o.-'- 



NATURE 



[August S, 1895 



Kan rcau .\ mpci on Wtsiciii Nm i.ujut.i. ami hmire ex- 

 ploration in Australia was discusseil l>y Mr. Oavid Lindsay. 

 A memoir on the Niger lakes, by .M. I'aul \uillot, was laid on 

 the table, and one on explorations in Madagascar, by M. K. K. 

 Clautier, was communicated in abstract. In the absence of M. 

 Maistrc, who was to have read a paiier on the hydrographic 

 system of the Shari and Logone, beiior Don Torres Campos 

 gave an account of the climatology of the I'ortuguese and 

 Sj^anish colonies on the west coast of .\frica. 



Section B — Presidents, M. Levasseur and Mr. Kavenstein — 

 received the following papers: — On the construction of a 

 terrestrial globe on the scale of I : loo,oco, by I'rof. E. Reclus : 

 on the construction of globes, by Signor Cesare I'omba ; the 

 life and geographical works of Cassini de Thury. by M. 

 Ludovic Dra|)eyron ; an ethnographical m.-^p of Eurojie, by 

 Herr V. von Ilaardt. 



I'r<jf. de Lap|>arent. Ur. John Murray, and I'rof. Penck 

 presided over Section C, where Prof. Palacky read a paper on 

 the gec^raphical element in evolution ; Dr. E. Naumann, one 

 on the fundamental lines of .\natolia and Central Asia ; Dr. 

 S. I'assarge, a third on laterite and red earth in .\frica 

 and India: and Mr. Henry G. Bryant, a fourth on the 

 most northern Eskimos. The last paper described observations 

 made in North and South Greenland during the I'eary Relief 

 Expeditions. 



On Friday (.\ugusl 2) the President communicated a paper to 

 the general meeting, by Baron .\. E. Nordenskiold, on ancient 

 charts and sailing directions. Prof. Hermann Wagner read a 

 laper on the origin of the niedixval Italian nautical charts, 

 which gave some interesting results as to the length of the 

 medi.-eval nautical mile. Mr. Vule Oldham dealt with the place 

 of meili.vval manuscript maos in the study of the history of 

 geographical discovery, and, in the course of remarks on this 

 iiapcr, .Mr. Batalha-Keis announced thediscovery of an authentic 

 fifteenth century portrait of Prince Henry the Navigator, at 

 Lislx)n. The Congress received a number of presentations, and 

 discussed various proposals and resolutions. 



Section B — Presidents, Senor Don Torres Campos .ind M. le 

 Prof. 1^-va.sseur — dealt with siKvliology (or the science of caverns) 

 and mountain structure. .\ i)a|)er on the methoil of investigat- 

 ing caverns, by M. E. A. Nlartel, was read ; M. K. Schra<ler 

 descrilied new instruments and methods used in surveying the 

 I'yrenees ; and Prof. Rein gave an account of observations in 

 the S|xinish Sierra Nevada. 



Dr. E. Naumann occupied the chair in Section C, in which 

 I'rof. Penck read an im|K>rlant paper on the morphology and 

 termini )log)' of land forms, and communications were received 

 from Mr. Bat.ilha-Keis on the definition of geography, and Prof. 

 <ierland on earthquake ob.servalions. 



On Saturday only a general meeting was held. General 

 Anncnkoff read a |)aper on the imjMjrtance of geography in con- 

 nection with the present .agricultural and economical crisis, and 

 the rest of the lime was occupied with resolutions and reports. 

 The President dissolveil the Congress in a short concluding 

 address, and bid the foreign visitors a hearty farewell. 



.•\fter such well-filled days the Congress wisely devoted most 

 of its evenings to recreation. Only two exceptions were made. 

 <Jn Monday night Prof. Libbey showed by the lantern a large 

 numljcr of photographs made in the north of (jrecnland ; and 

 on Thursday Dr. II. R. .Mill gave a demonstration in the form 

 of a lecture on the English lakes. 



THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 



''V'WV. sixly-lhird annual meeting of ihc British Medical .\ssocia. 

 tion. held in Ixmdon last week, was the largest in the 

 history of the As.vKialion, and one of the greatest assemblies of 

 mc<lical men c^■cr known. Twcniy-lwoyearsago the .Association 

 held its ,'\nnn.il meeting in Ixndon, but whereas at that time the 

 mcmlicrship was only 1500, the numtwr now exceeds 16,000. 

 A large nuinlier of foreign meflical men were present at the meet- 

 ing, among Ihcni lieing I'rof Stokvis, Dr. \V. \V. Keen, Dr. 

 Apost<ili, I'rof. Mosso, Dr. I'raenckel, Dr. Knrkas, I'rof I'ozzi, Dr. 

