5/2 



NATURE 



[January 29, 1920 



It is with deep regret that we record the death of 

 Dr. C. R. C. Lyster on January 26 at the age of 

 sixty years. Dr. Lyster held the position of head of 

 the X-ray and electro-therapeutic departments at the 

 Middlesex Hospital during the last seventeen years. 

 Even in quite the early years of radiology Dr. Lyster 

 made extensive use of X-rays in the treatment of 

 disease, especially cancer. It was at this period, when 

 the harmful nature of repeated fractional doses was 

 not known, that he himself sustained damage which 

 afterwards developed into the disease he sought 

 to alleviate in others. Dr. Lyster fully realised the 

 additional risks he ran by continuing his work, but 

 nothing could deter him from pursuing it, and his 

 work of later years should be viewed in the light of a 

 sacrifice on his part to the cause of advance in medi- 

 cine. Dr. Lyster was president of the electro- 

 therapeutic section of the Royal Society of Medicine 

 for the year 1918-19, and served on its council and 

 on that of the Rontgen Society for a number of years. 

 His publications were few, and provide no adequate 

 guide to the value of his services to medicine, 

 especially to medical radiology. The recent institution 

 of a diploma in radiology and electrology by Cam- 

 brige University was largely due to the efforts which 

 Dr. Lyster made in the first instance. Throughout 

 the whole of his work he combined in a rare degree 

 a breadth of outlook and an unselfishness of purpose 

 which ensured a respect for his views and counsel. 

 Of his personal charm and character a wide circle 

 will preserve a permanent memory. 



The Rev. Edmund Warre, D.D., who died at Eton 

 on January 22, the anniversary of the death of Queen 

 Victoria, was a notable and commanding figure in the 

 \ictorian age. During his headmastership of Eton, 

 which lasted from 1884 until 1905, many new build- 

 ings, including three science laboratories, were added, 

 and science teaching, more particularly with a view to 

 military requirements, was extended and developed. 

 Dr. Warre was in the habit of saying that, like the 

 horse-leech. Madam Science had many daug-hters, all 

 crying "Give, give"; but he was a generous and 

 wide-minded man, whose own scientific tastes lay in 

 the direction of botanical work. His ruling passion, 

 however, was for the river, and he used frequently to 

 lament that, because his niathematical training had 

 been reti^^lected, he was unable to work out satisfactorily 

 the ideal lines of a racing-boat. Dr. Warre had been 

 for some years an invalid, and he retired from the 

 Provostship of Eton in 1918. No man can have had 

 a wider circle of friends, and he will be remembered 

 with affection and esteem by many men of science. 



The award of the Straits Settlement gold medal, 

 founded by Scottish graduates in the Malay States, to 

 Dr. R. T. Leiper was announced in our last issue. 

 The medal is given for the best thesis for M.D. on a 

 subject of tropical medicine offered during' the last five 

 years, and is awarded by the Senate of the University 

 of Glasgow. Dr. Leiper 's thesis, for which he gained 

 a Bellahouston gold medal in 1917, comprised an ac- 

 count of the brilliant work which he did on Bilharzia 

 disease in Egypt (1915-16), whither he was sent by 



NO. .2622, VOL. 104] 



the Government as consultant parasitologist and Lt.- 

 Col., R.A.M.C., to investigate the disease .and to 

 advi.se as to preventive measures in connection with the 

 troops. It will be recalled that by his researches Dr. 

 l.eiper established the existence of two sf>ecies of para- 

 sites in human bilhar^josis, traced their life-history 

 outside the human body in molluscs, and demonstrated 

 the modes of infection, besides elucidating numerous 

 other points. The award of this medal by Dr. Leiper's 

 university is a fitting recognition of an epoch-marking 

 advance in parasitology. 



British botanists have an opportunity of showing 

 practical sympathy with the eminent French bryologist, 

 M. Jules Cardot, who has suffered severely from the 

 effectsof the war. Driven from his home at Charleville 

 bv the German advance in 1914, M. Cardot had to 

 abandon all his possessions. He has now returned to 

 find that the greater part of his property has bee.n 

 destroyed or removed, including his books and MS. 

 notes and a large portion of his collections. For- 

 tunately, his mounted herbarium of mosses, containing 

 between 30,000 and 40,000 specimens, representing 

 inore than 10,000 species, is practically intact. The 

 herbarium is a valuable one, containing the types of a 

 large number of new species described in M. Cardot 's 

 numerous monographs of various families and works 

 on the geographical distribution of mosses. It is 

 M. Cardot's wish that his herbarium should find a 

 home in the Paris Natural History Museum, but with 

 his present restricted means he is unable to make a 

 gift of it to the nation, and the museum has not 

 sufficient funds at its command for the purchase. S 

 suggestion has been made by bryological friends, 

 simultaneously in the United States and this country, 

 that if the museum authorities will find half the 

 amount required the remaining half might be raised in 

 Great Britain and in .America. The authorities in 

 Paris have gratefully expressed their willingness to 

 agree to such a scheme, and the price of 10,000 francs 

 has been mentioned. The proposal to raise one- 

 fourth of that amount in this country would at the 

 present rate of exchange entail a sum of between 60!. 

 and 70L The well-known British bryologist, Mr. 

 H. N. Dixon, is acting as treasurer of the fund, and 

 his address is 17 St. Matthew's Parade, Northampton. 



Dr. Edwin Deller, secretary of the Brown Animal 

 Sanatorv Institution, University of London, has been 

 appointed assistant secretary to the Royal Society. 



With the approval of the Lords Commissioners ol 

 the Treasury, Major H. E. Wimperis, R.-'V.F., has 

 been transferred from the Office of the Crown Agents 

 for the Colonies to the Air Ministry, to take up the 

 position of Head of the Air Navigation Research 

 Section. 



We are informed that the council of the Glass 

 Research Association has appointed Mr. R. L. Frink, 

 Lancaster, Ohio, U.S.A., director of research. The 

 secretary of the association says :^" Mr. Frink has a 

 lifelong experience of the American glass trade and 

 glass research, is well known to the foremost English 

 glass manufacturers, and his appointment is welcomed 

 by the British glass industry." 



