58 



NATURE 



[June i6, 1898 



small disturbance noticed in the horizontal force curve was 

 traced to the earthquake in Borneo. The statement showing 

 the extent to which the various observations have been reduced, 

 and the reductions checked, indicates that these keep good 

 pace with the observations themselves, nearly everything being 

 checked to either February or March of this year. 



The following remarks from a lecture on the aims and 

 methods of pharmacology, recently delivered at Oxford by Dr. 

 W. J. Smith Jerome, and published in the Lancet, will interest 

 many scientific investigators: — "Another method by which 

 pharmacological knowledge is to be obtained is that which is 

 generally understood as research. This, I think, is an ideal 

 form of work, and the leisure and acquirements needed for it 

 are, in my opinion, well worth striving after. A laboratory, it 

 is true, may not be an attractive object. It is not usually 

 gratifying to the cesthetic sense ; there are apt to be too many 

 and too obvious manifestations of matter apparently in the 

 wrong place, but it possesses, or at least should possess, one of 

 the fundamental attributes of beauty — viz. a fitness for the 

 purpose it is intended to subserve ; and if in itself not beautiful, 

 it enshrines what \% par excellence ' a thing of beauty and a joy 

 for ever.' It enshrines, it is pervaded by, the spirit of truth — 

 truth which serves both as a lamp to illumine and as a beacon 

 to direct, and yet which shines with a pure and steady ray on 

 those alone who seek to follow it in singleness of purpose. 

 The work performed accords most aptly with Matthew Arnold's 

 description of the work of nature. ' Toil unsevered from tran- 

 quillity. . , . Labour that in lasting fruit outgrows far noisier 

 schemes, accomplished in repose, too great for haste, too high 

 for rivalry.' And though it must be granted that the methods 

 of the laboratory, like those of nature, are occasionally harsh, 

 it must also be conceded that its results are useful and its aims 

 beneficent. But even into this paradise of toil there enters or 

 may enter one insidious sin — the lust of what is called 

 ' priority.' This must be fought against and overcome, or else, 

 like a gathering cloud, it will, if left unchecked, roll onwards 

 and most surely darken all. And why should it not be fought 

 against and overcome ? Each fact discovered in the pursuit of 

 knowledge, discovered it matters not by whom or when, and 

 even when unimportant in itself, may prove a stepping-stone by 

 which that knowledge mounts to other and far higher things. 

 This is the worker's real recompense ; it is this pregnant 

 possibility which makes work, honest work, like virtue, its own 

 great reward." 



The current number of the Annales de Plnstiiut Pasteur con- 

 tains an account, by Dr. Sanareili, of the preliminary results he 

 has obtained in the use of antitoxic serum in cases of yellow 

 fever. It will be remembered that Dr. Sanareili was the first to 

 isolate the specific bacillus of yellow fever, and he has since been 

 endeavouring to procure through its agency an efficient anti- 

 toxin. Great difficulties have been experienced in rendering 

 animals satisfactorily immune to infection, and it takes from 

 twelve to fourteen months' treatment before a horse can be re- 

 garded as vaccinated. Dogs, which have undergone a series of 

 inoculations during a year or more, and are ultimately able to 

 withstand a large dose of the toxin, are still very adversely 

 affected by each fresh inoculation of the virus. So far this anti- 

 yellow-fever serum appears to exert a protective action against 

 yellow-fever microbes, but not against their toxins, and in the 

 present state of the investigations good results can apparently 

 only be hoped for when the serum is employed at a very early 

 period after infection, or as a precautionary measure to ward off 

 the disease ; in this latter respect, Sanareili has obtained some 

 highly encouraging results. The Government of the province of 

 Saint Paul in Brazil have now decided to establish an institute 

 for promoting the further study of the serotherapy of yellow 

 NO. 1494, VOL. 58] 



fever, and it is hoped that before long the elaboration of a 

 specific treatment, both curative and preventive, will succeed ir> 

 banishing a disease which is with justice looked upon as the 

 scourge of the American continent. 



The Klinisches Jakrbuch, published by Gustav Fischer of 

 Jena, contains in its last number the report drawn up by 

 Messrs. Kirchner and Klibler on leprosy in Russia. These gentle- 

 men were deputed by the German Government to conduct this^ 

 inquiry, and made a careful tour of inspection through the 

 Russian eastern provinces right up to St. Petersburg. It is 

 very difficult to obtain an accurate estimate of the number of 

 cases of leprosy in Russia, as compulsory notification of the 

 disease has only been recently introduced, but it is stated to be 

 about 50CO. Of late years great energy has been displayed in 

 endeavouring to prevent the spread of infection. Numerous- 

 leprosy isolation hospitals have been established, and many of 

 these were visited by the inspectors. They call attention to the 

 fact that the majority of these leprosy establishroents have been 

 founded not by the Russian Government, but by the great 

 landed proprietors in the district, and that private munificence 

 helps largely in dealing with cases. The authors express decidedly 

 their firm conviction of the contagious character of the disease, 

 and state that the only hope of stamping it out is to establish 

 institutes for the isolation and treatment of its victims* 



Much attention has been paid in Italy during the last few 

 years to the pulsations of distant earthquakes, and to the best 

 means of recording them. In a valuable paper contributed to- 

 the BoUettino of the Italian Seismological Society (vol. iii. 

 No. 9), Prof. Grablovitz compares the different types of instru- 

 ments now in use for their registration. He deprecates the 

 recommendation of an instrument for universal employment as 

 premature, and as discouraging the improvement of other appa- 

 ratus. Nevertheless he attempts to clear the ground so far as- 

 regards the mode of registration, preferring the mechanical 

 methods used in Italy to the photographic methods used in 

 Germany and England, on account of their comparative cheap- 

 ness and the greater velocity that can be given to the moving 

 paper. On this last point he lays special stress, as it gives a 

 clearer diagram and enables the time of the different phases ta 

 be determined with greater accuracy. 



In the same journal. Dr. Cancani illustrates the value of these 

 remarks by describing the horizontal pendulums recently erected 

 by him at the Observatory of Rocca di Papa, near Rome. 

 These are similar in principle to the instrument employed by 

 von Rebeur-Paschwitz, but are much larger, the distance of the 

 tip of the recording pen from the vertical through the upper 

 fulcrum being 270 metres. Each pendulum carries a mass of 

 25 kg. and has a period of oscillation of 12 seconds. The 

 record is made on a strip of paper which passes under the pens 

 at the rate of 60 cm. an hour. A tilt of one second at right 

 angles to the plane of the pendulum deflects the pens 2 mm. 

 The interesting records of the Calcutta earthquake given by 

 these pendulums is reproduced (on half the natural scale) in 

 Nature, vol. Ivi. p. 346. 



Though fishing is carried on at most of the villages and towns 

 around the coast of Jamaica, the amount of fish obtained is far 

 from sufficient to supply the needs of the population of the island. 

 It has long been surmised, however, that the industry is capable 

 of considerable extension, that the waters are teeming with 

 suitable fish, and that with improved modern methods, such as 

 steam-trawling, sufficient fish might be obtained to render the 

 fresh supply more adequate to the needs of the inhabitants, and 

 that native cured fish should in a large measure take the place of 

 the imported article. With this in mind, the Carribbean Sea 

 Fisheries Development Syndicate was formed last year in Eng- 