 Ottolinghi, I'rof I.a7arewiich, I'rof. von Kanke, I'rof. Baginsky, 

 Dr. Hermann Biggs, Dr. Ball, Dr. Rosier, I'rof (iayet. Dr. Meyer, 

 I'rof. panas, I'rof l-'uchs. Prof. Bowditch, Dr. I.. A. Nekam, I'rof 

 I'>aumler, I'rof Martin, l)r. Cushine, I'rof Cordis, I'rof Ham- 

 burgher, I'rof Marinevo. and I'rof ( leikie. Sir T. Kusscll 



Rey-nolds therefore presided over an assembly internatiortal in its 

 main aims, and rejjresenting an AssiKiation .■« remarkable in its i 

 growth as it is high in its slan<ling. ll is only possible here to 

 give a few extracts from some of the addresses and refer brielly to 

 a part of the general work of the sections. For these reports we 

 are indebted to the Hritish Medical Journal, the organ of the 

 -Association. Sir T. Russell Reynolds took for the object of his 

 address " the most striking fact of mixlern jihysiological, patho- 

 logical, and thera[K'Ulical research, \\i. the ]iower of living things 

 for Ixjth good and evil in the conservation of health and in the 

 prevention or cure of disea-se." In the course of his remarks he 

 said: — " The most important fact with regard to recent micro- 

 biological research is the graduallyincreiising appreciation of the 

 fact that these lower forms of life exert, not necessarily mis- 

 chievous, but, indeed, benignant influences on the human tiody, 

 and that although the mode of their operation is not fully ex- 

 plained they take [xtrt in healthy processes, assisting nornial 

 functions, nay, indeed, it would seem sometimes producing them 

 and warding off the malign effects of other influences to which wo 

 are habitually exposed. These bodies, to which we are indebted 

 for this aid, operate partly liy their chemic action and partly by 

 what we must call a vital process, and by their cultivation out- 

 side the human boily and their modification by i)a.ssing through 

 other organisms, can be made to exert a malign or a beneficial 

 agency on man. It seems even in the range of ix)ssibility thai 

 at some time not very distant some other than ' the ancient 

 mariner" may apply to tliem the far-reaching words of Coleridge, 

 and exclaim — 



O happy living things I no tongue 



Their iK.tuty might decl.irc : 



• • « • « 



.*^ll^e mv kind saint took pity on me, 

 .\nd I hles.sed them unaw.ire. 



"The third great revelation of the last twenty years is the 

 wonderful protective and curative power of these living products. 

 This, in a very w iile sense, is not new. Of all the most powerful 

 agents of destruction, the most violent have l)een derived from 

 'living' things : they are to be found in the animal and vegetable 

 worlils, not in the mineral. In their most terrible malignity — 

 such as in snake-bite, glanders, or hydrojihobia — these need no 

 human skill for their development ; they arc jireixired in the 

 laboratory of nature, and, alas I are <mly loo ready to our hand. 

 Next to these come the poisons of stinging things, and, after 

 them, the more slowly operating and less de.tdly animal infec- 

 tions ; some with indeed Ijeneficial influence, as 'v,accinia'; 

 others with local effects on the skin, but not often great 

 disturbance of the general health. 



" The vegetable kingdom can produce jiolent poisons, such as 

 Ijclladonna berries, ,aconile root and leaves, poppy juice, and the 

 ignatian bean ; but in order to render these more deadly the 

 hand of man has to come in and prepare nicotine, strychnine, 

 morphine, and the like ; jusi as it may produce, from the 

 mineral or cjuasi-mineral world, such potent agents as hylro- 

 cyanic aciil, concentrated .acids, and other tlealers of 

 ileslniction. 



" The interest in these facts lies in the modern mode for their 

 utilisation. The great potency of living products has led to very 

 fanciful notions in thera|K'Utics : and there have been those who, 

 to cure diseases of organs, have given portions of the same but 

 healthy organs of animals or of man or other animals. .Again, 

 the idea has been pronounceil that oven excreta were useful 

 drugs, and that the ilisoasod organs of man might effecl a cur; of 

 those supposeil to be atilicled in like manner. 



" Curious as simie of these details are, they are of real inierest 

 to us only as they lead up, through inoculaticm for small-iwix. to 

 our own Eilward fenner's discovery i>f vaccination, imd then, 

 through the researches of I'asleur, I.islor,and HrownSt'<|uar(l, to 

 our present stale and plane of knowledge. It «ould seem now 

 that there is scarcely any limit to what may be expected in the 

 cure «tr prevention of disease; and the most striking of all 

 phenomena is, to my mind, the probability of remlerini; an 

 animal immune by the inlroduclion into its organism of a healthy 

 constituent of the lio<ly ipf another. This, if fidly confirmed, will 

 Ik: the greatest veritable triumph 'ti thorapeiilir anil proxentivc 

 medicine, instituted and guideil by eMendod intpiiry into com- 

 parative anatomy, physiology, anil pathology. As in ihe human 

 race or species there exist, as is well known, what maybe termed 

 * idio.syncra-sies'- by which is simply meant that as a matler of 

 fad wmie |>eople, and some people's families, escape epMemie 

 disi-ascs. whereas they are e-perially |irone to Lake others to 



NO. 1345, VOL. 52] 



