April 12, 191 7] 



NATURE 



129 



centres and at school clinics all aim at this and are 

 valuable aids towards its consummation. 



The most serious item of loss of life is, and 

 always has been, infant and child mortality. For 

 the years 1911-1914, 575,078 children died under 

 the ag-e of five years in Eng^land and Wales. It 

 is true that infant and child mortality has de- 

 clined during the last few years, but, even so, we 

 are losing- 100,000 lives or more annually, a large 

 proportion of which could undoubtedly be saved 

 to stock the country in the future. A broad and 

 comprehensive scheme of national health service 

 would accomplish much, and this is a problem to 

 which the best energ^ies of the Government should 

 be directed without delay. 



There is reason to believe that the Bill dealing' 

 with health questions which it is the intention of 

 Lord Rhondda, the President of the Local Govern- 

 ment Board, to introduce, will provide for the 

 creation of a Ministry of Health, in which the 

 supervision of many of the public health and medi- 

 cal services of the country will be concentrated. 

 At present the national health is dealt with by 

 several Government Departments — it is stated, by 

 as many as fourteen! Thus, the general public 

 health is administered by the Local Government 

 Board, the health of workers by the Home Office, 

 the health of school children by the Board of 

 Education, the health of ships by the Board of 

 Trade ; and the Board of .Agriculture, the National 

 Insurance Committee, and other Departments 

 share in various ways. Such a multiplicity of 

 authoi;ities naturally leads to much overlapping, 

 want of co-ordination, and waste. 



The establishment of a Ministry of Health, with 

 a Minister of Cabinet rank in charge of it, which 

 would bring under its aegis the whole of the health 

 service and administration of the country, would 

 be a measure of the highest importance at the 

 present time. Wisely conceived and wisely ad- 

 ministered, such a Ministry would be welcomed 

 by the medical profession and by health workers 

 generally, the public would gain by increased 

 efficiency and diminished waste, and the national 

 health would be placed on a surer foundation of 

 control than is at present the case. 



NOTES. 



We are informed that the South-Eastem Union 

 of Scientific Societies will hold its twenty-second 

 annual congress in the rooms of the Linnean Society, 

 Burlington House, from Wednesday, June 6, to 

 Saturday, June 9, under the presidency of Dr. W. 

 Martin. Arrangements will be facilitated if those 

 proposing to join the congress will communicate with 

 the hon. treasurer, Mr. R. .\dkin, 4 Lingards Road, 

 Lewisham, S.E. The Wednesday evening will be 

 devoted to the president's address, and on the Thurs- 

 dav evening the attendance of the congress at the 

 "Hooker lecture" by Prof. F. O. Bower will be in- 

 vited by the Linnean Society. The union may be 

 congratulated on maintaining its accustomed course 

 at a time when the claims of science are being brought 

 prominently before the public mind. 



We learn from Science that the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia has. on the recommendation of 



NO. 2476, VOL. 99] 



the council and the special committee on the award, 

 voted the gold Hayden memorial geological medal to 

 Prof. W. M. Davis, emeritus professor of geology in 

 Harvard University, in recognition of his distinguished 

 work in the science of geology. The medal, says 

 Science, is awarded every third year " for the best 

 publication, exploration, discover}', or research in the 

 sciences of geolog\' and palaeontcrfog^', or in such par- 

 ticular branches thereof as may be designated." The 

 award as first defined in 1888 took the form of an 

 annual bronze medal and the balance of the income of 

 the fund. The deed of gift was modified in 1900 so 

 as to provide for a gold medal ever^' third year. 



Dr. J. O. Hesse, director of the .Associated Quinine 

 Factories of Zimmer and Co., died at Feuerbach, 

 near Stuttgart, on February 10, in his eighty-second 

 year. Dr. Hesse devoted almost the whole of his 

 scientific career to the extraction and examination of 

 the active constituents of drugs, particularly of cin- 

 chona bark, coca leaves, and opium, and was for 

 many years the leading authority on the chemistry 

 of quinine and other cinchona alkaloids. He isolated 

 physostigmine from Calabar beans, cotoin, paracotoin, 

 and other principles from coto and paracoto barks, 

 ditaine from dita bark, and also the active principles 

 from a number of other drugs. Many of his re- 

 searches were published in the Journal of the Pharma- 

 ceutical Society, of which he was elected honorary 

 member in 1879. The value of his original investi- 

 gations gained for him in 1891 the Hanbun,' gold 

 medal, the highest honour that the Pharmaceutical 

 Society can bestow. 



The death is announced of Mr. .\rthur Brooker, 

 joint-author of Slingo and Broc4cer's " Electrical 

 Engineering " and of other works. From the Elec- 

 trician we learn that Mr. Brooker joined the tele- 

 graph department of the Post Office Service in 1878. 

 In 1889 he became an instructor in the Telegraphists' 

 School of Science in mathematics and laboratorv prac- 

 tice, and the following year he was made chief in- 

 structor. He was also on the staff of the People's 

 Palace and the Currie School of Engineering as in- 

 structor in electrical engineering. His scientific 

 attainments procured for him rapid promotion in the 

 Post Office Ser\-ice. He was largely responsible for the 

 development of the present testing branch. It was his 

 association in the production of Slingo and Brooker 's 

 '• Electrical Engineering " in 1890 which brought his 

 name before the public. .After the publication of the book 

 the authors entered into journalism, and contributed 

 largely to the pages of the Electrical Review. In 

 1898 Brooker severed his connection with the Post 

 Office, and became works manager of the Peel works 

 of the General Electric Co., where he s(>ent seven 

 years in organising the factory and devoting himself 

 to the manufacture of telegraph and telephone appa- 

 ratus. In 1906 he ioined the British Insulated and 

 Helsby Cables, Ltd., and on the formation of the 

 .Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co. in 1912 he 

 became its general manager, a position he retained 

 until shortly before his death. 



The March number of the Scientific Monthly con- 

 tains a series of articles by well-known .American 

 authorities on the question of the metric system of 

 weights and measures. During the last sixteen years 

 the movement for the compulsory adoption of the 

 metric system in the United States has made con- 

 siderable progress, thanks, in great measure, to the 

 stimulus g^iven by the Bureau of Standards at Wash- 

 ington. The enormous quantity of war material at 

 present being manufactured to metric sizes in .America 

 is rendering the workmen as familiar with grams 



