488 



NATURE 



[August i6, 19 17 



THE REGENERATION OF THE BRITISH 

 SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT TRADE 

 AFTER THE WAR. 



MUCH attention is being paid at present to 

 the capture of Germany's foreign trade 

 after the war, and the same arguments that apply 

 in other spheres hold good for the scientific instru- 

 ment trade as well. The Germans, thanks to 

 their efficient organisation and methods of educa- 

 tion, had been able, at the time the war broke 

 out, to attain a supreme position in this branch 

 of their export trade. To quote one instance from 

 statistics : Germany exported to Russia alone, in 

 1913, mathematical, physical, and chemical instru- 

 ments to the value of nearly two millions sterling, 

 and chemical and pharmaceutical products to 

 almost the same amount. While corresponding 

 figures are not available in a complete form for 

 similar British products, there is every reason to 

 believe that they represent only a small fraction 

 of these amounts. 



The following notes, based on conversations 



,the writer had with the directors of two of the 

 leading German manufacturers of physical and 

 chemical apparatus, will explain the reason for 

 Germany's success and point out the direction in 

 which British manufacturers should proceed after 

 the war. 



In nearly every case the German youth desiring 

 to adopt scientific instrument making as a trade 

 has to serve a long apprenticeship in the particu- 

 lar branch to which he intends to devote his 

 energies. This training is supplemented by 

 courses in elementary science (including in many 

 cases mathematics) held in the continuation 

 schools (Geiverheschulen), of which there are one 

 or more in any town of importance. Thus, in 

 addition to knowing how to construct an instru- 

 ment, the German craftsman generally knows 

 exactly what function that instrument is intended 

 to perform — -he crystallises his scientific notions 

 into his daily work. He also realises the value 

 of precision. It is highly important, therefore, 

 that English instrument makers should be 

 afforded more ample facilities for obtaining this 

 scientific training at the same time as their 

 workshop experience, in order to avoid the mere 

 mechanical repetition which their practical ex- 

 perience calls for. 



In Germany there is closer rapprochement 

 between instrument-making firms and college and 

 university teachers, with the result that new forms 

 of apparatus are being continually evolved for 

 proving a given law or explaining a scientific 

 phenomenon. A perusal of the catalogues of 

 Kohl, Enencke,'and other firms will show the 

 diversity of apparatus that were current articles 



, with these houses. 



It is to be hoped that after the war s'ome pub- 

 lishing;- house will consider the -advisability of 

 establishing a periodical devoted to the theoretical 

 and practical side of instrument making. Ger- 

 many p>ossesses more than one such organ, viz. 

 the Zeitschrift fur Instrument enkunde (with its 

 supplement, Deutsche Mechaniker-Zeitung , de- 



NO. 2494, VOL. 99] 



voted to the practical side of instrument making) 

 and Der Mechaniker. The former journal is at 

 the same time one of the many organs of the 

 Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt (the Ger- 

 man National Physical Laboratory). Whenever a 

 purely physical instrument is designed in that 

 institution, the experimental data leading up to its 

 design, as well as the mechanical details, are 

 published in the Zeitschrift fiir Instrutnentenkunde, 

 the editorial staff of which includes one or more 

 members of the Reichsanstalt staff. The value 

 of such a journal to instrument makers, especially 

 when their own staff includes men with a thorough 

 scientific training, is incalculable. 



Again, in order to make scientific products 

 known abroad, the Germans resorted to an exten- 

 sive system of propaganda, by means of elaborate 

 descriptive catalogues printed in the language of 

 the country with which they wished to deal. Many 

 of these catalogues embrace almost every known 

 instrument for teaching and other purposes. 



British manufacturers, my German informants 

 told me, are quite as capable as the Germans of 

 constructing instruments of precision equal in 

 every respect to the German products. There is 

 no reason, therefore, why they should not secure 

 a large share of the business that was done by 

 Germany in pre-war days, provided they (i) take 

 steps to construct a more comprehensive range 

 of apparatus ; (2) keep pace with modern scientific 

 requirements ; (3) keep in closer touch with 

 British men of science ; (4) give more 

 attention to the publication of catalogues in 

 foreign languages ; and (5) establish a journal 

 embodying the peculiar features of the Zeitschrift 

 fiir Instrumentenkunde. E. S. Hodgson. 



DR. FELIX LE DANTEC. 



IT is with regret that we have to record the 

 death of a well-known French biologist. Dr. 

 Felix Le Dantec, at the age of forty-eight years. 

 For many years a sufferer, he hastened his end by 

 generous work in the war hospitals, though in- 

 deed the flame of his life always burned too quickly 

 to last long. 



Of Breton extraction and precocious talents, 

 Dr. Le Dantec studied in Paris under Pasteur, 

 Metchnikoff, and other great masters. His doc- 

 torate thesis dealt with intra-cellular digestion in 

 the Protozoa. Although he returned at times to 

 similar investigations, e.g. on Sporozoa and 

 Bacteria, he was led by temperament and by cir- 

 cumstances to a kind of life which the pure investi- 

 gator often fails to understand. On the one hand. 

 Le Dantec was, as he said himself, an Intellectual 

 adventurer ; he could not desist from the pursuit 

 of the elusive — What is life? What Is individu- 

 ality? What is personality? What Is sex? 

 What is evolution? What is knowledge? His 

 last book, which was published this year, Is en- 

 titled "Savoir." On the other, he had the 

 vocation of a teacher, and fulfilled it with an 

 extraordinary industry and enthusiasm, unsparing 

 of his own vital resources. We refer not so much 

 to his work as lecturer In Lyons and preparateur 



