592 



NA TURE 



[February 21, 1895 



homes, where they sickened. The incidence of the 

 epidemic was on those fraternities only who had included 

 raw oysters in their menu ; and even amongst these some 

 marked escapes were in persons who, for one and an- 

 other reason, had not consumed oysters. The suspected 

 oysters came from Long Island Sound, where they had 

 been put to "fatten" in a fresh-water estuary within 

 400 feet of a sewer known to have been receiving typhoid 

 material. The last piece of evidence bearing upon this 

 subject comes from an official source. It is announced 

 that, on the strength of a report by the .Medical Officer 

 of the Local Government Board, as to the diffusion of 

 cholera in England during 1S93, which report is now 

 passing through the press, an inquiry has been com- 

 menced into the circumstances under which oysters are 

 cultivated and stored round our coasts. The reference 

 is clearly to the serious outbreak of cholera at Grimsby 

 and Cleethorpes, and to the diffusion of the epidemic 

 from those places, whence a large distribution of o>sters 

 and other shellfish is constantly in progress. 



Whatever be the outcome of the inquiry which has 

 been instituted, it is certain that two questions will come 

 to the fore : (i) the need for control over our oyster-beds, 

 and (2) the desirabi lity or not of allowing crude sewage to 

 be discharged direct into the sea, or into tidal estuaries. 



NOTES. 



Sir Henry Roscoe has been made Chairman of the Select 

 Committee of the House of Commons appointed to enquire 

 whether any, and what, changes in the present system of weights 

 and measures should be adopted. 



We regret to announce that Mr. John Whitaker Hulke, 

 F. R. S. , president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 

 died on Tuesday, from broncho-pneumonia. An obituary notice 

 in the Times furnishes us with the following particulars with re- 

 gard to his career. Mr. Hulke w.is born in 1S30, and was the 

 elder son of a well-known and hii;hly-csleemed surgeon at Deal, 

 where his family had been settled for several generations. He was 

 educated at King's College School, and subsequently spent two 

 years in Germany, where he thoroughly acquired the language. 

 .\fter a varied experience as surgeon to the hospital at Smyrna, 

 during the Crimean War, ani in King's College Hospital, he 

 migrated to Middlesex Hospital. In 1859 he received the 

 Jacksonian prize of the Royal College of Surgeons for his Essay 

 on Diseases of the Retina, and soon afterwards he brought out 

 a treali-c on the ophthalmoscope, then a novelty in eye-practi ce. 

 This led to his being regarded mainly as an ophthalmic surgeon; 

 but he contributed to general surgery in the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Transactions, and joined Mr. Holmes in editing the third edition 

 of his "System of Surgery." He was elected a fellow of the 

 Koyal Society in 1867. In 1876 he was appointed an examiner in 

 anatomy and physiology at the College of Surgeons ; and in 1S80 

 became a member of the Court of Examiners, an office which 

 he held for ten years. In 1 88 1 he wa> elected a member of the 

 Council ; and, after twice serving the office of vice-president, he 

 became president in 1893, and has died in office. He had been 

 preiidenl of the Pathological and Ophthalmological Societies, 

 and at the time of hi.< death was president of the Clinical Society 

 and librarian of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Mr. 

 I lulke was, however, much more than an accomplished surgeon. 

 He was a good comparative anatomist, botanist, and geologist ; 

 .ind wa» at one time president of the Geological Society of 

 which he was elected the Trca.suicr on February 1$. He was 

 an artist in water colour, and was able both to model in 

 clay and to carve in marble. His loss is a real one to the 

 medical profession, in which he was esteemed as a man of the 

 highest probity and sagacity. 



NO. 1321, VOL. 51] 



We notice the death, at the age of eighty-eight, of a gifted 

 mathematician, the Rev. T. P. Kirkman. He was elected a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857. 



Tiii; following deaths have occurred among scientific men 

 abroad: — Dr. Gerhard Kriiss, Extraordin.iry Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Univeisity of Munich. M. Jules Rcgnauld, 

 Professor of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, at the advanced .ige 

 of ninety. The Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, a well-known ethno- 

 logist, at Washington, February 5. Prof. Dorsey had been con- 

 nected with the liareiu of Ethnology, sine: 1S77. He was the 

 president of the .\nthropological Section of the -Vmerican 

 .\s^ociation for the Advancement of Science in 1893. We 

 also have to record the death, at the early age of forty- 

 five, on January 28, of Dr. F. Schmitz, Professor of Botany at 

 Greifswald. For many years past. Dr. .Schmitz had turned his 

 attention chiefly to the study of the .Alg-t, and especially of the 

 red seaweeds or Floridea;, to our knowledge of the life-history 

 of which he had made substantial additions. He published, 

 in the year 1877, an account of the formation of auxospores in 

 the diatoms, and, in 1S79, a description of the green Algx of 

 the Gulf of Athens. 



Prof. L. Guignard, President of the Botanical Society of 

 France, has been elected to succeed the late Prof. Duchartre in 

 the Section de Botanique of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 



Lord R.avh;ic.ii will deliver a course of six experimental 

 lectures on " Waves and Vibrations," at the Royal Instituiion, on 

 Saturdays, March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, and .'\pril 6. He will also de- 

 liver the Friday evening discourse on April 5, when his subject 

 will be " Argon, the New Constituent of the Atmosphere." 



A NEW thallium mineral has just been described, under the 

 name of Lorandite, by Prof. Krenner, of Buda-Pcsth. The new 

 mineral occurs sparingly, in association wi.h realgar, at Allchar 

 in Macedonia. It is found .is transparent crystals belonging 

 to the Mono-iymmetric system, and having the form of plates 01 

 short prisms ; its colour varies from cochineal-red to kermesite- 

 red. The mineral proves on analysis to cjrrespond to the 

 formula TI.-\sS._,, and contains 59 5 per cent, of thallium. 



We have received from the Russian Chemical Society a 

 pamphlet, devoted to the description of tlie new chemical 

 laboratory which has been erected at the .St. Petersburg 

 University. The laboratory has been built in accordance with 

 the requirements of modern scientitic investigation, and has 

 cost £'i2,-]20. All branches of research have separate large 

 halls, special rooms being allotted to physical chemistry and 

 accurate physical measurements. .Mthough the laboratory is 

 behind many of the largest laboratories of West Europe, it 

 has the advantages of perfect arrangements for each separate 

 worker, and it decidedly has no rivals for the perfection of 

 ventilation. The total amount of warmed air supplied to all 

 the halls of the building attains 823,000 cubic feet per hour, so 

 that the air will be totally changed from one to five times per 

 hour in each separate hall. 



I'm. Russian Geographical Society awarded, at its inceling 

 of January 30, the Constantine med.il to S. N. Nikitin for his 

 numerous works on the geology of Russia ; the Count Liitke 

 medal to P. K. Zalesskiy for geodetical work in Turkestan ; 

 the great gold medal, to N. .V. Karysheff for his work, "The 

 Land rented by the Pt.isants" ; nml the Prjevalsky premium, of 

 /60, to V. A. Obrucheff for his last journey in Turkestan and 

 Central Asia. Small gnld medals were awarded to the French 

 geodcsist, M. DelTorges, and the .-Vuslrian geodesist, Baron 

 Sterncck, for their pendulum nbscrvalions in Russia, and to M. 

 Sicrosjiwski fur his MS. on the Vakutcs ; and the great sdver 

 medal nf Prjcvalsky's name to Baron Toll and Lieutenant 

 Shileiko, for their last journey to Arctic Siberia. Eleven silver 

 medals were also aw.inlcd for mimr works. 



