224 



DISCOVERY 



so cause disease. Some of these — for example, the 

 bacillus of tetanus — usually inhabit the soil, as our corre- 

 spondent states — that is to say, heavily manured soil. 

 It does not, however, " become " malignant at any 

 period — it is always capable of causing tetanus, if it gains 

 access to the human body through a cut. The other 

 bacteria of the soil are, for the most part, as different from 

 the bacteria of disease as a domestic cat from a tiger. 



The second question — whether heat alone can be relied 

 upon to sterilise — can be answered by considering the fact 

 that the bacterium is a living creature, or rather a living 

 plant. It is possible to sterilise anything with absolute 

 certainty by immersing it in quite weak solutions of hydro- 

 chloric acid. One great feature of all living matter is its 

 sensitivity to acids ; when our blood becomes the very 

 tiniest degree more acid, we suffer severe discomfort. 

 Heat, since living matter is capable of being coagulated, 

 like the white of an egg, will kill bacteria ; and since 

 surgical instruments, etc., cannot be placed in acids, heat 

 is the method most used for sterilisation. 



There are, as Mr. P. H. Gray has shown in Discovery, 

 queer outrageous bacteria which can devour weak solu- 

 tions of carbolic acid. But concentrated carbolic acid 

 would kill them. The Bacillus aceticus, which turns 

 alcohol to vinegar, could not affect what is known as 

 " absolute " alcohol. These bacteria are comparable 

 with those sea-side plants which can grow in the salt spray 

 where daisies and lilies would die ; but even they could 

 not stand the salt wastes of the Dead Sea. There is a 

 limit to animal adaptability ; some bacteria — the cacti 

 and camels of their kind — can resist most rigorous condi- 

 tions, but even they can be slain, by heat or by sufficiently 

 drastic chemical treatment. — Ed.] 



Sir, 



SUSPENDED ANIMATION 

 To the Editor of Discovery 



Sir Arthur Shipley, in his contribution to your 

 July number, dismisses " the repeated accounts of toads 

 having been found embedded in rock as fables." 



In 1905 I helped to excavate a cellar in Kansas, U.S.A., 

 the summer being well advanced, the weather hot. The 

 two feet of loamy soil were imposed upon a bed of an 

 argillaceous formation several feet thick, in the vernacu- 

 lar designated " hard pan," so dense that a man working 

 hard with pickaxe and shovel could make small headway 

 in a day. Four feet from the surface I struck my pick 

 into a corner and heard a peculiar little pop ; on with- 

 drawing the pick I found I had driven it through the 

 body of a toad. The animal kicked convulsively for a 

 few seconds before succumbing. There was the exact 

 print of the toad in the " hard-pan," but no means of 

 exit from its imprisonment that I could discover. The 

 toad was small, and of a pale, sickly cast ; there was 

 little pigment in the skin. 



Can any person believe that the animal was in that 

 position voluntarily at that season of the year ? If so, 

 he can bslieve anything. The site of the cellar was near 

 an inhabited house ; the ground had been well tramped 

 upon for years. 



This locality where I now live is underlaid with cal- 

 careous, sedimentary rock, the quarrying of which is the 

 principal industry. A short time ago I was informed by 

 an intelligent man, a native, that some years ago a toad 

 was found embedded in the rock, alive, and living wit- 

 nesses are still here who were present when the animal was 

 discovered. 



Yours, etc., 

 Keinton-M.\ndeville, Albert W. Hooton. 



Somerset. 

 June 27, 1923. 



News of the Month 



THE SEPTEMBER BRITISH ASSOCIATION'S 

 MEETING 



The annual meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science takes place this year at Liver- 

 pool, from Wednesday, September 12, to Wednesday, 

 September 19. It will be the Association's ninety-first 

 meeting, and the fifth time that the gathering has been 

 held at the famous port. \\'hen the Association went to 

 Liverpool in 1870, it was presided over by Huxley; 

 Tyndall and Rankine delivered the two evening dis- 

 courses, and Lubbock the " lecture to the operative 

 classes." 



With every year the realisation of the need for the 

 practical application of science to life and industry is 

 increasing. The forthcoming meeting is apparently 

 designed to meet this realisation, and its effects may, we 

 hope, be considerable. Its rendezvous is appropriate, for, 

 as the Preliminary Programme remarks: "Visiting 

 members of the Association will find a city where the 

 application of science to industry and trade is on every 

 hand." 



This year's president is Sir Ernest Rutherford, whose 

 address will deal with the latest researches into The 

 Electrical Structure of Matter. The character and 

 trend of the meeting which we have intimated is borne out 

 by many of the sectional addresses. Prof. J. H. Ash- 

 worth will consider Modern Zoology : Its Boundaries and 

 Some of its Bearings on Human Welfare ; Dr. Vaughan 

 Cornish, The Position and Opportunity of the British 

 Empire ; Dr. C. Crowther, Science and the Agricultural 

 Crisis ; Sir H. Fowler will discuss Transport and its 

 Indebtedness to Science ; Prof. T. P. Nunn, The Education 

 of Demos ; Mr. C. Burt, The Mental Differences between 

 Individuals ; and Sir W. H. Beveridge will show the 

 relations of Unemployment and Population. 



Some of the sectional discussions, too, should be of 

 much practical value — those, for instance, on Psychological 

 Assumptions Underlying Economic Theory, The Methods 

 of Anthropology in Relation to the Social Sciences, The 

 Outlook for British Agriculture, and The Delinquent Child. 



Two interesting features of the meeting are that public 

 lectures are to be delivered by various members of the 

 Association to the public and to claildren in Liverpool and 

 various neighbouring towns, and that Sir William Ruther- 

 ford's address will be broadcasted by wireless. 



