July i, 1920] 



NATURE 



547 



Letters to the Editor. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can lie 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.] 



The Constitution of the Elements. 



In continuation of my letter in Nature of March 4, 

 further experiments on mass-spectra have been made, 

 the results of which may be briefly announced as 

 follows : 



Boron (atomic weight 10-9) is a complex element. 

 Its isotopes are 10 and 11, satisfactorily confirmed by 

 second-order lines at 5 and 55. Fluorine (atomic 

 weight 1900) is apparently simple, as its chemical 

 atomic weight would lead one to expect. 



The results obtained with silicon (atomic weight 

 28-3) are somewhat difticult to interpret, and lead to 

 the conclusion that this element has isotopes 28 and 

 29, with possibly another 30. 



Bromine (atomic weight 7992) is particularly in- 

 teresting, for, although its chemical atomic weight is 

 so nearly 80, it is actually composed of approximately 

 equal parts of isotopes 79 and 81. 



Sulphur (atomic weight 3206) has a predominant 

 constituent 32. Owing to possible hydrogen com- 

 pounds the data are as yet insufficient to give a 

 decision as to the presence of small quantities of 

 Isotopes of higher mass suggested by the atomic 

 weight. 



Phosphorus (atomic weight 31-04) and arsenic 

 (atomic weight 74-96) are also apparently simple 

 elements of masses 31 and 71; respectively. 



No line given by the above elements shows anv 

 measurable divergence from the whole number rule. 



F. W. Aston. 



Cavendish Laboratory, June 20. 



Applied Science and industrial Research. 



In my reply to Mr. Williamson, published in Nature 

 of June 3, 1 stated that research workers and their 

 assistants, aided by the Department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research, during the year 1918-ig received 

 on the average 53s. weekly. 



Sir Frank Heath has directed my attention to the 

 unwarranted inference I have drawn. I assumed that 

 the grants made were all annual grants, but I am 

 informed by the Department that this is not the case ; 

 less than half the grants to research workers and 

 students were grants for twelve calendar months' 

 work; the sum of 14,170^. expended included nine 

 grants for apparatus and grants for casual labour. 

 .Actually, eighty-five research workers and students 

 received rather less than 13,000?. I am informed 

 also that professors' recommendations are followed in 

 making these grants, both with regard to recipients 

 and to the amounts allotted. 



Without expressing any further opinion as to the 

 adequacy of grants to individuals, detailed information 

 not having been supplied, I should be glad if voii 

 would afford me the opportunity of expressing my 

 regret that in criticising the grants I unwittingly mis- 

 construed the figures given on pp. 9 and 72 of (li(> 

 Report of the Committee of the Privv Coum il for 

 Scientific and Industrial Research for the m u- u)\f^ 19. 



A. (.. ClUKdl. 



National Union of Sciontifir \\''nrkoi--^, 

 Tq Tothill S(i-.ri, W, Miiiin-trr. 

 London, S.W.i, June ji. 

 NO. 2644, VOL. 105] 



Science and Scholasticism. 



Dr. Singer's review of my book '• Medieval Medi- 

 cine " in Nature of April i has only just come under 

 my notice. The mails separate us from England more 

 than before the war; may that be my excuse for a 

 belated word? I have nothing to say for the book. 

 It is thoroughly documented and must speak for itself ; 

 but may I say a word for poor Aristotle and Hugo da 

 Lucca, whom I have brought under the reviewer's 

 strictures ? 



Dr. Singer suggests that Aristotle has come into 

 appreciation again because we have found that he 

 made observations on animal life. Is not the reason 

 rather that now that we ourselves have come to think 

 through our observations to the principles beneath, we 

 have found that Aristotle was usually before us? As 

 Prof. Wundt said, after spending a lifetime at experi- 

 mental psychology: "It is only the animism of Aris- 

 totle which, by joining psychology to biology, pro- 

 vides a plausible metaphysical explanation for the data 

 furnished by experimental psychology." In nearly 

 everything else where this generation has thought 

 deeply enough they have found Aristotle before them 

 whenever he had considered the subject. That is why 

 we have come to appreciate better the medieval 

 regard for him. 



Hugo da Lucca must be allowed to rest on his own 

 work just like Aristotle. Any man who operated on 

 the skull, the thorax, and the abdomen seven hundred 

 years ago, using a metal tube to secure the patulous- 

 ness of the intestines while he was making an intes- 

 tinal anastomosis, who got union by first intention 

 and boasted of it, and whose cicatrices were " pretty 

 and linear, so that they could scarcely be seen," may 

 be trusted to posterity in our time. How he could 

 have done such things without an anaesthetic is im- 

 possible to understand, so therefore the hints that we 

 have of aneesthesia at that time must be taken as 

 historic. We do not need to go to manuscripts for 

 this ; there are dozens of text-books of professors of 

 surgery in the thirteenth century that were printed 

 in the Renaissance time. The Renaissance printers 

 had marvellously good judgment, and the authors thev 

 printed in their magnificent editions were worthy of 

 the time and labour they devoted to them. We Rave 

 no word from Hugo himself, but his son wrote a whole 

 volume with regard to him which surely Dr. Singer 

 must know, though it is very hard to understand the 

 position that he takes if he does know of it. 



It is always aoiusing to note how the sajing of 

 anything good about the Middle Ages arouses opposi- 

 tion. John Fiske's declaration, "there is a sense in 

 which the most brilliant achievements of pagan 

 antiquity are dwarfed in comparison with these (of 

 the Middle .Ages)," must wait for acceptance. When 

 I ventured to say in a volume on "The Thirteenth 

 the Greatest of Centuries," that they had fine 

 technical schools and developed engineering, most 

 people shied ; and yet we have their stained glass, 

 illuminated books, wonderful ironwork, carving, and 

 all the rest that we are founding technical schools to 

 secure, and the engineering of their bridges and 

 cathedrals is a marvel. 



Thr mculern man of science balk's at tliis. Here 

 in the L^nitod States the authors of "A Short History 

 of Science " (New York, 1018), professors at the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, treat id tlif 

 science of the Middle .\ges in a couple of para<;iapli>. 

 themost important part of which is: "In the thirteenth 

 century it becomes plain that a new siiirit is arising 

 in Europe. . . . Thomas Aquinas writes his famous 

 ' Tniilntio ('hri-.ii."" T\^. ]■ WAi.sir. 



II,) W.-st 74tli Stiv.i, X,\v York, May 26. 



