:)3^ 



NATURE 



[August 30, 1917 



Many investigations have been made during the 

 last few years on the nature of the microbe of typhus 

 fever. Several bacterial organisms have been isolated 

 in the disease, notably one by Plotz in America a 

 year or two ago, but none has been satisfactorily 

 proved to be the causative organism. It is now 

 announced that Prof. Kenzo Futaki, of Tokio, has 

 discovered the presence of a spirochaeta, a protozoon 

 organism, both in the kidney of patients dead of the 

 disease and in monkeys artificially infected with the 

 disease. 



The tenth report on plague investigations in India 

 has been issued by the advisory committee as Plague 

 Supplement v. of the Journal of Hygiene (vol. xv.). 

 It contains epidemiological observations on plague in 

 the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during 

 1911-12 by Majors Gloster and White, I. M.S. They 

 find that an association of unusual humidity during 

 the winter months in certain districts with severe 

 epidemics of plague is so constant a phenomenon 

 that they feel justified in concluding that one stands 

 to the other as cause to effect. They believe that 

 this relationship is due to the effect of humidity in 

 prolonging the life of rat fleas when separated from 

 their host. Dr. St. John Brooks in another paper 

 finds that plague does not maintain itself in epidemic 

 form when the temperature rises above 80° F. accom- 

 panied by a saturation deficiency of more than 030 in. 



We have received a letter from Mr. S. Mahdihassan, 

 of Bangalore, commenting on Dr. Hankin's letter on 

 "Ten per cent. Agar-Agar Jelly" which appeared in 

 the issue of Nature for March 8 last. Mr. Mahdihassan 

 has found exceptional difficulty in sectioning chitinous 

 tissues at the high temperature of the plains of India 

 by the paraffin or any other method, and considers Dr. 

 Hankin's method will prove a boon. He is not clear 

 why large wings of insects should be embedded in 

 agar when celluloid is to be preferred for smaller 

 wings. Presumably small wings can be embedded in 

 celluloid, whereas larger wings cannot, hence the 

 value of the agar-agar jelly method for the latter. 



In the British Medical Journal for July 28, Sir 

 Patrick Manson gives an admirable summary relating 

 to British contributions to tropical medicine dealing 

 with protozoa, helminths, and beri-beri. In the same 

 number Major McCarrison, I. M.S., details Indian 

 contributions to the advancement of medicine. A 

 somewhat similar summary dealing with the scientific 

 and administrative achievements of the Medical Corps 

 of the United States Army, by Lieut.-Col. McCulloch, 

 appears in the Scientific Monthly for May. All 

 these papers give useful surveys of progress in the 

 departments of medicine with which they deal. 



In a paper on "The Probable Error of a Mendelian 

 Class-Frequency" {American Naturalist, vol. li., 1917, 

 pp. 144-56), Dr. Raymond Pearl presents a method ot 

 calculating and expressing the errors, due to random 

 sampling, of a Mendelian class-frequency. The method 

 consists essentially in expressing each expected Men- 

 delian class-frequency as the probable quartile limit for 

 that class-frequency in a supposed second sample of the 

 same size as the observed sample drawn from the same 

 population. These quartile limits are determined from 

 the ordinates of a hypergeometric series. Various 

 simplifications of method are suggested and illustrated, 

 and the method is put forward as a supplement to, not 

 as a substitute for, the " chi-squared " test for the good- 

 ness of fit in Mendelian distributions. 



The American Museum Journal for Mav contains an 

 extremely intere?ting account, by the late Mr. Joseph 

 H. Choate, of the origin and development of the great 

 Natural History Museum of New York, which de- 

 pended in its early days entirely on the munificence of 

 NO. 2496, VOL. 99] 



the more wealthy of its trustees. When it became 

 apparent that it would be quite impossible to build up 

 by private means alone a museum worthy to compete 

 with the museums of Europe, it was decided to appeal 

 to the Legislature for assistance. Immediately a site 

 of eighteen acres in Manhattan Square was granted, 

 and on this the present building was erected. It was 

 opened in 1877. From this date it grew with in- 

 credible speed to occupy the position of one of the 

 world's greatest museums. To this number also Col. 

 Theodore Roosevelt contributes some brief but most 

 valuable notes on the loggerhead and green turtles, 

 which, it seems, are commonly attacked and eaten by 

 sharks in the waters of Florida, while Dr. Clyde Fisher 

 contributes a short account of the methods employed in 

 the capture of the "gopher tortoise" in Florida, where 

 it is eaten in large numbers. 



Dr. poLiN Mackenzie, in the Journal of Anatomy- 

 (vol. li.,part 3), records the results of his studies on the 

 peritoneum and intestinil tract in Monotremes and 

 Marsupials. His researches have failed to discover in 

 any of the mammalia up to the great Anthropoids the 

 presence of the so-called Jackson's membrane. Lane's 

 band, or Treitz's band, and he therefore concludes 

 that these must be regarded in man as adaptations 

 to the erect posture. He also suggests a revision of 

 the nomenclature now employed in describing the 

 vatious regions of the human colon. His use of the 

 terms "acquired" and "biological" instead of "adap- 

 tive" and "ancestral" is, to say the least, curious. 



The report of the Education Branch of the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries for the year 19 15-16 is pub- 

 lished in the July issue of the Journal of the Board 

 of Agriculture, with a note that owing to conditions 

 due to the war the customary separate issue is sus- 

 pended. The report affords gratifying evidence that, 

 despite the severe restrictions imposed by the war upon 

 the development of agricultural education and research, 

 much useful work was accomplished during the year 

 under review. It is not surprising to find a great 

 decrease in the numbers of students taking long 

 courses of instruction, whereas the numbers taking 

 short courses were more than maintained. One notes 

 with regret the necessity for the closing of the Royal 

 Agricultural College, Cirencester, and the Agricultural 

 College, Uckfield, Sussex, and the withdrawal of 

 grants from two other institutions as a measure of 

 war economy. Research work suffered severely owing 

 to the heavy drain upon the staffs for Army or muni- 

 tion purposes, but much useful work on problems of 

 immediate technical importance was accomplished, of 

 which the investigations at Cambridge on wheat-breed- 

 ing and at Rothamsted on soil and manurial problems 

 may be singled out for special mention. 



The volume dealing with the area, crops, live stock, 

 land revenue, assessment, and transfers of land in 

 British India during 1914-15 has been published by 

 the Department of Statistics, India, under the title of 

 "Agricultural Statistics of India," vol. i., price 4s. 

 The area treated embraces nearly a million and a 

 quarter square miles, including feudatory States under 

 the control of local governments. Of the total area 

 about 37 per cent, was under crops during the year, 

 and full details of the acreage of each crop is given, 

 both for the provinces and every district. This valu- 

 able statistical volume is enhanced by two appendices, 

 the first giving the vernacular names of the crops, and 

 the second being an alphabetical list of crops, with their 

 scientific nomenclature. 



A valu.able paper on oil shales and torbanites, by 

 Mr. H. R. J. Conacher, appears in the Transactions 

 of the Geological Society of Glasgow (vol. xvi., part ii., 

 pp. 164-92). These bodies form a group of materials 



