September 13, 1917] 



NATURE 



31 



.n two dances the number of performers drawn from 

 c'ach sex was definitely prescribed ; in five only men ' 

 might participate, and two were exclusively performed j 

 by women. ' 



Under the title of " Fuel Values of Foods," an ; 

 article bv Dr. C. F. Bolduan, of New York, appeared 

 in the Scientific American of July 28, in which a novel ' 

 method is indicated of bringing home to the' public the 

 importance of knowing the real nourishing value of 

 the foods they buy. This consists in attaching to each ' 

 oud displayed for sale a card indicating its calorie l 

 tlue per lb. The calorie value is the best all-round < 

 (lex of the nourishing properties of a food. The ' 

 Mer idea of attaching special importance to the pro- I 

 in content is now discarded, since it is practically 

 npossible to obtain any combination of natural foods , 

 iiitable for human use which does not provide suffi- | 

 ient of this foodstuff. To complete the lesson the ! 

 jirice per lb. of each food should be attached as well. 

 Dr. Bolduan i$ a well-known authority on subjects 

 dealing with public health, and at his suggestion one 

 rm of restaurant proprietors has adopted the principle 

 f giving, in parentheses on the menu-card, numbers 

 which indicate the calorie value of the dishes offered 

 for choice. Thus " (632-429) cold ham or corned beef, 

 potato salad, 20 cents," indicates that the portion sup- 

 plied, if ham were selected, would have 632 calories, 

 if beef were chosen 429 calories. A similar practice 

 has long been in use at the Battle Creek Sanatorium. 

 The article is accompanied by a full-page illustration 

 f a suggested window display of foods on these lines, 

 m which fruit, vegetables, nuts, cereal foods, fish, ■ 

 poultry, meat of various kinds, etc., are all included, j 

 Other illustrations represent tables laid out with (i) 

 a breakfast, which supplies 650 calories; (2) a lunch 

 providing 900 calories; and (3) a meatless dinner of 

 1 100 calories, the wnole being sufficient for a man 

 leading a sedentary life. It is not unlikely that we 

 may soon see this method of teaching economy in the 

 use of foods adopted in this country. 



The claim of the gipsy moth {Ocneria dispar) to 

 rcnk as a British species, its former abundance in the 

 fen districts, and its final disappearance throughout 

 Ciieat Britain, are very clearly set forth by Mr. Robert 

 Adkin in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society 

 for 1916-17. There seems to be no justification for the 

 belief, at one time held, that this was an introdiTced 

 species, though it is curious that it was unknown to 

 the older entomologists. At no time does it appear 

 to have become unduly numerous with us, though in 

 North America, where it was accidentally introduced, it 

 has become a formidable pest. 



The existence of fluorescent bacteria has been re- 

 corded, though the colouring matter produced by 

 them is insoluble in ether. Further, E. Rostrup 

 has observed that Agaricus (Pleurotus) serotinus, 

 Schrad., imparts a peculiar fluorescence to spirits of 

 wine, and A. Ling found that a Torula occurring in 

 ale gave to it a greenish fluorescence. Now Prof. A. 

 Klocker (Comptes rendus des travaux du Laboratoire 

 de Carlsberg, vol. ii., part 6) describes the production 

 of a laint greenish fluorescence when Aspergillus 

 glatictis is grown in a medium containing sugar, and 

 the isolation of the colouring principle. When the 

 medium {e.g. beer wort) in which A. glaucus has been 

 grown is shaken with ether, the latter acquires a faint 

 yellowish colour, and in thick layers a blue fluorescence. 

 If the ethereal solution is shaken with ammonia this 

 exhibits a very marked green fluorescence, whilst if 

 soda be used the fluorescence is jeddish-brown. On 

 evaporation the ethereal solution leaves a yellow residue 

 having the properties described. The substance is not 



XO. 2498, VOL. ICX)] 



fluorescein, though it resembles this compound. If 

 the Aspergillus is grown on gelatinised beer wort the 

 liquefied gelatine develops the fluorescence. The re- 

 action seems to be specific for A. glauciis and .4. 

 repens. 



Dr. John Tait has published in vol. xxxvii. of the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh a 

 series of five papers under the general title of " Ex- 

 periments and Observations on Crustacea." Some of 

 the questions dealt with are purely physiological, as in 

 the case of the first paper, which gives the results of 

 experiments on the resistance of the terrestrial Isopod, 

 Ligia, to immersion in fresh and in salt water. It 

 was found that while immersion tor prolonged periods 

 in sea-water had little, if any, harmful effect, some of 

 the specimens surviving for three months, distilled 

 water proved fatal, within forty-eight hours, to speci- 

 mens immersed in it. It is shown that this toxic 

 effect is due, in all probability, to the withdrawal of 

 essential salts from .he body of the animal. Several 

 papers deal with problems that are described as " semi- 

 morphological," and in these the author shows a 

 preference for far-fetched comparisons that seems to 

 bt! characteristic of medical physiologists who touch 

 on comparative morphology. The way in which the 

 leg of the Isopod Ligia is bent is illustrated by "select- 

 ing, say, the limb of a land m mimal for comparison." 

 We are told that the correlation between the two is 

 "sufficient to excite wonder." One paper gives an 

 account of some points in the structure of the giant 

 Antarctic Isopod, Glyptonotus, and includes the most 

 detailed account yet published of the articular surfaces 

 of a joint in the leg of a Crustacean. 



In an article in the Revue generale des Sciences for 

 June 30 and July 15, Dr. Legrand expounds a theor>' 

 of heredity which he calls " L'emboitement des 

 Plasmas." He distinguishes in every inheritance be- 

 tween the fixed specific characters and the non-fixed 

 sexual, varietal, atavistic, and parental chamcters. 

 The fixed hereditary characters have their localisation 

 in the specific cytoplasm, while the chromatin appa- 

 ratus of the nucleus is the vehicle of the non-fixed 

 characters. The fertilised ovum (or "the original 

 trinitary block") consists of the ovum-cytoplasm with 

 the fixed specific characters (a view for which there 

 is a good deal of experimental evidence) and a nucleus 

 containing the varietal, atavistic, and individual 

 plasmas (respectively maternal and paternal), which the 

 author pictures as segments of a spheroid, overlapping 

 one another (like young leaves in a bud) with the most 

 recent to the interior. According to the particular 

 plan of the bud or emboitement, different nuclear 

 blocks will have different degrees of contact with the 

 cytoplasmic envelope, and this affords a sort of 

 mechanical symbolisation of paternal or maternal pre- 

 ponderance, of latent and patent characters, of male 

 or female sex (which seems to us to get mixed up with 

 paternal and maternal respectively). Dr. Legrand 

 , draws ingenious diagrams expressing the results of 

 I experiments on the inheritance of coloration in mice, 

 or a familiar case like the hereditary composition of a 

 I mule. He seeks to illustrate by a "complex visible" 

 I model the " simple invisible " reality. Starting from 

 I the meticulous longitudinal splitting of the chromo- 

 ' somes and the orderly movements of karyokinesis, he 

 j develops the idea that the cytoplasm supplies the indis- 

 pensable specific foundation, and that the minor de- 

 tails of the developing edifice are due to the way in 

 which the factors of the non-fixed characters are dis- 

 posed within the nucleus in relation to one another 

 I and to the environing cytoplasm with which there is 

 I interaction. To us the theory appears only a diagram.- 

 • to Dr. Legrand it is much more. 



