April 25, 1918] 



NATURE 



151 



treatise on the anatomy of Salicornia, the common 



iside glasswort, and her last publication, in 1916,: 



IS on the morphology and anatomy of the genus 



itice, as studied from its habitat at Blakeney Point. 



>:-. de Fraine belonged to a type of painstaking 



worker whose thoroughness of hand and spirit the 



world of science can ill afford to lose, and it is greatly 



to be feared that her faithful pursuit of knowledge, 



coupled as it was with a strenuous professional life, 



conspired to rob us of the further fruit of her labours. 



She died at Falmouth on March 25, after an illness of 



rwo years. 



The Rev. H, G. O. Kendall, in the April issue of 

 an, reports the discovery at East Farm, Winter- 

 urne Monkton, North Wilts, of a fragment of a fine, 

 ninated, micaceous sandstone, very similar to the so- 

 iled altar stone at Stonehenge. This has been 

 ipped into shape all round its periphery, so as to 

 oduce sharp-cutting edges and to form a knife, ap- 

 rently of the Bronze age, resembling a small broad- 

 ided bronze dagger. 



Dr. a. M. Meerwarth, assistant-curator of the 

 1 ihnographical Museum, Petrograd, recently visited 

 India, and has compiled a useful "Guide to the Col- 

 I ction of Musical Instruments in the Indian Museum, 



ilcutta." A large proportion of the specimens were 



■ sented by the late Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun 

 (gore, the well-known authority on Indian music. 

 ne instruments, except a few of Tibetan origin, are 

 :nost exclusively from India or Burma. The guide 



s carefully prepared and gives much useful information 

 on Indian music. In all 284 specimens are illustrated 

 ind described. 



I HE dialects composing the Salinan Indian linguistic 

 oup, of which two survive in the Missions of San 

 Antonio and San Miguel, are described in a mono- 

 graph by Mr. J. Aldem Mason, published in vol. xiv.. 

 No. I, of the Publications of the University of Cali- 

 fornia on American Archaeology and Ethnology. Re- 

 cently Drs. Dixon and Kroeber have connected Salinan 

 with Chumash in an "Iskoman" group, which, in 

 turn, they have larer come to regard as part of 

 the Hohan family, a reclassification now accepted by 

 veral American philologists and anthrc^ologists. Mr. 

 lason's monograph gives full linguistic details, and he 

 ints a number of beast folk-tales in the original text 

 ith an English translation. 



An interesting study of dosage in radium therapy by 



Ir. J. C. Mottram and Dr. S. Russ is given in the 



larch issue of the Archives of Radiology and 



(Ctrotherapy (No. 212). Small subcutaneous can- 



rous nodules were treated, and among other results 



was found that there is much less effect upon the 



in (inflammation, loss of hair, etc.) when it is 



\ posed for a long time to a weak source of radium 



nanations than when a strong source is used for a 



lort time, the effect upon the cancerous growths 



■ ing very nearly the same in the two cases. 



The Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for 



March (1918, part i.) contains an account, by Mr. R. 



Paulson, of microscopical and biological work carried 



out at the civilian internment camp at Ruhleben, near 



Berlin. The equipment of the laboratory consists of 



n microscopes with accessories, a microtome, incuba- 



rs, etc. Dr. A. E. Lechmere has given a course on 



lementary biology, Mr. M. S. Pease one on heredity, 



Mr. S. R. Edge has lectured on animal physiology, and 



Mr. A. Hill has given instruction on the testing of 



ag^ricultural seeds. Various friends have presented 



material. A library of 500 volumes has been got 



together. At present Nature is the only periodical 



and link with scientific activity outside. 



NO. 2530, VOL. 10 1] 



A DISEASE known as "trench fever " has been very 

 frequent among the troops on the Western front. It 

 is characterised by recurrent attacks of fever of short 

 duration, usually at intervals of four or five days, 

 and followed generally by acute pain in the shins and 

 frequently by dilatation and disordered action of the 

 heart. A committee under the chairmanship of 

 Surg.-Gen. Sir David Bruce was instituted to 

 investigate the causation and spread of the disease. 

 As regards the latter, various circumstances impli- 

 cated the louse, and experiments were made on this 

 hypothesis. Lice were allowed to feed on patients in 

 all stages of the disease, and were then allowed to bite 

 healthy volunteers; the result was negative. Next the 

 excreta of lice similarly infected were applied to a 

 scarified area of skin, and in from six to ten days 

 after, all the five volunteers so treated developed trench 

 fever. From these experiments it is evident that the 

 bite alone of the louse does not produce trench fever, 

 but that when the excreta of infected lice are scratched 

 into the skin the disease is produced. The funds for 

 this research have been provided by the Lister Insti- 

 tute of Preventive Medicine, and details of the research 

 are published in the British Medical Journal for 

 March 23 <p. 354). 



Present-day applications of experimental psycho- 

 logy were dealt with recently in two lectures delivered 

 at the Royal Institution by Lt.-Col. C. S. Myers. 

 The first lecture was mainly on the. application of 

 psychological experiment to industrial efficiency. 

 Laboratory researches on mental and muscular work 

 were described, showing the relation between rest and 

 length of task, the irnportance of determining and 

 employing the optimal load, and the various psycho- 

 logical factors which affect the work curve. The eco- 

 nomical value was emphasised of introducing system- 

 atic rest pauses in the workshops and of selecting by 

 appropriate tests employes fitted for tasks demanding 

 sf>ecial skill. There is a wide difference between, the 

 increased production due to the adoption of scientific 

 short-hand methods of industrial efficiency and that 

 due to the more dangerous process of "speeding up." 

 In the second of his lectures Lt.-Col. Myers de- 

 voted himself mainly to the subject of nervous break- 

 down, pointing out the extreme importance of early 

 and proper treatment of the disorder in industrial as 

 well as in Army life. He showed how the enormous 

 importance now attached by psychology to the influ- 

 ence of the feelings had come to revolutionise our 

 conceptions of memory, of personality, and of con- 

 sciousness generally ; and he insisted on the necessity 

 for continuing in peace time the special hospitals and 

 the special psychological training of doctors which it 

 had been found necessary to organise owing to the 

 effects of war-strain. 



The Transactions of the London Natural History 

 Society for 19 16, which has just been issued, contains 

 a long address on " Apterousness in Lepidoptera," by 

 Dr. T. A. Chapman, which is of remarkable interest. 

 Not only has Dr. Chapman summarised all that has 

 been recorded on this theme, but he has also added 

 many new facts gleaned from a long study of this 

 subject. He is of opinion that the apterousness of the 

 summer moths is due to factors entirely different from 

 those which have brought about the apterousness of 

 winter moths. 



The report on the progress and condition of the 

 United States National Museum for the year ending 

 June 30, I9i6f has just reached us. While bearing 

 witness to the wide field of activities which this museum 

 embraces, it shows also that the museum's work is 

 fully appreciated by other departments of the State. 



