



and he has prepared the book now under consideration 



as a supplement to the plates which illustrate the skeleton. 



He devotes 176 pages to the description of the human 



skeleton, and includes an account of the joints which 



connect the bones with each other. He has adopted as 



the basis of his arrangement the plan followed by Gegen- 



baur in the " Lehrbuch der Anatomie der Menschen." 



In the course of his description. Dr. Frenkel takes 

 the opportunity of calling attention to the developmental 

 changes which take place in the prpe-ossific stage of the 

 skeleton, as well as during the process of ossification 

 itself, more especially in their beanng on the production 

 of variations which, from time to time, come under the 

 notice of anatomists. He contributes an interesting 

 chapter on the variations in the number of vertebrae, 

 more especially in the thoracic, lumbar and sacral 

 regions, and explains the occasional occurrence in the 

 dorsi-lumbar region of a vertebra which partakes partly 

 of the characters of both these groups, and in the lumbo- 

 sacral region of a vertebra which exhibits a transitional 

 form between the lumbar and sacral series. 



The opportunity is taken, from time to time, to point 

 out the differences in arrangement and character between 

 the human skeleton and that of the anthropoid apes, 

 though in this respect many additional examples might 

 readily have been given. It is, of course, impossible in 

 a work of this kind to free the descriptions from technical 

 terms and modes of expression ; but the author, taking 

 into consideration the class of readers for whom it has 

 been written, has explained the meaning of the terms 

 and, as far as practicable, has couched his descriptions in 

 language to be readily apprehended. 



De Paris aux Mines d'Or de F Australia occidentale. By 

 O. Chemin. Pp. 370 -H 2 maps. (Paris: Gauthier- 

 . Villars, 1900.) 



A DESCRIPTION of Western Australia jfrom the mining 

 point of view, illustrated with pictures characteristic of the 

 scenes presented in a journey from Paris to Perth, and 

 examined during short visits to other places in our 

 premier gold-producing colony. The geography, popu- 

 lation, government, mineral resources and gold fields of 

 the colony are surveyed, and the condition and promise 

 of individual mines commented upon. The author spent 

 nearly a year in Westralia, and his book will direct the 

 attention of his countrymen to an immense region, much 

 df which is still little known. 



NO. 1636, VOL. 63] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.^ 



Malaria and Mosquitoes. 



Interesting letters by Mr. D. E. Hutchins and Mr. F. R. 

 Mallet have recently appeared in Nature, suggesting the 

 possibility of there being some other route for infection in malaria 

 besides that by the bite of Anopheles. Suggestions of this kind 

 always appear to me to give rise to the questions, (a) whether 

 the facts are really as stated ? and {b) whether, if even this is the 

 case, they cannot be explained by the mosquito theory ? The 

 notion that clearing jungle causes fever is very widely spread : 

 but this does not prove that it is true. Granting that it is true, 

 it may possibly be explained on the ground (a) that persons 

 engaged in clearing jungle and laying out new plantations are 

 not likely to be so well housed as those who live in established 

 settlements ; {b) that any hard labour encourages relapses of 

 fever among coolies and others who have already been infected ; 

 and (f) that, as shown by Christophers and Stephens, jungle 

 often contains large numbers of Anopheles. The frequent state- 

 ments one sees, to the effect that malaria has prevailed largely 

 when mosquitoes were few, are generally too vague to be of 

 value, because it is not added whether the cases were relapses 

 or fresh infections, or to what kind the "few" mosquitoes 

 present belonged. When a man says that mosquitoes are 

 numerous he generally refers to the genus Culex, which probably 

 assert themselves more than do Anopheles. The idea that the 

 water of the rivers of western India can cause fever when it is 

 drunk is certainly opposed to my personal experience. In 1891 

 I went fishing with Mr. G. Tait, of Bangalore, in the River 

 Bhawani, near Ootacamund. I remember that at the time I 

 did not think that fever , could be acquired by drinking such 

 water, and I used daily to drink the unboiled water of this river 

 (which flows amongst thick jungle). I remained quite free from 

 fever, without taking quinine ; but Mr. Tait was afterwards 

 attacked. So far as I remember (but I am not sure), he had 

 refused to drink Bhawani water ; but I am not certain that his 

 fever was malarial. Again, the idea that malaria is absent in the 

 Nilgiri Hills round Ootacamund unless the soil is turned dofes 

 not accord with my personal experiences. I acquired fever at 

 Kalhutti (5000 feet above sea-level) in 1897, when I was investi- 

 gating the disease in the Sigur Ghat. I thought at the time that 

 I had acquired it in the plains below, but, in the light of our 

 present knowledge, have little doubt that I became infected in 

 the dak-bungalow at Kalhutti, where a succession of kitmutgars 

 and their families had been taken ill, I noted particularly at 

 the time that there was no freshly turned soil in the neighbour- 

 hood of the bungalow. Lastly, the case mentioned by Mr. D. E. 

 Hutchins, namely that of a medically authenticated case of malaria 

 being produced by fresh earth carried past a window in baskets 

 by coolies, seems to me to'be open to criticism. Which fact was 

 medically authenticated — the fact that the patient suffered from 

 malaria, or that his malaria was caused by the earth carried past 

 in baskets ? I can understand the first fact being certified by a 

 doctor, but scarcely the second. How did the doctor prove that 

 the fever was produced by the earth in the baskets ? It seems 

 to me that the only way in which he could have done so in a 

 trustworthy and scientific manner would have been to infect a 

 second person by having the baskets carried past a second time. 

 I doubt whether such instances — and we see hundreds of them 

 in the Press — will bear close examination. Those who cite cases 

 of fever apparently due to freshly-turned earth, seem to forget 

 that there are millions of people constantly engaged in digging 

 without suffering from the disease more than others do. 



Liverpool, February 25. R. Ross. 



Abundance of Peripatus in Jamaica. 



Mr. p. H. Gosse in the "Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica " 

 (p. 66) makes the first reference to the occurrence of Peripatus in 

 Jamaica, having found in 1845 ^^e or six specimens, hear 

 Bluefields, on the south-west coast of the island. Gosse re- 

 garded them as "rather allied to the Annelida than to the 

 Mbllusca." No further mention of the animal is made until it . 

 was rediscovered at Bath in 1892, nearly fifty years after, by a 

 local naturalist, Mrs. Swainson. Seven Peripatus were sent to 



