June 9, 1910] 



hATURE 



OD 



Following upon the invitation to the British Association 

 From the Corporation of Portsmouth to hold the annual 

 [nesting at that town next year, a public meeting, pre- 

 sided over by the Mayor, Sir William Dupree, was held 

 ecently, at which the names of several influential and 

 Evell-known gentlemen were submitted as vice-presidents. 

 l"\vo local secretaries were appointed in Mr. G. Hammond 

 Etherton, Town Clerk, and Dr. A. Mearns Fraser, Medical 

 Dfficer of Health, and various preliminaries in preparation 

 'or the reception of the association were decided upon. 

 The Corporation of Portsmouth is looking forward to the 

 neeting with considerable enthusiasm, and a large sum 

 )f money has been voted to the Mayor for next year in 

 )rder to enable him to extend the hospitality of the town 

 o members of the association. Owing to the generous 

 limensions of the Portsmouth Town Hall, the adjoining 

 Technical Institute, and several other large buildings in 

 he immediate vicinitj", exceptional facilities will be avail- 

 ble for the various meetings of sections, discussfons, and 

 ublic functions, and everything points to a very successful 

 neeting. 



Mr. J. B. N. Hennessey, F.R.S., whose death was 

 nnounced in Nature of May 26, was formerly deputy 

 furveyor-general in charge of the Trigonometrical Surveys, 

 survey of India. He was appointed to the Trigonometrical 

 survey so long ago as 1844, and for some years worked 

 n most unhealthy parts of India. For the following par- 

 iculars of his career we are indebted to an obituary notice 

 n the Times. While on long leave in 1863-5, ^I""- 

 riennessey entered Jesus College, Cambridge, and worked 

 mder Profs. Adams, Challis, and Walton to improve his 

 nathematical knowledge. He obtained sanction not only 



learn photo-zincography at the Ordnance Survey, 

 Southampton, but also to take out on return to duty an 

 extensive apparatus, and to establish the process at the 

 urvey headquarters at Dehra Diin. He taught the process 

 :o other officers, and the result was that in a few years 

 lundreds of thousands of good maps were printed in place 

 )f those made by uncertain pen transfers. Not less 

 mportant was Mr. Hennessey's work in taking in hand 

 he vast accumulations of material provided by the labours 

 )f Lambton, Everest, and Waugh in their unrivalled 

 rigonometrical operations, and reducing them to order by 

 suitable scientific methods. The final results were brought 

 ogether in fourteen large quarto volumes distributed gratis 

 jy the Government of India to scientific departments and 

 issociations throughout the world. Mr. Hennessey took 



1 leading share in other scientific operations in India, 

 Deluding the determination of the standard bar, compari- 

 son of standards, and the measurement of base lines. 

 He built two of the Indian observatories, and for the 

 Royal Society mapped the telluric lines of the solar spec- 

 rum, and made prolonged actinometric observations. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1875. 



Sir Francis Seymour Hadex, who died on June i, at 

 inety-two years of age, was chiefly known to the present 

 feneration as an etcher, and it was for his artistic achieve- 

 ments that he was awarded his knighthood. In his earlier 

 iajs, however, he took a very prominent and important part 

 n the progress of the medical profession. He was educated 

 It University College, London, and continued his studies 

 t the medical schools of the Sorbonne, in Paris, 

 and of Grenoble. He became a Fellow of the Royal College 

 af Surgeons of England, and honorary surgeon to the 

 Department of Science and Art. He worked actively on 

 trarious international juries dealing with the progress of 

 urgical science. His report for the International Exhibi- 

 tion of 1862 gave an exhaustive review of European surgerv. 

 NO. 2 1 19, VOL. 83] 



This report was chiefly remarkable for his earnest advocacy 

 of the operation of ovariotomy, which had been ill-received 

 up to that time. He was an active vice-president of the 

 Obstetrical Society of London, and was chiefly instrumental 

 in founding the Royal Hospital for Incurables. His name 

 became prominently known in connection with the subject 

 of burial. His investigations into the condition of the 

 graves in a London churchyard which was in the course of 

 being converted into a public garden showed the state of 

 affairs to be indescribably revolting. He invented the 

 papier-niiiche coffin, and was a strong advocate of earth 

 burial. He was strongly opposed to cremation, principally 

 on account of its legal difficulties. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of Dr. 

 Elizabeth Blackwell, in her ninetieth year. She was the 

 first woman to become a fully qualified medical practitioner, 

 and the first woman whose name was placed on the British 

 Medical Register. She lived many years in the United 

 States, but never became denationalised. At the age 

 of twenty-six she obtained entrance into the medical school 

 attached to the University of Geneva, in the State of New 

 York, where her " carefully hoarded earnings " just 

 sufficed for her maintenance during her period of study. 

 The professors declined to take the responsibilitj- of 

 admitting her ; they referred it to the students. These 

 were unanimously favourable to her admission, and pledged 

 themselves that no conduct of theirs should cause her 

 annoyance. On the completion of her studies at Geneva, 

 N.Y., her degree was conferred in the presence of a great 

 crowd. She came to England in 1849, and found much 

 prejudice in professional circles. On coming to London in 

 1850 Mr. Paget (afterwards Sir James Paget), then Dean 

 of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, gave her leave to attend 

 the hospital as a student, and she was admitted to every 

 part of the hospital except the department for the diseases 

 of women ! She studied for a year in La Maternity 

 Hospital in Paris, where she had the misfortune to con- 

 tract purulent ophthalmia from one of her patients. It 

 cost her six months' illness and the sight of one eye, and 

 ended her hope of making surgery her speciality. In 185 1 

 she returned to America, and began practice in partnership 

 with her sister Emily. She felt keenly the want of hospital 

 practice, and established a dispensary, from which, in the 

 course of time, there grew the New York Infirmary for 

 Women, which was a women's hospital officered by women. 

 On re-visiting England she had her name placed on the 

 English register, and immediately afterwards an Act of 

 Parliament was passed excluding the owners of foreign 

 degrees from the register. In London she lectured on 

 medicine as a profession for women. Among her audience 

 was Miss Elizabeth Garrett Cnow Mrs. Garrett Anderson. 

 M.D.). On the outbreak of the Civil War in the United 

 States Dr. Blackwell returned to New Y'ork. She held the 

 chair of hygiene in the Medical School for Women in New 

 York, which was then established, and organised the 

 services of sanitary visitors in the slums of New York in 

 anticipation of modern developments. She returned to 

 England, and had the " pleasure and privilege to encourage 

 Dr. Anderson and Dr. Sophia Jex Blake in their pioneer 

 enterprise in England." When the New Hospital for 

 Women was founded she was on the consulting staff, and 

 later, when the London School of Medicine for Women 

 was opened, she held the chair of gynaecology until her 

 health began to fail. 



The Christiania correspondent of the Morning Post con- 

 tributes to the issue of our contemporary for June 6 some 

 interesting particulars of Captain Amundsen's expedition 

 to north polar regions, which started on that dav. The 



