April ii, 191 8] 



NATURE 



] I 



A ith the possible result that shells, more destructive 



han those now being fired into Paris, could be thrown 



! om Ostend to London, a distance of some 130 miles. 



'■ \ is pointed out that if the experiments on long-range 



allistics, which were initiated in this country in 1887, 



had not been curtailed owing to the stupidity of our 



otlkials and politicians, we should probably have been 



the first to produce such a long-range gun, and it is 



urged that we should set to work at once to produce 



a better weapon than the German gun. 



The results of two expeditions equipped by Mr. I. 

 Wanamaker — one to work in the south, the other in 

 the north, of Alaska — are described in the Museum 

 Journal (vol. viii.. No. 2, June, 1917). Among the 

 collections received are old works of art handed down 

 for many generations in the Chilkat tribe. The 

 northern expedition worked among the Eskimo on the 

 shores of the Arctic Ocean, who have been seldom 

 visited, and retain many of their characteristic insti- 

 tutions. This expedition will throve much light on 

 the chain of pure Eskimo culture which reaches from 

 Labrador on the Atlantic side of the continent across 

 the shores of the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea to the 

 Northern Pacific. 



Mr. B. C. W.'\llis has contributed to the Geograph- 

 ical Review (vol. w.. No. 6, December, 1917) a paper 

 on "The Peoples of Hungary: their Work on the 

 Land." The paper gives a good instance of geograph- 

 ical control upon the life of man. The Magyar is 

 deep-rooted in the heart of Hungary, the central Alfold. 

 The Slovaks show a definite tendency towards the 

 development of an economic life which essentially 

 differs from that of the other races, due in part to the 

 mountains and plains of which their land is composed, 

 and yet in sharp contrast with the life of the Ruma- 

 nians in Transylvania, where the best farm work is 

 usually done by Germans or Magyars. This Slovak 

 development has occurred in the face of direct opposi- 

 tion from the Magyar official class. The work of the 

 Slovaks is also of^ greater value than that of either 

 Croat or Serb in the south-west. 



Dr. a. J. Chalmers and Waino Pekkola have pub- 

 lished in the Annals of Trop. Med. and Parasitology 

 (vol. xi., No. 3, pp. 213-64, two plates)' a memoir 

 on Chilomastix mesnili, a flagellate protozoon com- 

 mon in the intestine of man. A detailed 

 account is given of the history of our know- 

 ledge of this organism, and of the morphology, fission, 

 cyst formation, and systematic position. The authors 

 believe that an infection can persist for years, but that 

 when the organism increases in numbers it becomes 

 pathogenic and causes diarrhoea. After a considera- 

 tion of the known species of Chilomastix with the view 

 of finding whether any animal is a carrier, the authors 

 conclude that man is the important carrier of C. 

 mestiili, and that the infection spreads from man to 

 . man by means of the cysts. 



It is notorious that much more study has been 

 devoted to the form than to the function of teeth. A 

 recent paper entitled " Form and Function of Teeth : 

 A Theory of Maximum Shear" (Journ. of Anat., Octo- 

 ber, iqi7), by Mr. D. Macintosh Shaw, of the Royal 

 Dental Hospital, is particularly welcome, because it 

 deals with the functional significance of dental cusps. 

 Mr. Shaw has applied to the mechanism of mastica- 

 tion the "immense body of knowledge built up by 

 engineers and mathematicians," and finds that the 

 teeth are so shaped, set, and moved as to produce a 

 maximum shearing stress on the material placed between 

 their opposed blades. That the front, or incisor, teeth 

 can act as shearing blades has been long acknowledged, 

 but the application of this doctrine to the molar, or 



NO. 2528, VOL. lOl] 



cheek, teeth is new. Mr. Shaw regards the outer, 

 or buccal, cusps as shearing blades ; the function of the 

 inner, or lingual, cusps is quite different : they serve 

 to retain the food in position so that it may be sub- 

 jected to the shearing force applied through the outer 

 cusps. He also points out how necessary canine teeth 

 are to serve as guiding structures; canine teeth, by 

 their sliding contact, ensure the alignment of the 

 opposing shearing edges of the molar and premolar 

 teeth. The crowns of the teeth are shaped so as to 

 protect the gums from the impact of food during 

 mastication. 



During the past winter several distinguished medi- 

 cal men have been invited to Edinburgh to discuss the 

 best means of improving the teaching of medical sub- 

 jects. It was a fortunate choice that led to the invita- 

 tion of Prof. Elliot 5mith, of Manchester, to discuss 

 "The Teaching of Anatomy." His lecture may be 

 read in full (Edinburgh Medical Journal, March) ; here 

 we need only summarise his chief conclusions. In his 

 opinion "anatomy should be regarded as an integral 

 and intimately co-ordinated part of the whole medical 

 course, and' it should be the business of the teacher to 

 give expression to this broad view in his teaching." 

 The anatomy taught must refer to the living, not to 

 the dead, body. Dissection is essential for the proper 

 training of the medical student. "The primary value 

 of dissection to the student is to enable him to find his 

 way about the body. Much of the knowledge he 

 acquired is of a subconscious nature, but is none the 

 less real on that account. By a limited experience I 

 have learned to find my way from Princes Street to 

 the University, but I cannot name a single street or 

 landmark, nor give more than the vaguest description 

 of the route, yet I have the essential knowledge which 

 meets my needs. The vital knowledge of anatomy is 

 of a similar nature." Prof. Elliot Smith regards the 

 delivery of a systematic course of lectures on anatomy 

 as indefensible, and the teaching of osteology as a 

 separate subject as a "wicked and sterilising farce." 

 The ideal course of instruction which he maps out 

 aims at making anatomy the real basis of medical 

 education. 



The Mediterranean fruit-fly (Ceratitis capitata, 

 Wied.), which has been introduced from Australia into 

 Hawaii, where it has caused "a serious and permanent 

 check upon horticultural pursuits," is described at 

 length by E. A. Back and C. E. Pemberton in a recent 

 Bulletin (No. 536) of the U.S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The relation of the fly to various tropical fruits 

 is discussed in detail. 



British students of forest entomology may welcome 

 the recent publication of two papers — one, by J. W. 

 Munro, on Hylastes, a rather neglected genus of bark- 

 beetles (Proc. R. Phys. Soc. Edinb., vol. xx., part 3, 

 19 17), and the other on the Chermes of spruce and 

 larch, by H. M. Steven (Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., vol. 

 xxxvii., part 3, 1917) The latter will be especially 

 useful as a guide to much recent Continental literature 

 on a group with many bionomic problems. 



Prof. D'Arcy Thompson, in the Scottish Naturalist 



for March, continues his analysis of the scarcer fishes 



of the .Aberdeen market. In this article he passes in 



review the occurrences of the Sturgeon, sea-bream, 



deal-fish, and red-mullet. The sturgeon, he .shows, is 



most abundant off our coasts in the spring and early 



summer, when it is proceeding towards, or preparing 



to ascend, the rivers to spawn. The English records, 



he remarks, show a tendency to cluster round about 



I the river mouths. "The Severn is a well-known haunt 



! of this fish, and it would in all probability breed there 



I if protected. All our records for that river are for .April 



