322 



NATURE 



[August 2, 1900 



to what has been done by other Government authorities. 

 The Board of Trade have occasionally consulted the council 

 of the Marine Biological Association on fishery subjects. The 

 latest occasion had reference to the question of a fisheries 

 exhibit at the Paris Exhibition. The inspectors of the Board 

 of Trade have on many occasions consulted the officials of the 

 association in an informal manner. The association were not 

 directly consulted by of the Board Trade as to the Bill dealing 

 with undersized fish, which, however, was founded on the 

 recommendations of the Select Committee of 1893, who took 

 ■evidence from the association." 



The sixty-eighth annual meeting of the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation was opened at Ipswich on Tuesday under the Presidency 

 of Dr. W. A. EUiston. An address in medicine was delivered 

 on Wednesday by Dr. Philip Henry Pye-Smith, F.R.S. ; 

 an address in surgery will be delivered to-day by Dr. Frederick 

 Treves ; and an address in obstetrics will be delivered by Dr. 

 William J. Smyly on Friday. The scientific business of the 

 meeting is being conducted in thirteen sections, as follows, 

 namely : Medicine ; surgery ; obstetrics and gynaecology ; State 

 medicine ; psychology ; physiology ; pathology ; ophthalmology ; 

 diseases of children ; pharmacology and therapeutics ; laryng- 

 ology and otology ; tropical diseases ; navy, army and ambulance. 

 The exhibits in the annual museum held in connection with 

 the meeting are arranged in the following sections : — Section A : 

 Food and drugs, including prepared foods, chemical and phar- 

 maceutical preparations, &c. ; Section B : Instruments, com- 

 prising medical and surgical instruments and appliances, 

 electrical instruments, microscopes, &c. ; Section C : Books, 

 including diagrams, charts, &c. ; Section D : Sanitary appliances 

 and ambulances. 



The address of Mr. E. M. Holmes, the president of the 

 British Pharmaceutical Conference held in London last week, 

 and most of the papers read and discussed at the meetings, are 

 published in full in the current number of the Pharmaceutical 

 journal. Mr. Holmes reviewed the progress of science, so far 

 as it affected pharmacy, during the present century, and indi- 

 cated some of the changes which have occurred. Referring to 

 the subject of an international Pharmacopoeia, he remarked : — 

 ^ ' A General Pharmacopoeia, that would enable a pharmacist to 

 dispense a prescription with uniformity in any pharmacy on the 

 Continent, may be regarded as a Utopian rather than a practical 

 idea, and could only be attained by alphabetically arranging in 

 dictionary form all the formulae in all the known pharmacopoeias. 

 But there can be no reason why an approach towards it should 

 not be made by a congress of medical men and pharmacists, 

 limiting their attention, in the first place, to poisonous prepara- 

 tions only, and, in order to avoid international jealousies, 

 adopting as a standard the formulte that approach nearest to 

 decimal proportions. The comparison of different formulae is 

 rendered a simple matter by the publication of the different 

 strengths of preparations of the various pharmacopoeias in 

 Squire's 'Companion to the British Pharmacopoeia.' The 

 next step might be to make uniform the strength of the most 

 generally used preparations that are not poisonous. A really 

 useful International Pharmacopoeia cannot be otherwise than a 

 gradual growth." 



Among the papers printed in the Pharmaceutical Journal are 

 several of interest outside pharmaceutical circles. Mr. E. J. 

 Parry shows that the so-called santalol, which exists to the 

 extent of about 90 per cent, in sandal-wood oil, is a mixture 

 of two or more bodies of an alcoholic nature, one of which is 

 that to which the name santalene has been applied. Mr; T. H 

 Wardleworth deals with some pharmaceutical and economic 

 plants of Jamaica. As the result of a visit to that island he 



NO. 1605, VOL. 62] 



is of opinion that pharmacists would do well to attempt to 

 obtain from British colonies supplies of many drugs which at 

 present come from other parts of the world. Messrs. T. Tyrer 

 and A. Levy continue their investigation on melting points, 

 the substances more recently examined being salicylic acid, 

 salol, carbolic acid, menthol, and thymol. Messrs. C. T. 

 Tyrer and A. Wertheimer have made a careful physical 

 examination of American, Russian, and French turpentine oils 

 and terebene made therefrom, and propose, at some future 

 date, to investigate similar products from all possible sources. 

 As a general rule they find that the higher the initial rotation 

 of American turpentine the smaller is the product of inactive 

 mixture capable of steam distillation and the higher the 

 specific gravity. French turpentine has a greater tendency to 

 oxidise than American, being intermediate between that and 

 the Russian oil. Dr. F. B. Power summarises the methods 

 which have been advocated for the preparation of mercurous 

 iodide, and gives the results of determinations of the amount 

 of iodine or pure mercurous iodide contained in specimens of 

 the compound made in different ways. These results indicate 

 that precipitated mercurous iodide is quite uniform in composi- 

 tion and also sufficiently stable when properly protected. Mr. 

 E. Dowzard thinks that useful information may be obtained 

 by determining the viscosity of essential oils. A specimen of 

 pure lemon oil had a viscosity of I39"6, whilst that ofcitrene 

 was found to be 105 "8, and that of a mixture of citrene with 

 7 '5 per cent, of citral was 114 '9. 



H.M.S. Viper, which it will be remembered is driven by the 



"Parsons' steam turbine system" (built by the patentees at 



their works at Newcastle for the British Government, and 



described and illustrated in Nature of March l), has this 



month not only broken her own record of 35^ knots, but proved 



to possess qualifications equally important in marine engineering. 



On six consecutive runs (says Engineering, July 20) the 



following speeds were attained : — 



Equivalent speed in 

 knots 



36-585 



••• 35-503 



37-113 



36-585 



37-113 



36-072 



The mean of two runs with and against the tide was 36 "845 

 knots. The Admiralty mean of the six runs over the mile, with 

 and against the tide, was 36'58i knots, which speed was also 

 the mean for the hour's run. The mean revolutions for the 

 hour's run was 1180 per minute. The steam pressure in the 

 turbines ran up to 200 lbs. per square inch, and the mean 

 pressure in the stokeholds was 4^ inches. Another important 

 feature of the trials was that the Viper worked up from a speed 

 of 14 knots to 36'585 knots in twenty minutes ; almost as much 

 importance is attached to this as to the high speeds attained, 

 both being very valuable considerations in war vessels and 

 cross channel boats. The trials, it is stated, worked without a 

 hitch, and vibration was practically imperceptible in any part of 

 the vessel. 



According to a writer in the Times, several earthquake 

 shocks were felt at Bognor on July 18, between 10 and 11 p.m. 

 Another correspondent suggests that they were merely the 

 reports of the naval salute fired at Cherbourg on the departure 

 of the French President at the times mentioned. The character 

 of the disturbances, as described, certainly bears out this view. 

 Similar movements and rumbling sounds were also observed at 

 Torquay at the same time. Bognor is eighty-nine miles, and 

 Torquay loi miles, from Cherbourg. 



