136 



NATURE 



[October i6, 1919 



The Engineer for October i6 records the death of 

 Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, who had been inti- 

 mately associated with our contemporary throughout 

 the greater part of his life. Sir Charles was the only 

 son of the founder of the Engineer, and was trained 

 for the Bar, from which he retired after a successful 

 career in 1893. During the war he performed a 

 national service of great utility in fitting out at his 

 own expense the hospital ship Queen Alexandra, and 

 commanded her until she was discharged a few months 

 ago. 



We regret to record the death, on October 5, of Mr. 

 G. VV. Palmer, who was appointed senior mathemati- 

 cal master and master of the Royal Mathematical 

 School at Christ's Hospital in September, 191 1. Edu- 

 cated at Dover College and Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, Mr. Palmer did valuable work as mathemati- 

 cal master first at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, 

 and afterwards at Clifton College, where he became 

 head of the military side. An enthusiast in all matters 

 educational, and a prominent member of the Mathe- 

 matical Association, he kept in close touch with the 

 best modern ideas on the treatment of his subject. 

 Owing to his strong influence, more time was given 

 to important principles and fresh ideas, while elaborate 

 development in any one direction was avoided or post- 

 poned. The result has been that Christ's Hospital 

 boys have shown increased interest in their mathemati- 

 cal work and a high general level of achievement — • 

 and this, too, without affecting the standard attained 

 by boys preparing for the universities. During a brief 

 reign of eight years Mr. Palmer accomplished a 

 notable and valuable work of lasting benefit to Christ's 

 Hospital. His death is a very severe loss to the 

 school. 



The Society for the Prevention and Relief of Cancer 

 has issued a pamphlet, "Cancer Research and Vivisec- 

 tion," summarising in tabular form the number of 

 experiments returned by cancer institutes in the last 

 fourteen years. The author holds that animal experi- 

 ment in cancer is a futile waste of money, and ought 

 to be stopped. Illustrations are reproduced showing 

 infiltrative growth and metastasis-formation in experi- 

 mental cancer, but the author suggests that experi- 

 ment can throw no light on these conditions in the 

 human subject. The aims of the society include the 

 provision of hospitals for cancer patients, the statistical 

 study of cancer, and legitimate (sic) experiment. No 

 indication is given of what kind of experiments are 

 contemplated, although needles and syringes for 

 animal inoculation are figured in the book. Pamphlets 

 have also been published on the use of violet-leaves 

 and on the influence of tea-drinking. The societv has 

 been in existence for seven years, but its efforts seem 

 to have had no effect on cancer mortality. 



The September-October issue of the Scottish 

 Naturalist contains some extremely interesting notes 

 by Mr. Donald Guthrie on the birds of South Uist. 

 Among these, Mr. Guthrie remarks of the greylag 

 goose that its wariness baffles description, yet goslings 

 of this species which he hatched out from a clutch 

 of eggs placed under a hen proved as amenable to 

 domestication as ordinary tame geese. In their 

 second year two females of this brood bred near the 

 house without the slightest sign of shyness. A third 

 disappeared for several weeks, then returned with a 

 brood of goslings, and took up her place, accompanied 

 by her family, with the fowls round the house. Her 

 mate, who accompanied her, for a day or two held 

 aloof, but on the third day took- his place with the 

 rest and stayed there. Having regard to the interest 



NO. 2607, VOL. 104] 



attached to the oft-discussed theme as to the origin 

 of our domesticated geese, this case is worthy of note. 



In Report No. i of the Industrial Fatigue Research 

 Board Dr. H. M. Vernon describes "The Influence of 

 Hours of Work and of Ventilation on Output in Tin- 

 plate Manufacture." The tinplate industry is a very 

 strenuous one, especially as concerns the millmen, 

 for they are responsible for rolling out the red-hot tin- 

 plate "bars " into thin sheets of steel, which are after- 

 wards tinned. The tinplate mills run continuously 

 from Monday morning until Saturday afternoon, and, 

 as a rule, the men work in eight-hour shifts. If 

 there is a breakdown of machinery or shortage of 

 material, the men are often put on to six-hour shifts 

 instead, and sometimes even on to four-hour shifts, 

 so as to give them all some employment. Conse- 

 quently one is able to obtain trustworthy evidence as 

 to tVie effects of such shortened hours on output. 

 Arguing from numerous statistical data collected at a 

 number of tinplate works, Dr. Vernon found that 

 when the men were transferred to six- hour shifts their 

 hourly output went up about 10 per cent., and when 

 to four-hour shifts, it went up 11-5 per cent. This 

 improvement is not so great as would be brought 

 about by a thoroughly efficient system of ventilation, 

 for it appeared that in works without artificial ventila- 

 tion there was a marked seasonal variation of output, 

 and in the hottest weeks of the year the output was 

 11-18 per cent, smaller than in the coldest weeks. 

 In the ventilated factories the seasonal variation was 

 much less, but even in them there was plenty of 

 room for improvement. The report is illustrated bv 

 photographic reproductions of the millmen under 

 working conditions. 



One of the commonest and most disfiguring 

 abnormalities of the modern mouth is a forward 

 protrusion of the upper incisor teeth, with which is 

 usually combined a retraction of the chin and a 

 crowding of the lower incisor teeth. On this condi- 

 tion Mr. D. M. Shaw, curator of the Prosthetic 

 Laboratories, Royal Dental Hospital of London, has 

 recently thrown quite a new light (Lancet. August 23). 

 He has shown that a certain " perverted functional 

 activity " of the tongue will produce the series of 

 anomalies which dentists have so often to correct in 

 the mouths of modern children — forward protrusion 

 and obliquity in the upper incisors, with retraction 

 and uplift of the lower incisors. Mr. Shaw directs 

 the attention of dentists to the strength with which 

 the tongue can be made to press against the anterior 

 part of the roof of the mouth, particularly behind the 

 upper incisors, thus exerting a much greater power 

 to produce deformity than is used by dentists to cor- 

 rect malposition of the teeth. Tongue-pressure of this 

 nature is particularly common among children, 

 especiallv when eating soft or pulpv food, being really 

 a form of tongue mastication. This form of mastica- 

 tion appeals to children because it yields a fuller 

 sense of taste if the food is sweet or agreeable than 

 the legitimate use of teeth and gums. The point which 

 i? quite new in Mr. Shaw's demonstration is that 

 during the palate-pressure action of the tongue the 

 genio-glossus muscle exerts a retracting action on 

 the chin region of the lower jaw. 



A USEFUL article on "The Climate of Liberia and 

 its Effect on Man," by Mr. Emory Ross, appears in 

 the Geographical Review for June last. The passages 

 on "European life on the West Coast" in general, 

 on "tropical hygiene," and on "the nervous strain 

 of the tropics " offer conclusive advice to those who 

 may, in an idle moment, have thought of emigra- 

 tion. Bv immense efforts acclimatisation of the white 



