1902] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 37 
mosquito bites infect man. The recent expeditions to 
Sierra Leone, largely defrayed by private generosity, 
have already succeeded in making the species of Culex, 
to which suspicion mostly points, comparatively rare in 
the neighborhood of Freetown, and in consequence a great 
reduction in the number of cases of malaria. Yellow 
fever and elephantiasis have also been traced apparently 
to gnats. The dissemination of bubonic plague is attri- 
buted to the fleas borne by rats. It is sad to have to re- 
cord the death from yellow fever of one investigator, Dr. 
Walter Meyers, who went out in connection with the 
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 
Death has also taken from us Mr. George Shadbolt, of 
the Royal Microscopical Society, who did much for the 
development of the microscope, but whose name is per- 
haps best known as the inventor of “Shadbolt’s turntable.” 
In the theory of the microscope the most interesting 
contribution has been Mr. J. W. Gordon’s criticism of 
Professor Abbe’s diffraction theory, wherein he main- 
tains that the diffraction effects relied upon by Professor 
Abbe in support of his argument are really produced by 
the diaphragms behind the objectives. 
We must not omit also two more of Mr. E. M. Nelson’s 
valuable papers on the construction of the microscope, 
dealing respectively with tube-length and working aper- 
ture. Amongst new books may be specifically mentioned 
Miall and Hammond’s “Structure and Life-History of the 
Harlequin Fly,” and “Carpenter on the Microscope.” 
In new apparatus notice may be taken of the increased 
attention -paid by the opticians to the improvement of 
microtomes, and to the surrender by some of our leading 
opticians to popular prejudice, as evidenced by the de- 
mand for the Continental model in students’ microscopes; 
also to the improvement in the spherical corrections of 
achromatic objectives by the use of newer glasses and 
original forms of construction. Science Gossip. 
