June ii, 1903] 



NATURE 



35 



at the International Fire Prevention Congress which is to 

 be held in London next month. The congress has been 

 convened by the British Fire Prevention Committee, and 

 will work in six sections, the papers and discussions being 

 in English, French, and German. 



We regret to record the death, on May 30, of Mr. Alfred 

 Haviland, aged seventy-eight. He had for many years de- 

 voted attention to the geographical distribution of disease 

 in Great Britain, more especially of cancer and heart dis- 

 ease, having published maps and a separate volume on the 

 subject. 



\\i; learn from a cutting from the Brisbane Courier that 

 Dr. J. P. Thomson, the hon. secretary of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society of Australasia, has left Brisbane on a 

 visit to America, Great Britain and the Continent. At a 

 meeting prior to his departure Dr. Thomson' was invested 

 •with the powers of a delegate from the Australasian Society 

 to all kindred societies in the various centres he may visit. 



The death is announced of Prof. Deichmiiller, extra- 

 ordinary professor of astronomy at Bonn University. From 

 the Athenaeum we learn that he was born on February 25, 

 1855, and not long after completing his nineteenth year 

 took part in the German expedition to observe the transit 

 of Venus at Tschifu in 1874. Ever since October, 1876, he 

 had been attached to the Bonn Observatory, and had shown 

 skill not only as an astronomical observer and calculator, 

 but also as a mechanician. He took a prominent part in 

 the teaching at the University, and was made extraordinary 

 professor of astronomy in 1897. 



An account of the life and works of the late Prof. Willard 

 Gibbs is given in the Yale Alumni Weekly for May 6. It 

 contains a portrait of Prof. Gibbs, and a chronological 

 record of his principal published papers, together with a 

 list of some of his academic distinctions and of the societies 

 of which he was a member. Besides the papers whigh have 

 done most to make his name known. Prof. Gibbs made 

 important contributions in the domain of physical optics, 

 notably in connection with the electromagnetic theory, but 

 it is only by an exhaustive study of the papers themselves 

 that his work can be adequately appreciated. 



M. DE FoNViELLE writes that at the end of April a balloon 

 belonging to the German Aeronautical Society left Berlin 

 in the morning and landed at Skjolkor, in Seeland, in the 

 afternoon, having crossed the Baltic in nine hours. The 

 balloon was subsequently destroyed by a spontaneous 

 explosion, the result of an electric discharge. The 

 balloon reached an altitude of 4000 metres, where a 

 temperature of -16° C. was registered. During the de- 

 scent of the balloon the aeronauts observed crystals of 

 snow falling in the car; the electricity generated by the 

 formation of the snow had not had time to escape before 

 the first impact with the earth, because the descent was 

 very rapid. When the pilot took hold of the valve line an 

 explosion occurred and ignited the gas of the balloon. 



We have received an advance copy of Merck's annual 

 report for 1902 on advancements in pharmaceutical 

 chemistry and therapeutics. It is a valuable and interest- 

 ing summary of new preparations introduced for the treat- 

 ment of disease, and should be in the hands of every 

 medical man. It contains, in addition, notes upon many 

 old remedies and the manner of prescribing them, together 

 with a full bibliography. 



It is announced that Dr. Louis Martin, of the Pasteur 

 Institute, Paris, has succeeded in preparing pastilles of 

 NO. J 754. VOL. 68] 



an anti-diphtheritic serum for local treatment. The serum 

 is an anti-microbic one obtained by the injection of dead 

 diphtheria bacilli. These pastilles will not replace the in- 

 jection of the serum, but will supplement the action of the 

 latter, and during convalescence will remove contagion by 

 destroying the diphtheria bacilli in the patient's throat. 



Mr. JoNATH.-iN Hutchinson, F.R.S., has returned from 

 his tour in India and Ceylon more convinced than ever of 

 the correctness of his theory that leprosy is connected with 

 the consumption of fish. In a letter to the Times (May 25) 

 he states that there is no risk whatever from fresh or well- 

 cured fish ; the danger comes when decomposition com- 

 mences. He points out that there is an e.xcessive prevalence 

 of leprosy among the Roman Catholic community in India, 

 and suggests that the fast-day ordinances should be modi- 

 fied, also that the salt-tax should be abolished. The 

 leprosy bacillus has never been found in fish, and Mr. 

 Hutchinson does not explain how it is that fish becomes 

 infective when stale. 



Mr. David Houston has examined bacteriologically a 

 number of samples of Irish butter publicly exhibited, and 

 concludes that a bacteriological examination will yield im- 

 portant information concerning the grade of any particular 

 sample of butter. For example, one prize butter contained 

 260 spores of moulds per gram ; the creamery was visited 

 and the walls were found to be covered with a growth of 

 mould. Another creamery sent a " preserved " sample and 

 gained a prize. A specimen of the butter-milk taken from 

 the churn was found to be crowded with putrefying and 

 gas-forming bacteria, together with wild yeasts and 

 moulds ; a most undesirable state of things, and revealing 

 why a " preserved " sample was exhibited. 



It has been stated by some authorities that the colon 

 bacillus is normally present in the digestive tract of oysters. 

 As this bacillus is undesirable in water used for drinking 

 purposes, inasmuch as its presence may indicate the pollu- 

 tion of such water with sewage, it is not surprising that 

 considerable interest has been aroused by its being reputed 

 to be constantly present in the bodies of these molluscs. 

 Mr. Caleb A. Fuller, of the Brown University, U.S.A., has 

 endeavoured to throw fresh light on the subject by carrying 

 out a systematic qualitative bacteriological examination of 

 the digestive tract in the case of more than 2000 oysters. 

 The specimens were taken from a bank which was free 

 from any trace of pollution, and the colon bacillus was 

 entirely absent from the adjacent sea-water. Sixteen 

 different varieties of bacteria were isolated and examined, 

 but not a single colon bacillus was discovered. This result 

 would seem to indicate that oysters do not normally con- 

 tain the B. coli communis, and that if it is found in their 

 digestive tract, suspicion should fall on the breeding 

 ground as having been exposed to pollution. 



The report of the Fernley Observatory, Southport, for 

 the year 1902, shows that the work of this well-equipped 

 establishment has been kept uo to the usual high standard 

 of efficiency. Mr. Baxendell does excellent work, not only 

 in taking observations, but by instituting useful compari- 

 sons between various instruments and methods. The 

 delicate records of the Halliwell self-registering rain-gauge 

 give much satisfaction; this instrument recorded 641 hours 

 of rain against 573 hours by another recording gauge. The 

 comparison of the Campbell-Stokes and Jordan sunshine 

 lecords gave only a difference of fifteen hours in the year 

 in favour of the latter instrument, a much closer result in 

 tabulating the records than some less careful observers 

 might have reached. Several new tables ha%e been added. 



