?4 



NATURE 



[March 13, 1919 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his co-respondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] , 



The Directorship of the Natural History Museum. 



A RETROSPECT of fifteen to twentj- years will show 

 the effect in action of the proposed appointment of a 

 Civil Servant to be director of the Natural History 

 Museum. 



The Science Museum adjacent had then been handed 

 over to the direction of a Civil Service official, acting, 

 apparently, on secret instructions that the collection of 

 machinery and models initiated by Bennet Woodcroft 

 was too great an expense for this country to main- 

 tain, although something less than one of our 

 numerous Lord Chancellors; and a "ca' canny" 

 policy was to be adopted until the director had 

 qualified for the higher scale, when the museum was 

 to be closed. 



But the science collection was saved by a miracle 

 from dispersal, and a competent man appointed to 

 direct in the late Mr. Last. Too late, unfortunately, 

 for him to secure such trophies as a broad-gauge 

 express locomotive or the paddle-engines of the Great 

 Eastern, to be had as a gift, and erected outside in 

 the open if there were no funds to house them. 



The historical collection was the envy of Germany, 

 which would have bid for it, if the chance had come, 

 to serve as the nucleus of the magnificent museum in 

 imitation at Munich, on which no expense was spared 

 to make it perfect and complete. 



Prof. Klein was on a visit of inspection at the time 

 to collect ideas for the projected Munich Museum, 

 and I felt humiliated for England that he should 

 glimpse our official mentality, and hear the low 

 opinion held of the value of our own work, as I 

 accompanied him round. 



Quieta nan movere is the motto of the old Govern- 

 ment official. But the first act of Mr. Last's appoint- 

 ment was to set the collection of models at work by 

 compressed air. 



The collection grew out of the old Patent Museum, 

 under the care of Bennet Woodcroft, encouraged by 

 Cole, and housed in the Brompton " Boilers," 

 Thackeray's name for the corrugated-iron sheds. 



It is melancholy to reflect on the glorious chances 

 lost by the niggardly policy lasting up to the war. 

 The office of Master-General of the Ordnance had 

 been re-established, entrusted with our military pre- 

 paredness ; and why not that of the Master-General 

 of the Mechanicks, as Sir Samuel Morland was, for 

 tijile of the director, chosen as an enthusiast, always 

 on the look-out for additions? 



But there has been no director of the Science Museum 

 since Mr. Last. The Government official is suspicious 

 of the competent man. G. Greenhill. 



I Staple Inn, W.C.i, March 8. 



Absorption of Gases by Charcoal. 



Of late years much attention has been given to 

 the remarkable power of charcoal to absorb gases of 

 all kinds, and during the war extensive use has been 

 made of this property in the construction of masks 

 for removing noxious gases from the air inhaled bv 

 the wearer. As a matter of justice to the memorv 

 of a man whose interesting work in the chemistry of 

 vegetable products is apt to be forgotten, I should 

 like to remind readers of Natire that the first prac- 

 tical application of charcoal for such purposes was 



NO. 2576, VOL. 103] 



made b} Dr. John Stenhouse, lecturer in chemistry 

 at St, Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1854 Sten- 

 house devised a charcoal respirator consisting of a 

 perforated zinc case filled with granular wood char- 

 coal, and adapted to fit over the mouth and nose. 

 Respirators of this kind were in use by nurses and 

 dressers in St. Bartholomew's, and, I believe, some 

 other hospitals, down to the time when Lister's anti- 

 septic system rendered such protection from the offen- 

 sive emanations of sores unnecessary. When I 

 worked in Stenhouse's private laboratory in 1862-63. 

 he gave me one of these respirators, and I made 

 use of it long afterwards with great advantage when 

 experimenting on the gases from aqua regia and other 

 irritating substances. 



Stenhouse further succeeded in inducing the 

 authorities of the City of London to make use of 

 charcoal as a deodorant of the gases liable to escape 

 from the gullies in the streets, in which application 

 it was quite satisfactory so long as it was kept dry. 

 The difficult}' of excluding water and mud from the 

 trays on which the charcoal was placed led, after a 

 few years, to the abandonment of the system in the 

 streets. The letter addressed by Stenhouse to the 

 Lord Mayor in February, i860, bn the subject was 

 reviewed in the Chemical News (vol. iii., p. 78). . In 

 the same journal (vol. xxv., p. 239) there is a letter 

 from Stenhouse dated May, 1872, in which he refers 

 to his respirators as then coming into use in chemical 

 laboratories. William A. Tilden. 



February 28. 



The Profession of Chemistry. 



The admirable article under the above title in the 

 issue of Nature for February 27 will be welcomed by 

 all who cherish the belief that active development of 

 chemical study is vital to the welfare of the State, 

 and modestly hope that public recognition of this 

 fact, so long deferred, may be acknowledged before 

 it is too late. I am convinced, however, that this 

 recognition will not be accorded until the question of 

 nomenclature, to which you refer, has been arranged 

 satisfactorily. 



Schools and universities are not the only seats of 

 learning. The street is one ; its influence is per- 

 sistent and universal, for practically all sections of 

 the communit}', excepting Outer Hebridesians and 

 Scotch crofters, come, sooner or later, under the spell 

 of its suggestion. Yet every day, from childhood to 

 the grave, we are told by the street that a chemist is 

 identical with a pharmacist, and principally occupied in 

 dispensing medicine and in the sale of toilet requisites. 

 Is it surprising that the public is still unaware of the j| 

 basic fact that the principles of chemistry lie at the H 

 foundation of our great national industries and of all 

 the forms which life itself assumes? 



In the exercise of his craft the baker practises daily 

 some curious operations in organic chemistry which 

 are not even yet understood by organic chemists them- 

 selves. Supposing that some enterprising baker early 

 in the nineteenth century had called himself a 

 "chemist and baker," that the idea had been embraced 

 by the whole body of bakers, and that the public, in 

 purchasing jam-tarts or cake, had become accustomed 

 to passing under the sign of the "Chemist and Baker," 

 would it not be excusable if the much abuf^ed public 

 hazily associated confectionery with argon, T.N.T., 

 or British dyes? 



The only remedy for the present situation is 

 courteously to approach the Pharmaceutical Society 

 and endeavour to establish a friendly arrangement, in 

 conformity with which the members of that body, who 

 are now variously denominated "chemist," "phar- 

 macist," and " druggist," would content themselves 



