5o8 



NATURE 



[February 28. 191; 



dwell on the limitations of German scientific work 

 in its useless elaboration of details, its devotion 

 to the accumulation of mere data, and its purely 

 material objects and results ; and when he claims 

 for France a g^reater number of discoveries of the 

 first rank, a greater love of knovvledg^e for its own 

 sake, we can heartily agree. "The bright sun- 

 light," he says characteristically, "which illumines 

 the footsteps of Descartes, Lavoisier, and Pasteur 

 will indeed be obscured, if the fogs which rise 

 from the plains of Germany come our way." 



We may also quote the author's plea for a mini- 

 mum of State interference. "Discoveries," he 

 says, "are not made by the stroke of a magician's 

 wand. L'esprit souffle ou il veut. What the State 

 should provide for the savant is the means for 

 research. It should not impose methods or pre- 

 determined ideas ; otherwise all initiative will be 

 stifled." We may join with M. Wery in hoping 

 that his plea in the interests of the extension of 

 scientific research in agriculture in France will 

 prove successful. The country which produced a 

 Boussingault and a Pasteur must not be suffered 

 to lag behind. 



NOTES. 



In the course of his statement on the Army Esti- 

 mates, in the House of Commons on February 20," Mr. 

 jNIacpherson directed attention to the health of the 

 troops in the various theatres of war. In the Napo- 

 leonic campaigns 97 per cent, of the total deaths were 

 from disease and only 3 per cent, were on the battle- 

 field. In the South African campaign 67,000 cases of 

 disease were admitted into hospital, of whom more 

 than 8000 died. In France up to November last the 

 deaths from disease were only one-fourth of the number 

 that died from the same cause in South Africa. In 

 Macedonia conditions are not so satisfactory, but as a 

 result of the hygienic measures taken the amount of 

 sickness in 19 17 was reduced to two-thirds, and 

 the death-rate to one-third, of what it was in 19 16. A 

 well-deserved tribute was paid to the Army Medical 

 Service and to the services which had been rendered 

 by the retiring Director-General, Sir Alfred Keogh. 



Dr. Fleming Sandwith, C.M.G., died suddenly and 

 unexpectedly on February 17. He was in his sixty- 

 fourth year, and had been invalided home after two 

 strenuous years in Egypt. Few civilian medical men 

 could show such, a record of military service. He had 

 worked in the Turko-Serbian war of 1876, and in the 

 Russo-Turkish war in the following years. He had 

 been on Baker Pasha's staff, and was senior physician 

 to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital in the Sojlth 

 African war. In December, 1915, he was appointed 

 temporary colonel in the Royal Army Medical 

 Service, and proceeded to Egypt, a country well 

 Icnown to him, for in 1883 he , was appointed 

 for preventive work there against cholera. In 

 Egypt Dr. Sandwith remained many years en- 

 gaged in sanitary work and private practice, acquir- 

 ing a considerable reputation in tropical medicine, 

 After the South African vwar he settled in London, and 

 became lecturer in tropical diseases to St. Thomas's 

 Hospital, physician to the Seamen's Branch Hospital, 

 Albert Dock, and lecturer in the School of Tropical 

 IMedicine there. He was also Gresham professor of 

 Tihysic, and his lectures on such subjects as plague, 

 Pastevir's life and work, insect carriers of disease, etc., 

 NO. 2522, VOL. , 100] 



were deservedly popular. A man of genial and kindly- 

 disposition, Dr. Sandwith will be missed by a wide 

 circle of patients and acquaintances. 



The Minister of Reconstruction, Dr. Addison, has 

 appointed an Advisory Council to assist him in con- 

 sidering the many proposals that come before his De- 

 partment for review. The work of the Council is to 

 be discharged through four sections, each of which 

 will advise the Minister on specific questions referred 

 to it by him within the general subjects allocated 

 to the several sections, namely :— Section I. : Finance,, 

 transport, and common services; Section II.: Produc- 

 tion and commercial organisation; Section III.: 

 Labour and industrial organisation; Section IV.: 

 Social development (including rural reconstruction). 

 The Council at presents consists of thirty-seven mem- 

 bers, among whom are the following : — Mr. C. R. W. 

 Adeane, late president, Royal Agricultural Society ; Sir 

 Richard Glazebrook, director of the National Physical 

 Laboratory ; Mr. H.J. Mackinder ; the Hon. E. G. Strutt, 

 an authority on agricultural questions ; and Prof. T. B. 

 Wood, professor of agriculture, Cambridge University. 

 Mr. Eustace Davies, of the Ministry of Reconstruction,, 

 has been appoiuted secretary to the Advisory Council. 

 It is noteworthy that while engineering, agriculture, 

 industry, labour, the law, finance, and politics all have 

 their representatives, pure and applied science, other 

 than engineering and agriculture, is represented by one 

 member only. Presumably Section IV. will be con- 

 cerned with such problems as the welfare of workers 

 and housing for the people, yet there is not a single 

 member representing medicine and hygiene or architec- 

 ture. 



Sir G. Cave announced, in the House of Commons 

 on February 20, that for the present year summer-time 

 will be brought into force on the morning of Sunday,. 

 March 24, and will continue urltil the night of Sunday, 

 September 29, an arrangement that will give an addi- 

 tional five weeks of summer-time this year. He 

 added: — "As regards the suggestion that during the 

 midsummer period the time should be advanced by an 

 additional hour, there is no power under the statute 

 to make this further change, and I may add that the 

 Committee which had the proposal before them re- 

 ported unanimously against it." The agricultural cor- 

 respondent of the Times points out in Tuesday's issue, 

 what we urged on many occasions when the "daylight 

 saving " principle was under discussion, namely, that 

 agricultural interests were ignored by it. Referring 

 to the introduction of summer-time in the fourth week 

 of March, he remarks : — "The drawback is that much 

 of the early morning work at the homestead — the 

 grooming and feeding of horses, the feeding and milk- 

 ing of cows, and the dispatching of the milk — will have 

 to be done by artificial light, which means additional 

 expense, and the prolongation of the period of dark 

 mornings makes the farm less attractive for those 

 whom it employs. The dairy farmer is especially 

 affected, and there are cases in which milk production 

 has been abandoned chiefly because of the labour 

 trouble arising from the operation of the Daylight 

 Saving Act. The most serious disadvantages suffered 

 by the farmer, however, occur from June onwards. 

 The early dews that are no great hindrance at seed- 

 time are a definite hindrance to progress when the 

 work of saving the crops begins. From the tirne when 

 haymaking is begun in June until the last of the cereals 

 is gathered in September or later, an hour in the late 

 afternoon is often worth two in the morning; yet the 

 farmer finds himself compelled to make good at the 

 cost of overtime the hour that has been deducted from 

 the morning of his normal day. Because of the ad- 



