14 



NATURE 



[May 3, 1894 



( 



shown by the fragments found, which have been struck off, 

 and in many instances have been replaced in their original 

 position, the flint being thus rebuilt. A large Saxon tumulus 

 is also to be seen at Caddington. Close to Zouches Farm is an 

 old pasture, believed to have been a place for making bricks or 

 tiles in medixval or, perhaps, Roman times ; and near Blows 

 Downs is a group of early British hut-foundations. From this 

 it will be seen that the excursion will be one of unusual 

 interest. 



Two lectures on " The .■Ether and its Relations to Material 

 Phenomena " will be delivered at Gresham College, Basinghall 

 .Street, on the evenings of May S and 9, by Dr. J. Larmor, 

 F.R.S. Prof. Karl Pearson will deliver two final lectures on 

 "_The Geometry of Chance," on May 9 and 10. 



For misleading statements, and the suppression of facts, com- 

 mend us to the opponents of Pasteur's anti-rabic treatment. If the 

 general public are gulled into believing half of what it sees posted 

 on the public hoardings concerning the results of the treatment 

 at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, it must liken the eminent head 

 to a veritable Frankenstein. In our issue of April 19 we noted 

 a few of the facts from the official report contained in the current 

 number of the Annales de C Instilut Pasteur. This brought us 

 a letter from Mr. F. E. Pirkis, accompanied by a black-edged 

 document, published by the Victoria Street Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Animals from Vivisection, and headed " M. Pasteur's 

 Double Hecatomb. The Tale of the 257 Dead. (New Edition. 

 Revised to November 20, 1893.)" Inournote we recorded that 

 only 72 deaths had occurred amongst the Institute patients since 

 the commencement of the inoculations in 1SS6. Butthisfact does 

 not tally with the misrepresentations widely advertised by the 

 anti-viviseclionists ; so Mr. Pirkis essays to put us right. In 

 reply to his remarks, we would first point out that the note in ques- 

 tion simply gives a summary of the published statistics without 

 any critical commentary thereon. This summary, however, 

 clearly indicates that only those deaths which take pKice afler 

 the lapse of fifteen days from the date of the last inoculation 

 are included as having occurred in spite of the treatment. Our 

 correspondent has apparently not understood this part of the 

 statement, otherwise he would not express surprise at the dis- 

 crepancy between the 72 deaths given in the statistical report 

 and the 195 deaths which is the total alleged in " M. Pasteur's 

 Double Hecatomb " to have taken place amongst all-comers to 

 the Pasteur Institute. Further, he contrasts the 72 deaths men- 

 tioned in the note in NATURKwith 257 deaths given in the anti- 

 Pasteur circular ; but he has apparently not noticed that only 

 195 of the latter are alleged to have been treated at the Paris 

 Pasteur Institute. A superficial glance at the black-edged 

 document at once shows that many of the deaths there recorded 

 took place ;iiMx« fifteen days of the last inoculation, and would, 

 therefore, certainly be excluded from the official statistics of the 

 Pasteur Institute, for the reasons already given. Assuming the 

 total of 195 deaths to be correct, and there are no grounds for 

 impugning the accuracy of the figure, and taking the total num- 

 ber of persons inoculated at the Paris Institute as 14,553 — ^ 

 figure obtained by adding to 14,430, which is the total num- 

 I)cr of those inoculated at Paris ^-iwn in the official statistics, the 

 num)>er 123, which assuming the correctness of the figures in the 

 uiti-I'asteur document represents the number of those patients 

 who were excluded from the official statistics, owing to their 

 death having taken place within fifteen days of the last inocula- 

 tion — il appcari that the /o/a/»/<>r/a/(/>' amongst all the inoculated 

 ii only 13 pet cent. The mortality amongst persons bitten by 

 rabid dog*, and not submitted to treatment, is commonly ac- 

 cepted to l>c from 15-20 per cent. If the agitators against the 

 olahliihmenl of Patteur Institutes would only look such facts as 

 these in the face, there might be more hope that they would be 

 led to ice the error of their ways. 



