April 19, 191 7] 



NATURE 



J-49 



fact is the shortage of wheat in this country. Putting 

 it very shortly, at our present rate of consumption 

 of wheat we cannot get through until next harvest. 

 It is everyone's duty to try to realise, and get others to 

 realise, what it means to have this country without 

 bread and potatoes for a month or six weeks. The 

 result w-ould be starvation, and the remedy is to eat 

 one pound less of bread per week per jjerson than we 

 at present consume. Compulsory rationing is a 

 thing to be avoided if possible ; voluntary rationing 

 may, when weighed in the balances, be found want- 

 ing. There is an intermediate course, which may be 

 called "persuasive rationing." The distributors of 

 flour are comparatively few in number. These might 

 well be instructed to reduce in every way possible the 

 flour sold by the amount required in 'the above-men- 

 tioned scheme. The baker in turn should be advised 

 and encouraged to persuade each individual customer 

 to cut down his weekly bread allowance by the pound 

 a week suggested. In order to make this easy, the 

 supplies of oatmeal, barley meal, maize meal, rice, 

 etc., should be made readily accessible to the baker 

 through millers and fTour factors ; the baker should 

 be advised to prepare from these a cooked substitute 

 for bread. Even if this had to be a biscuit, like the 

 old-fashioned ship's biscuit, it would be eatable, and 

 an efficient bread substitute. The average .person 

 does not like a helping of stewed rice when he wants 

 a slice of bread, but a plain biscuit should be quite 

 acceptable. The ''persuasive" baker could then, while 

 docking the bread allowance, offer instead the equiva- 

 lent in the form of biscuits (or similar articles), other 

 than of wheat, as an alternative. It is believed that 

 this cci4irse would render it materially easier for the 

 average individual to lessen his bread consumption. 



At a meeting of the Aeronautical Institute on March 

 22, a paper by Col. B. R. Ward was presented, dealing 

 with the means of securing the best supply of officers 

 for the scientific services of the Army. The author 

 urges tliat for the highest efficiency the Services must 

 maintain contact with the civil professional organisa- 

 tions and a practical connection with the varied 

 national work in engineering. The present war has 

 demanded the utmost knowledge, experience, and 

 energy' from engineers in all branches of the pro- 

 fession. Engineers of all ranks have rendered invalu- 

 able services attached to the Army in the field, in 

 workshops at the base, in constructing railways, in 

 organising transport at home and abroad, and in 

 advising Government departments. What the author 

 most definitely suggests is that there should be a 

 permanent corps of Mechanical Engineers, organised 

 similarly to, and attached to, the Royal Engineers, 

 capable of performing such functions and ready for 

 any future emergency. The difficulty- is that in peace- 

 time there is not scope for the acquirement of the 

 necessary varied experience within the range of mili- 

 tary requirements. Col. Ward appeais to think that 

 the corps he proposes should in peace-time largely 

 engage in civilian employment. There is something 

 to be said for such a view. The earlier irrigation 

 works in India were executed by Royal Engineer 

 officers with great zeal and efficiency. But now 

 public works there are carried out by a civilian depart- 

 ment, it is believed with advantage to India. Engineer- 

 ing has become complex, and is best in the hands of 

 men who devote their lives to it or to a special branch 

 of it, and who are not hampered by military duties 

 or regulations. Still, no doubt the war has shown 

 defects of preparation , and something in the direction 

 of Col. Ward's suggestions may be desirable. 



By the death of Mr. Walter Baily, London, and 

 in particular the University of London, has lost one 



NO. 2477, VOL. 99] 



who has played an important part in connection with 

 education. From a report in. the Times of April 3 

 we learn that after a brilliant academic career at Cam- 

 bridge (Second Wrangler, Smith's prizeman, and fellow 

 of St. John's College) he was appointed inspectpr of 

 schools in the West Riding of Yorkshire. From 1893 

 to 1915 he was a member of the council (which, on 

 the incorporation of the college in the University, be- 

 came the committee) of University College, London, 

 and from 1902 to 1906 the chairman of its committee 

 of management. His scientific work reflected his 

 early mathematical training, though it was combined 

 with a keen interest in experimentation. The record 

 of it is to be found mainly in the early volumes of 

 the Proceedings of the Physical Society, of which he 

 was for many years secretary, and aften\'ards a vice- 

 president. One of the most interesting of his experi- 

 mental, researches consisted in a new mode of produc- 

 mg Arago's rotation. This is, in principle, an antici- 

 pation of the two-phase motor : two electromagnets 

 with their poles beneath the Arago disc, and in planes 

 at right angles to one another, having their polarity 

 mverted by a commutator so that the fields have a 

 phase difference of 90°. His other papers describe an 

 integrating anemometer of his own design, the vibra- 

 tions of a film in reference to the phoneidoscope, an 

 illustrfition of the crossing of rays, a map of the world 

 on Flamsteed's projection, a theorem relating to curved 

 diffraction gratings, the construction of a colour map 

 (in which he advocated the use of rectangular instead 

 of trilinear co-ordinates), and a mathematical explana- 

 tion of the appearances presented by starch and un- 

 annealed glass under the polariscope. 



We regret to record the death at Washington, 

 D.C., U.S.A., of Dr. Hamilton Wright at the age 

 of forty-nine. While at Cambridge Universitv and 

 at the Pathological Laboratory of the L.C.C. Asylum, 

 Claybury, Dr. Wright made investigations- upon the 

 nervous system, notably a number of experiments upon 

 animals, with the view of demonstrating chromatolytic 

 and dendritic changes in the neurones of the brain as 

 a result of prolonged chloroform narcosis. He was 

 next appointed by the Colonial Office to investigate 

 beri-beri in the Straits Settlements, where he supervised 

 the building and equipment of an excellent pathological 

 laboratory at Kuala Lumpur. Here he conducted his 

 researches on the causation of beri-beri. He came to 

 the conclusion, both by experiments on animals and 

 observations upon prisoners in the gaol, that the 

 theory of rice being the source of the transmission of an 

 organism to the human system was incorrect. . In his 

 report he states that "beri-beri is due to a specific 

 organism which remains dormant in certain localities, 

 but, having gained entrance to the body by the mouth, 

 it multiplies locally (in the stomach or duodenum 

 chiefly) and gives rise to a local lesion, and produces 

 a toxin which, gaining the general circulation, acts 

 on the peripheral terminations of both afferent and 

 efferent neurones to cause bilateral symmetrical 

 atrophv; and that finally the organism escapes m the 

 faeces, to lie dormant again in places." Although the 

 absence of the vitamine in polished rice is now the 

 generally accepted theory of the causation of beri-beri, 

 it does not exclude the possibility of a secondan.- 

 microbial toxaemia acting as a coefficient. Dr. 

 Hamilton Wright married the daughter of Senator 

 Washburn, and took up work for the United States 

 Government. He was appointed a member of the 

 International Opium Commission, and prepared a Bill 

 for the suppression of the opium trade, known as the 

 Harrison Bill, which was passed by Congress. 



During the Easter vacation the Port Erin Biological 

 Station has been occupied by abo'Jt twenty senior 



