i^o 



NATURE 



[April 24, 19 19 



S. N. Jenkinson has been elected president of the 

 society for the ensuing year. 



The annual meeting of tiie Society of Chemical 

 Industry will be held in Lx)ndon on July 15-18. The 

 King has consented to act as patron and the Prince 

 of Wales as vice-patron. The opening meeting will 

 be held at the Mansion House on July 15, when the 

 Lord Mayor will extend the civic welcome, and Prof. 

 Henry Louis will deliver his presidential address. 

 Arrangements have been made for the delivery of an 

 address by Sir William J. Pope, and for the holding 

 of conferences on Empire sugar production, the 

 leather, dye, and fermentation industries, and power 

 plants in chemical works. Further particulars will 

 be announced later. 



On Tuasday next, April 29, Prof. A. Keith will 

 give the first of a course of four lectures at the Royal 

 Institution on British Ethnology : The People of Wales 

 and Ireland. On Thursday, May i. Dr. H. S. Hele- 

 Shaw will give the first of two lectures on clutches. 

 The Friday evening discourse on May 2 will be de- 

 livered by Prof. J. W. Nicholson on energy distribu- 

 tion in spectra ; and on May 9 by Sir George 

 Macartney on Chinese Turkestan : Past and Present. 

 On Saturday, May 3, Prof. H. S. Foxwell will give 

 the first of two lectures on chapters in the psychology 

 of industry. 



The spring and autumn meetings of the Institute 

 of Metals will be held, respectively, in London on 

 May 19 and in Sheffield on September 24-25. At the 

 London meetinft Prof. F. Soddv will deliver the ninth 

 annual May lecture on " Radio-activity," for which 

 cards of invitation may be obtained from Mr. G. Shaw 

 Scott, 36 Victoria Street, S.W.i, upon receipt of a 

 stamped and addressed envelope. The Sheffield meet- 

 ing will be the first provincial gathering of the insti- 

 tute to be held since the war. The headquarters will 

 be at the University of Sheffield. 



With the view of giving archaeologists and other 

 people interested in the question of the antiquity of 

 the human race an opportunity of examining some 

 of the flaked flints found in the detritus bed beneath 

 the Red Crag of Suffolk, Mr. J. Reid Moir has, with 

 the co-operation of the council of the Royal Anthropo- 

 logical Institute, arranged for a good series of these 

 specimens to be exhibited in the rooms of the insti- 

 tute, 50 Great Russell Street, W.C.i, for one month 

 from Friday, May 2. 



The subject for the Jacksonian prize of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of England for 1920 is "The 

 Results and Treatment of Gunshot Injuries of the 

 Blood-vessels." The subject for the next Triennial 

 prize of the college is "The Anatomy, Morphology, 

 and Age-changes of Cervical Ribs in Man, including a 

 Description of the Associated Ligaments, Muscles, 

 Blood-vessels, and Nerves." 



We regret to see the announcement of the death 

 of Mr. D. Rintoul, head of the physics department 

 of Clifton College since 1885, when he succeeded the 

 late Prof. A. M. Worthington in that post. 



The life of the Rev. Stephen Hales, F.R.S. (1677- 

 1761), is reviewed in an interesting article by Prof. 

 F. Smith in the Veterinary Review (No. i, vol. iii., 

 19 19). Hales 's work on experimental physiology, 

 animal and vegetable, is well known, but his equally 

 important researches in hygiene are apt to be over- 

 looked. He devoted years of his life to the study 

 of ventilation, and introduced, though not without 

 considerable opposition, mechanical ventilation into 



NO. 2582, VOL. 103] 



prisons and ships. He also dealt with the ventilation 

 of mines and hospitals, and noted that wounds healed 

 better in tents with good ventilation than in foul air. 



Acute infective polyneuritis is the subject of an 

 article by Sir John Rose Bradford, E, F. Bashford, 

 and J. A. Wilson in the Quarterly Journal of Medi- 

 cine (vol. xii., Nos. 45 and 46). The disease is ap- 

 parently a newly recognised one, characterised by 

 generalised palsy of peculiar character. The clinical 

 features and morbid anatomy of the disease are fully 

 described. The disease has been transmitted to 

 monkeys by inoculation of human spinal cord under 

 the membrane of the brain. Very minute coccoid 

 bodies are present in the spinal cord, and by the | 

 Noguchi culture method cultivations of a similar 

 micro-organism were obtained. The organism 

 measures o-2/i-o-5/x in diameter, is rounded, oval, or 

 kidney-shaped, and is difficult to stain. By dark- 

 ground illumination it is merely a minute, highly 

 refractile, undifferentiated body. The cultivations 

 inoculated into monkeys reproduce the disease 

 clinically and pathologically. 



The annual report of the Scottish Marine Biological 

 Association shows that, notwithstanding the absence of 

 the superintendent, Lieut. R. Elmhirst, on naval ser- 

 vice, the marine station at Millport continues to contri- 

 bute valuable researches in several branches of marine 

 biology. Dr. J. F. Gemmill has made progress with 

 his study of the development of Asteroids, and has 

 succeeded in rearing crosses between Solaster endeca 

 and Crossaster papposus up to the commencement of 

 metamorphosis. He has also reared and studied the 

 early development stages of several anemones. Other 

 researches mentioned in the report are those of Mr. 

 J. S. Sharoe on calcium metabolism in molluscs, and 

 on the action of guanidine on the neuro-myal system 

 of decapod Crustacea ; of Mr. H. Leigh-Sharpe on 

 Calliobdella nodulifera ; and of Mr. James Dick on 

 the medusae of the Clyde. The usual educational work 

 has been continued, the Nature-study classes for 

 teachers being a successful feature. 



We are glad to see that Australian ornithologists 

 are paying increasing attention to the subject of the 

 food of their native birds. In the January issue of 

 the Emu, which has just reached us, Mr. Sidney 

 Jackson comments on the inestimable benefits of the 

 letter-winged kite (Elanus scriptus), which had estab- 

 lished nesting colonies in the midst of an area of 

 several hundred miles infested with millions of rats, 

 on which they were feeding their young. Specimens 

 of two species of these rodents were collected. The 

 larger and more numerous was the long-haired rat 

 (Epiniys longipilis), the smaller the sordid rat (E. 

 sordidus). The birds rested bv day and hunted by 

 night, when their prey came forth to feed. In the 

 same issue Messrs. S. A. White and A. M. Morgan 

 record the results of their examination of the stomachs 

 of cormorants, which have lately been condemned on 

 account of the supposed ravages they commit on food- 

 fishes. They are able to show conclusivelv that the 

 charges against these birds are absolutely without 

 foundation, since no food-fishes' were found, but only 

 specimens of slow-moving species haunting weedy 

 places, where their capture was easy. 



In iqi5 R. Dodge and F. G. Benedict, of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, published a volume entitled "Psycho- 

 logical Effects of Alcohol." In this book they re- 

 corded the results of an investigation upon the 

 influence of alcohol on a number of physiological 

 processes. Including various reflexes and certain kinds 

 of reaction-time, as well as other processes of more 



