^^t 



NA TURE 



[July 5, 1906 



70 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. ; or to the " Symons 

 Memorial Fund," Bank of England (Western Branch), Burlington 

 Gardens, W. 



An Anti-rabic Institute for India is, says the special Indian 

 correspondent of the Lancet, at last an accomplished fact. 

 After numerous delays. Government have stepped in and prac- 

 tically settled the difificulties. The Royal Army Medical Corps 

 having an officer in Major D. Semple who had studied in Paris 

 and Lille, determined to utilise his experiences, and the annual 

 expense for sending soldiers to Paris was diverted for the new 

 institute. The central committee of the proposed Pasteur In- 

 stitute saw their opportunity and took over its control. With 

 a capital of 70,000 rupees and a yearly grant of 19,500 rupees, 

 the expenses of the new institute ought to be fairly well met. 

 Residents in India may be congratulated that at last means are 

 provided whereby European and native patients alike can be 

 offered the best available treatment for the terrible disease of 

 rabies. 



Dr. L. Sambon and Dr. Low, the two medical men en- 

 trusted by the British Government with the perilous task of 

 testing the possibility of guarding against malarial infection in 

 the Roman Campagna, have, according to the Lancet, at length 

 found a favourable place for their purpose. After rejecting 

 various other localities as being for one reason or another unsuit- 

 able, they have selected a spot about two miles distant from Ostia, 

 between Castel Porziana and Castel Fusano, and within five 

 minutes' walk of the latter place. The site of their hut is on 

 the edge of a "stagno," or swamp, forming part of the royal 

 hunting demesne of Castel Fusano, and left undrained in order 

 to preserve the: wild boar, water fowl, &c. , which frequent it. 

 The hut will stand close to a canal containing a luxuriant growth 

 of algse and other aquatic plants, and within a stone's throw of 

 a clump of pine trees, which forms the outskirts of the Castel 

 Fusano pine forest. The few dwellings near are inhabited by 

 peasants who constantly suffer from malaria and are infested by 

 mosquitoes of the anopheles variety. Situated thus in the heart 

 of the swamps surrounding the mouth of a large river, among 

 the haunts of innumerable mosquitoes of the malarial variety, 

 and in a locality notorious as one of the most deadly of the fever- 

 stricken centres of the Roman Campagna, this dread and un- 

 healthy spot appears to offer ideal conditions for the carrying 

 out of the interesting but dangerous experiment now about to 

 be begun. The two daring investigators hope to have every- 

 thing in readiness early in the present month ; in the meantime, 

 their time is profitably occupied in studying the animal and 

 insect life of the Campagna, collecting and examining frogs, 

 lizards, bats, spiders, mosquitoes, and the like. They have 

 already made some interesting observations, as, for example, 

 that although the larvce of anopheles are at this season appar- 

 ently very few, the adult mosquitoes are collected in the houses 

 in great numbers, being especially numerous near byres and 

 stables. The King has graciously given his consent to the 

 erection of the hut in the royal preserves, and the municipality 

 of Rome are doing everything in their power to help the enter- 

 prise. 



The annual general meeting of the Jenner Institute of Pre- 

 ventive Medicine was held on Friday last, when Dr. Macfadyen, 

 the director, was able to state that the Institute's work had 

 continued to progress. Among the new features added during 

 the year were a physiological room, a room for incubating pur- 

 poses, a laundry, a workshop, and a cold storage room. A 

 Hansen apparatus for yeast culture had been presented, and 

 considerable additions had been made to the library. .Three 

 papers were communicated to the Royal Society upon the in- 

 fluence of the temperature of liquid air and hydrogen upon 

 bacterial life. Systematic investigations are being carried out in 

 NO. 1 60 1, VOL. 62] 



the bacteriological department upon enteric fever, tuberculosis', 

 and the etiology of cancer. Special investigations were carried 

 out for public authorities during the year, e.g. upon tubercle in 

 milk, glanders, anthrax, &c., and investigations in a number of 

 other directions have been and are being prosecuted with 

 vigour. 



The recent case of the Jenner Institute of Preventive 

 Medicine v. Assessment Committee of St. George's, Hanover 

 Square, was the means of raising once more the important 

 question of the rateability of scientific societies. The Jenner 

 Institute has unfortunately failed to establish its claim to 

 exemption from the payment of rates. The Divisional Court 

 decided that the Institute did not fulfil the conditions of the 

 Act of Parliament exempting "any Society instituted for pur- 

 poses of science, literature, or the fine arts exclusively." The 

 preparation and sale of preventive and curative medicines was 

 held by Mr. Justice Grantham to be the main object of the 

 Institute, or as Mr. Justice Channell put it, "its main object 

 was to dispense to the public the benefits of science." TThe 

 Institute was not, therefore, "exclusively" devoted to the' 

 advancement of science. The Institute has, as a matter of fact, 

 dispensed for the benefit of the public, and at a considerable 

 loss, certain antitoxins which require the highest scientific skill 

 in their preparation. The preparation of these substances has 

 been at the same time a means of studying and improving the 

 methods for producing immunity to given diseases. The aims 

 in this respect have been of a purely scientific character, and in 

 accordance with the main objects of the Institute, which are 

 not, despite the Court's ruling, of a dispensing nature, except in 

 so far as opportunity is afforded to medical men to test the 

 value of certain antitoxins in the treatment of disease. The 

 eminently useful aims of the Institute, which are carried out at 

 great cost, might have been thought to bring it well within the 

 intention of the Act, but the judicial interpretation of the word 

 "exclusively" has formed the stumbling-block. It is to be 

 feared that the expense of litigation may prevent the Institute 

 from proceeding to an appeal. In any case, it is to be hoped 

 that some steps will be taken to amend an Act, apparently 

 devised for the benefit of scientific societies, but which, as 

 interpreted by the Court, has little or no practical value. It is 

 quite conceivable, as the law stands, that'a claim for exemption 

 might be defeated on the ground that a daily newspaper had 

 been admitted to the reading-room of an institute, and that it 

 was not, therefore, "exclusively" devoted to purposes of 

 science. 



The annual general meeting of the Marine Biological Asso- 

 ciation was held in the rooms of the Royal Society on June 27. 

 The council reported that arrangements had been completed for 

 the supply of sea-water, obtained from the open sea beyond the 

 Plymouth Breakwater, for special experiments on the rearing of 

 sea-fishes and other marine animals. Through the kindness of 

 Mr. J. W. Woodall, the Association has had placed at its dis- 

 posal a small floating laboratory, which is at present stationed 

 at Salcombe. The periodical surveys of the physical and bio- 

 logical conditions prevailing at the mouth of the Eiiglish 

 Channel have been continued by Mr. Garstang at quarterly 

 intervals for an entire year. Observations were taken at four 

 fixed stations. They included serial temperature determinations 

 at all depths, filtration of a definite column of water from 

 bottom to surface with a " vertical net," and collections of the 

 floating life at surface, mid-water and bottom, by means of a 

 specially devised closing net. Mr. Garstang has also carried 

 out a series of preliminary experiments on the rearing of sea- 

 fish larvae under different conditions, with a view to a solution 

 of the difficulties hitherto encountered in regard to the practical 

 work of sea-fish culture. The investigation of the fauna and 