NO. 1279, VOL. 50] 



After the close of the recent Medical Congress at Rome, 

 many of the members took part in various excursions 

 organised for their recreation and instruction. It was during 

 an excursion to the Island of Capri that Prof. Todaro related 

 the following interesting story, which we take from the Lancet. 

 Early in this century the riches of the Gulf of Naples for natura- 

 lists came to be appreciated by local investigators, and their 

 reports attracted the special notice of Cuvier, from whom the 

 reported riches were communicated, always with fresh incre- 

 ment, through Milne Edwards to Quatrefuges. Another and 

 still mightier name to be attracted to the Gulf was Johann von 

 Muller of Berlin, the most encyclopedic of biologists, who, 

 long interested in the inferior vertebrata, had written a classical 

 monograph on them. \ contemporar)' of his, Oronzio Costa of 

 Naples, an investigator of rare powers, had discovered in these 

 waters the amfhioxtis, already known to British and Russian 

 naturalists as the Bfanehiostonia ianceolatum. Costa recognised 

 its true nature, and described it as the first and lowest of the 

 vertebrata. His description at once engrossed von MwUer's 

 attention, insomuch that he had barely re.ad it when he said to 

 his wife, "My dear, you must come with me to the liay of 

 Naples." Travelling in those days was effected by diligence, 

 and it was not till after some weeks that the great German 

 biologist and his lady reached the bay. Alighting at the .\lbergo 

 di Roma at Santa Lucia, he sent at once for a mariner to get 

 him a specimen of the amp/iio.xits. This man turned out to be 

 Costa's own mariner, Giovanni by name, who forthwith in the 

 grey morning, as the result of a " miraculous draught" under 

 Posillipo, obtained the animal and brought it to von Muller, 

 who was still in bed. Overjoyed with his possession, von 

 Muller put it at once into alcohol, woke his wife, who, tired 

 with the long journey, was sleeping profoundly, and said, " My 

 dear, get up immediately, we are going back to Berlin." Von 

 Miiller's enthusiasm was caught up by his compatriot Krohn, 

 who from his sojourn at Messiua in 1844 drew his German 

 friends to those waters, till year by year, each spring and 

 autumn, the Teutonic universities sent relays of young natura- 

 lists to that seaboard — among them Anton Dohrn — a most 

 accomplished student of nature, to whom we owe the scientific 

 institute founded at Naples and opened in 1873. Since that 

 year the Stazione /^oologica has become more and more the 

 resort of biologists, and now there is hardly a seat of learning in 

 Europe which does not contribute to its maintenance in return 

 for facilities aflorded to the student for prosecuting research. 



The Italian Meteorological Office has succeeded, after 

 some difficulty, in establishing a fairly satisfactory thermo- 

 metrical station on Mount Etna, at an altitude of about 9S50 feel, 

 by means of a recording instrument made by Richard, of Paris, 

 which goes for 40 days. By this method 207 days' observa- 

 tions were secured in the year 1893, and direct observations 

 were also made on 72 days. During seven months of the year 

 the mean temperature was below the freezing point. The 

 maximum temperature observed was 60" '8 in September, and 

 the minimum 13 '5 in March. The characteristic of the 

 annual variation is that the low temperatures are prolonged 

 until June, and, in the autumn, the mild temperatures extend 

 up to December. 



An important contribution to the meteorology of South- 

 eastern Europe has been made by the publication of the means 

 of observations for Sophia (Bulgaria) for the years l8')l-3, for 

 three hours each day, and for the month and year. During this 

 period the extreme temperatures have varied between - 24" '2 in 

 January i8y3 and y7''7 in August 1891. The mean annual 

 rainfall was 31 '2 inches, and the greatest daily fall 276 

 inches, in September 1891. The mean annual relative 

 humidity was 74*1 per cent. At the meteorological conference 



