August 5, 1920] 



NATURE 



723 



concerning the whole question of vitamines which has 

 been displayed by certain members of the medical 

 profession, and gave definite experimental evidence 

 of the effects of deficient diets. The remainder of the 

 paper was devoted to the principal forms of disease 

 which are now recognised as associated with the 

 absence, to a greater or less degree, of one or more 

 of the vitamines from a dietary. The diseases men- 

 tioned were scurvy, beri-beri, the xerophthalmia of 

 experimental animals, and rickets. During the dis- 

 cussion which followed further evidence of the im- 

 portance of vitamines in a normal diet was given by 

 various contributors. 



We have received from Messrs. Flatters and 

 Garnett, Oxford Road, Manchester, a catalogue of 

 mounted microscopical preparations which they are 

 able to supply. The list is a very comprehensive one, 

 ranging from numbers of protozoa, worms, insects, 

 and other invertebrates to vertebrate tissues and 

 structures. Botanical preparations, bacteria, diatoms, 

 petrological specimens, and textile fibres are included, 

 and the firm is also prepared to supply botanical 

 material and pond-life for class purposes. The prices 

 appear very moderate. 



In Medical Science: Abstracts atid Reviews for July 

 (vol. ii., No. 4) one of the reviews is devoted to the 

 subject of diabetes, and some interesting particulars 

 are given. In the years immediately preceding the 

 war the deaths from diabetes remained constant, 

 whereas during the four years 1916-19 they declined 

 from 444 pre-war to 202. The male sex showed a 

 greater decline than the female, and the percentage 

 mortality among children sank as low as in adults. 

 No case of diabetes was observed as the result of 

 cerebral concussion. These facts give no support to 

 the nervous hypothesis of the causation of diabetes. 

 It is stated that there was a similar diminution 

 in diabetes during the siege of Paris in 1870-71, and 

 during the German occupation of Lille in the late war 

 many of the less severe diabetic cases improved or 

 recovered — probably as a result of the food scarcity. 



A Chadwick lecture on " Health Conditions in 

 Eastern Europe : Typhus a Serious Menace " was 

 given by Dr. Norman White (Medical Commissioner, 

 Typhus Commission, League of Nations) on July 15 

 at the Surveyors' Institution, Westminster, S.W.i. 

 The countries considered were Latvia, Esthonia, 

 Lithuania, Poland, and the Ukraine. Poland, through 

 which pass the main lines of communication with 

 Russia, has suffered more than her smaller neigh- 

 bours. Sanitary conditions in this portion of Europe" 

 are in a deplorably backward condition, and soap, 

 fuel, and other facilities for cleanliness are unobtain- 

 able in many districts, while louse infestation among 

 the poorer classes is almost universal. A large 

 portion of the lecture was devoted to the considera- 

 tion of typhus fever, the part played by the louse in 

 the conveyance of the disease being described. 

 Emphasis was laid on the danger to other countries 

 arising from the persistence of this focus of epidemic 

 disease. The essential requirements for the anti- 

 typhus campaign were outlined, and the point was 

 NO. 2649, VOL. 105] 



made that every country in the world has a very 

 real concern in the existing health conditions of 

 Eastern Europe, apart from humanitarian considera- 

 tions. 



Dr. W. Crooke in the Journal of the Royal Anthro- 

 pological Institute (vol. xlix., July-December, 1919) 

 discusses the question of "Nudity in India in Custom 

 and Ritual." The present Hindus, like all Orientals, 

 wear scanty clothing, but the rules of decency are 

 generally observed. There are, or were until recently^ 

 several degrees of habitual nudity. The earliest stage 

 of clothing seems to have been that of bark, and this 

 and drapery made of sedge and other leaves are still 

 in use in parts of the country. Nudity appears in 

 various magical rites like rain-making, while in the 

 case of some ascetics it implies the renunciation of all 

 family and social obligations. This condition, in the 

 case of rites connected with magic and witchcraft, is 

 fully illustrated, as well as the aetiological legends 

 which have been invented to explain the custom. 



In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti- 

 tute (vol. xlix., July-December, 1919) Mr. Harold 

 Peake discusses "The Finnic Question and some 

 Baltic Problems." Until recent years it was generally 

 supposed that the Finns, like the Lapps and Samoyeds, 

 were an Asiatic people with Mongoloid affinities. On 

 the other hand, Ripley supposes the Finns to be of 

 the Nordic race or closely allied to them, while 

 Ruggeri believes that Proto-Nordics, Proto-Finns, and 

 Proto-Mediterraneans are branches of a common 

 stock which originated on the confines of Europe and 

 Asia. Mr. Peake's conclusion, after a careful review 

 of the evidence from physical anthropology and cul- 

 ture, seems to be that towards the latter half of the 

 third millennium a period of drought occurred in the 

 steppe-lands of the northern hemisphere and caused 

 the Nordic stepjje-folk to disperse in various directions. 

 It may be that to this date we must attribute the retreat 

 to the Volga basin which resulted in the hybrid type 

 known as the Red Finns, but the main body seems 

 to have crossed or passed round the plain of North 

 Germany to Denmark, where, perhaps, they met and 

 coalesced with the people of the kitchen-middens ; 

 they afterwards passed across the Danish islands to 

 Sweden as the men of the passage-graves, driving 

 before them the Mongoloid aborigines, who had now 

 reached the stage of Arctic culture. 



The lighting of picture-galleries and museums pre- 

 sents problems that have not yet been solved in 

 practice, and especially is this the case with reflections 

 from glass. In the July issue of the Mtiseums 

 Journal Mr. Hurst Seager sets forth the scientific 

 principles that are necessary for success. At the 

 recent conference of the Museums Association he 

 gave a brilliant demonstration of their application, and 

 an account of this appears in the August number of 

 the journal. All museum directors should study Mr. 

 Seager 's advice, of which the correctness has been 

 proved by a gallery at Wanganui, N.Z. With the 

 July number the Museums Journal opened a new 

 volume ; with the August number its price is raised 

 to 2<r. 



