2^0 



NATURE 



[May 17, 1917 



NOTES: 



;A FAMOUS American, who did much to promote 

 friendly relations between Great Britain and the' United 

 States, died in New York on Tuesday, May 15, in the 

 person of Mr. J. H. Choate, United States Ambassador 

 to Great Britain from 1899 to 1905. His eloquence 

 and his influence during this term of office made 

 enduring impressions upon the British people, who will 

 always associate him with Anglo-American goodwill. 

 Mr. Choate was a trustee of the American Museum 

 of Natural History, and a member of the American 

 Philosophical Society. Honorary degrees. were con- 

 ferred upon him by many universities, among them 

 being Edinburgh and Cambridge (1900), Oxford and 

 St. Andrews (1902), and Glasgow (1904). 



The death is announced, at seventy-four years of 

 age, of Prof, L. J. Landouzy, professor of clinical 

 medicine in the University of Paris, and author of 

 " Les Serotherapies" and many other works. 



Announcement has been made already of the deci- 

 sion of the council of the British Association not to 

 hold the usual annual meeting this year, on account 

 of travelling restrictions and difficulties of accommoda- 

 tion at "Bournemouth, caused by conditions of war. It 

 is necessary, however, to hold a formal mee,ting in 

 order to bridge over the gap between the meeting at 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne last year and that which it is 

 hoped to hold at Cardiff in 19 18. Arrangements have 

 been made, th^^refore, for meetings of the council of the 

 association, the General Committee, and the Com- 

 m.ittee of Recommendations to be held in London on 

 Friday, July 6, in order to make appointments, receive 

 the report of the council for the year, and transact 

 other necessary busiress. 



A FEW days ago a correspondent of the Daily Mail 

 resuscitated a well-known quotation from George 

 Gissing's " Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft," in 

 order to associate science with the horrors of the pre- 

 sent war. The words are as follows :—" I hate and 

 fear"' science ' because of my conviction that, for long 

 to come, if not for ever, it will be the remorseless 

 enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity 

 and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I 

 see it restoring barbarism under the mask of civilisa- 

 tion ; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening 

 their hearts ; I see it bringing a time of vast conflicts, 

 which will pale into insignificance ' the thousand wars 

 of old,' and, as likely as not, will whelm all the 

 laborious advances of mankind in blood-drenched 

 chaos." We have on several occasions pointed out 

 that it is merely pandering to popular prejudice to 

 make science responsible for German barbarity or tor 

 the use of its discoveries in destructive warfare. 

 Chlorine was used as a bleaching sgent for much 

 more than a century before the Germans first employed 

 it as a poison e^as; chloroform is a daily blessing to 

 suffering humanity, but it is also used for criminal 

 purposes ; potassium cyanide may be used as a poison 

 or to extract precious metals from their ores; and so 

 with other scientific knowledge — it can be made a bless- 

 ing or a means of debasement. The terrible sacrifice of 

 human life which we are now witnessing is a conse- 

 quence of the fact that the teaching of moral responsi- 

 bility has not kept pace with the progress of science. 

 As in medieval times all new knowledge was regarded 

 as of diabolic origin, so even now the popular mind 

 is ever ready to accept such views of the influence of 

 science as are expressed in Gissing's work. The pity 

 of it is that the pubUc Press does nothing to dispel 

 illusions of this kind by urging that what is wanted is 

 not less scientific knowledge, but a higher sense of 

 human responsibility in the use of the forces dis- 

 covered. 



NO. 2481, VOL. 99] 



Mr. Harold Fielding-Hall, who died. on May. .5,. 

 was a coffee-planter in Burma, .and later a. distin-} 

 guished political officer in that province. ;He was- an 

 ardent student of Buddhism from the idealistic point, 

 of view, and his chief work, "The Soul of a People,"' 

 did much to encourage the study of Buddhism in,' 

 Europe and America. But, in the opinion of practical 

 observers, its tendency was to ignore the popular and 

 less admirable development of the faith in the East, 

 while insisting on the value of its philosophical aspects. 



The Government Central Control Board has ap- 

 pointed an advisory committee, consisting of Lord 

 D'Abernon (chairman), Sir G. Newman, Dr. A. R. 

 Cushny, Dr. H. H. Dale, Dr. M. Greenwood, jun., 

 Dr. W. McDpugall, Dr. F W. Mott, Dr. C. S. Sher- 

 rington, and Dr. W. C. Sullivan, to consider the con- 

 ditions affecting the physiological action of alcohol, 

 particularly the effects on health and industrial 

 efficiency produced by the consumption of bever- 

 ages of various alcoholic strengths, with special refer- 

 ence to the recent orders of the Central Control Board, 

 and further to plan out and direct such investigations 

 as may appear desirable with the view of obtaining 

 more exact data on this and cognate questions. 



At the general meeting of the members of the Royal 

 Institution on May 7 a letter was read from the dis- 

 tinguished mathematician, M. Paul Painlev^, the- 

 French Minister of War. After thanking the members 

 for electing him an honorary member of the Royal 

 Institution, an honour which has been conferred on 

 few Frenchmen, M. Painlev^ went on to say: — "Ce 

 qui me fait, ensuite et surtout, attacher un prix par- 

 ticulier k I'honneur d 'avoir et^ choisi par vous pour 

 faire partie de votre Assembl^e, c'est que ce choix 

 s'est manifest^ en pleine guerre alors que nos deux 

 pays combattent c6te a cdte le combat du droit. 

 Puissent ainsi toutes les forces intellectuelles et toutes 

 les ressources scientifiques de I'Angleterre et de la 

 France hater la victoire de nos armes et assurer pour 

 jamais dans le monde la suprematie de la pens^e sur 

 la violence." 



The seventh annual report of the Illuminating 

 Engineering Society was presented at the annual meet- 

 ing on May 15. The society, dealing with scientific 

 and industrial aspects of a wide subject, unites on 

 common ■ ground electrical engineers, gas engineers, 

 manufacturers of lamps and shades, physicists, oph- 

 thalmic specialists, architects, and surveyors,. This 

 branch of engineering has been recognised by the 

 appointment, under the Department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research, of a Joint Committee on Illu- 

 minating Engineering. The successful union of these 

 various interests is largely due to the efforts of the 

 hon. secretary, Mr. Leon Gaster, during the last ten 

 years. Mr. Gaster is a British subject of Rumanian 

 origin, and is thus doubly associated with the Cause 

 of the Allias. All the male members of his family in 

 Rumania and in England who are of military age 

 are fighting for this cause, and one of his nephews 

 was recently killed in Rumania. 



Considerable progress has, we learn, been made 

 with the proposal to establish a national memorial to the 

 lateCapt. F. C. Selous, D.S.O., who, it will be recalled, 

 was killed in action while leading his men in an attack 

 on a German post in East Africa early in January 

 last. An influential and representative committee has 

 been formed under the chairmanship of the Rt. Hon. 

 E. S. Montagu, M.P,, with Mr. E. North Buxton 

 and the Hon. W. P. Schreiner, C.M.G., as vice-chair- 

 men. Among others who have joined the committee 

 are Viscount Buxton, G.C.M.G., the Earl of Coven- 



