68 



NATURE 



[March 22, 1917 



ceeded in 1889 to Cambridg^e with a science 

 scholarship at Downing College. At Cambridge 

 he took the Natural Science Tripos and was for a 

 short time assistant demonstrator in the Physio- 

 logical School. Whilst at Cambridge he was a 

 prominent member of the Cambridge Natural 

 History Society and some time its president. At 

 this time he was keenly interested in almost every 

 department of natural science and philosophy. 

 As a friend who was his contemporary has ex- 

 pressed it, he was an amateur of science in the 

 best sense of that word. 



After leaving Cambri(dge Rowland came to 

 London and completed his medical studies at St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital. At the end of 1898 he 

 received an appointment which afforded him scope 

 for his particular gifts, namely, that of assistant 

 bacteriolog'ist at the Lister Institute, and he 

 remained a member of its staff until his death. 

 Henceforth he was able to devote the whole of 

 his time to scientific investigation. 



Rowland was an extraordinarily g-ood mechanic, 

 and his ingenuity and skill were at all times at 

 the service of his colleagues. The conquest of 

 technical difficulties was a pure joy to him, and he 

 was even sometimes in danger of letting- it assume 

 the imfK>rtance of an end in itself. He early be- 

 came an excellent microscopist, and ultimately 

 acquired an unusually perfect command of all the 

 applications of what he used to term "glass and 

 brass." 



His earlier researches were concerned with the 

 structure of bacteria and the study of various 

 enzymes which Hedin and he discovered in the 

 expressed juices of animal cells. The next im- 

 portant piece of work upon which he was engaged 

 was carried out in conjunction with the late 

 Dr. MacFadyen. The latter having ascertained 

 that bacteria survived the temperature of liquid 

 air, it occurred to him and Rowland that 

 grinding up bacteria at this low temperature 

 would afford a cell-juice much more nearly re- 

 sembling the composition of living bacteria than 

 had hitherto been possible to attain, and they 

 hof)ed that the injection of bacterial cell-juices, so 

 obtained, into animals might afford curative sera 

 for typhoid and other diseases. The research was 

 a lengthy one, and the technical difficulties to be 

 overcome very considerable. The latter were ulti- 

 mately conquered by Rowland, but the result was 

 disappointing, and the main object was not 

 attained. 



Rowland was a member of the Commission for 

 the Investigation of Plague in India and worked 

 at Bombay during 1905 and 1906. He took an 

 active part in establishing the dependence of the 

 human epidemic of plague upon the rat epizootic 

 and the importance of the rat flea in the spread of 

 the disease. 



On his return to England he worked upon pro- 

 blems in plague immunity, principally wnth a view 

 to the improvement of methods of prophylactic 

 inoculation, and published a number of important 

 papers on this subject. He was still occupied in 

 this work when, in October, 1914, he obtained a 

 commission in the R.A.M.C. and proceeded to 

 NO. 2473, VOL. 99] 



France in charge of No. i Mobile Laboratory. 

 He was recently engaged in discovering meningo- 

 coccus "carriers " amongst troops and contracted 

 the disease himself. 



Rowland had an original and versatile mind and 

 was interested in almost all departments of scien- 

 tific acttA'ity. He was somewhat erratic, but a 

 faithful friend, whose spontaneous gaiety and 

 generous sympathy endeared him to all those who 

 knew him intimately. C. J. M. 



NOTES, 



It is officially announced that Mr. A. D. Hall has 

 been appointed Permanent Secretary to the Board 

 of Agriculture in succession to Sir Sydney Olivier, 

 K-C.M.G., now resigned. Sir Sydney has made 

 many friends at the various agricultural colleges 

 and research institutions, and his term of office has 

 been marked by a kindly and sympathetic considera- 

 tion of all matters relating to the application of 

 science to agriculture. He carries with him into a 

 well-earned retirement the good wishes of all those 

 with whom he was brought into contact. The 

 agricultural teachers and advisers, and the workers 

 at the agricultural institutions generally, greatly 

 appreciated his sincerity and his obvious desire to help 

 British agriculture in every way possible. During 

 his term of office the Board of Agriculture has con- 

 siderably expanded, and is now larger than ever 

 before. Mr. Hall's appointment as Sir Sydney's 

 successor will be welcomed everywhere, and will be 

 taken as an earnest that still further developments 

 are contemplated. Mr. Hall has recently put forward 

 his ideas in his book, "Agriculture after the War," 

 in which he sets out a coherent plan for the develop- 

 ment of British agriculture on sound scientific lines. 

 Several of the recommendations have since been 

 adopted, and there can be little doubt that the war 

 period will furnish experience of special measures 

 which will be invaluable in the reconstruction after 

 the war. Thus Mr. Hall starts in his new office at 

 an opportune moment for further developments. At 

 the same time it must be admitted that in many re- 

 sf>ects the situation is bad; some egregious blunder- 

 ing on the part of War Office officials in their deal- 

 ings with agriculturists has recently come to light, 

 and has caused serious misgivings among farmers. 

 Mr. Hall has the hearty good wishes of everyone in 

 the attempts he will doubtless make to straighten out 

 the tangle. 



When the establishment of a separate Department 

 of Scientific and Industrial Research was announced 

 in December last. Lord Crewe stated that the Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer was prepared to advise the 

 Government to devote a sufficient surn to cover opera- 

 tions during the next five years on a scale which 

 would provide four, or perhaps five, times as much 

 for co-operative industrial research as had been spent 

 for the whole purposes of research hitherto. The 

 Civil Service Estimates just issued include the sum 

 of 1,038,050/. to the Department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research, being a net increase of 998,050/. 

 upon last year's amount. Grants for inv^estigations 

 carried out by learned and scientific societies, etc., are 

 estimated at 24,000/., and grants to students and other 

 persons engaged in research at 6000Z. These grants 

 will be distributed by a committee of the Privy 

 Council, on the recommendation of the Advisory 

 Council, to promote the development of scientific and 

 industrial research in the United Kingdom, and will 

 be subject to such conditions as the committee may 



