July 30, 1903] 



NA TURE 



311 



technical_colleges. Among the awards we notice the follow- 

 ing : — Mabel Gardner, who has gained the first science 

 scholarship at Girton College, senior county scholarship 

 of 90/. a year for three years. H. H. Mittell, a full senior 

 county scholarship of 90/. a year for three years to enable 

 him to proceed to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where 

 he has gained an open scholarship, and to take the mathe- 

 matical tripos. C. H. Pitt, a senior county scholarship of 

 ^90/. a year to enable him to proceed to Corpus Christi 

 College, Cambridge, where he has won an open science 

 scholarship. A. E. Baker, an exhibition of 75/. a year for 

 two years in the first instance, in order to enable him to 

 proceed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he has 

 obtained an exhibition and subsizarship, and to take the 

 natural sciences tripos. W. H. Norris, an exhibition of 70/. 

 a year for three years to enable him to proceed to Corpus 

 Christi College, where he has gained an open science 

 scholarship. J. W. Kuhrt, a free place at the London 

 ->( hool of Economics and Political Science, together with 

 III exhibition of 50?. a year for two years, in order to 

 ' nable him to take the B.Sc. examination of the London 

 Lniversity in economics. B. P. Williams, an exhibition of 

 50/. a year for two years, together with a free place at the 

 college to enable him to take the B.Sc. degree in engineer- 

 ing. P. A. Houseman, an exhibition of 40Z. a year for 

 three years to assist him to proceed to Wiirzburg University 

 for the study of chemistry. H. H. Hodge, an exhibition 

 of 30Z. for one year in order to enable him to travel on the 

 Continent and study the French language and the French 

 system of education. 



The Board of Education has recently published two sets 

 of regulations, for the session 1903-4, for schools of various 

 grades. One volume deals with secondary day schools, and 

 does not appear to differ in any important respect from that 

 of last year. The other contains regulations for all schools 

 and classes in connection with the Board of Education which 

 have not received attention in previous regulations already 

 published for next year's work, such as evening schools, 

 technical institutions, and schools of art and art classes. 

 A circular letter respecting the latter volume has been issued 

 by the Board, and describes for the benefit of managers of 

 schools the important respects in which the regulations for 

 next session differ from those of previous years. The 

 volume may be said to concern all those institutions in 

 which instruction of a specialised or technical character is 

 given, whether in the day-time or in the evening, as well 

 as evening schools and classes the scope of which may vary 

 almost indefinitely with the attainments and aim of the 

 students. The rule under which the rate of grant payable 

 for science instruction given in the day-time was half the 

 rate payable for such instruction if given in the evening 

 is abolished, and grants for advanced instruction given 

 during the day in technical institutions will now be assessed 

 in accordance with regulations appropriate to the special 

 circumstances of such instruction. The letter also urges 

 the desirability of fixed salaries for teachers of classes of 

 all kinds, and rightly insists that the amount of stipend 

 should be in relation to the qualifications and experience 

 of the teacher and the time given by him to the work of 

 the class, and that cognisance should be taken of the time 

 absorbed in preparing experimental lectures, in travelling, 

 and in the correction of home-work. It is very satisfactory, 

 too, to find that the new regulations definitely require a 

 sufficient preliminary training for students in classes in 

 >(-ientific and technical subjects, and that every encourage- 

 ment is given to managers to inaugurate a system of 

 ■ courses of study " rather than one of isolated subjects 

 in no way correlated. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, June "18. — "On the Synthesis or Fats 

 Accompanying Absorption from the Intestine." By 

 Benjamin Moore. M.A., D.Sc, Johnston Professor of Bio- 

 chemistry at University College, Liverpool. Communicated 

 by Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S. 

 IB The fats of the food are changed in the intestine into 



fatty acids and glycerine, and the fatty acids are then in 

 part combined with alkali to form soaps. 



NO. I 76 I, VOL. 68] 



Both soaps and free fatty acids have a very small solu- 

 bility in water, and it is by the agency of the bile, in which 

 both are much more soluble, that these constituents of the 

 digested fats are made capable of being taken up in soluble 

 form by the absorbing cells of the intestine. 



The absorbed fatty constituents are not taken up by the 

 blood stream, but pass by a separate system, namely, the 

 absorbent lacteals of the intestinal area, to be finally carried 

 to the circulating blood by the main lymphatic vessel, the 

 thoracic duct. 



Now, somewhere along the path of absorption, the 

 absorbed soaps and fatty acids are recombined with 

 glycerine to form fats, for in the thoracic duct after a meal 

 containing fat only fats are found. 



The seat of this transformation has not hitherto been 

 known with accuracy, but in this paper experiments are 

 quoted to show that the change occurs in the intestinal 

 cells which first take up the consituents of the digested fat 

 in soluble form, and not in the cells of the lymphatic glands 

 of the intestine through which the absorbed fatty matter 

 subsequently passes on its way to the thoracic duct. 



This is shown by analyses of the fatty matter in the 

 small lymphatic vessels leading from the intestine, which 

 show that, even here before the absorbed fatty matter has 

 reached the abdominal lymphatic glands, it has all been 

 changed back into fat. A change in the same direction is 

 shown by analyses for fatty constituents of the intestinal 

 cells, but here the process is found in progress, and not 

 yet complete. 



It is further shown that the cell must be in situ and 

 supplied with nutrient matter in order that this change can 

 be brought about, for no synthesis of fat occurs when the 

 isolated intestinal cell or extracts of it are allowed to act 

 upon the fatty constituents in vitro. The only change then 

 occurring is the formation from soap of free fatty acid, 

 which is probably the initial stage in the change occurring 

 in the living intact cell, and is further a protective action, 

 which would prevent the entrance of the poisonous soaps 

 into the circulation. 



This demonstrates that the living cell supplied with 

 energy by the nutrient matter which bathes it is capable 

 of acting as an energy transformer for chemical energy, 

 and of carrying out syntheses impossible for enzymes which 

 cannot add energy to the ingredients upon which they act, 

 and hence cannot carry out complex syntheses requiring 

 the addition of chemical energy to those ingredients, as can 

 the living cell. 



" The Theorv of Symmetrical Optical Objectives." Bv 

 S. D. Chalmers, B.A. (Cantab.), M.A. (Sydney), St. John's 

 College, Cambridge. Communicated by Prof. Larmor, 

 Sec. R.S. 



This paper deals with the relations between the 

 aberrations of a lens system, used with a front stop, and 

 those of the compound system formed by two such systems 

 disposed symmetrically with respect to the stop. The 

 results justify the practice of correcting a single component 

 — the back one — for astigmatism and spherical aberration, 

 provided due attention is paid to the securing of the con- 

 dition for no distortion. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 20. — M. Albert Gaudry in the 

 chair. — The manner of flow of a spreading sheet of water 

 on a plane surface, applied to the case where the surface 

 is curved, by M. J. Boussinesq. — On a new method for 

 the detection and estimation of small traces of arsenic, by 

 M. Armand Gautier. It is based on the principle that 

 ferric oxide precipitated in the presence of arsenic carries 

 down with it the whole of the latter, even in the presence 

 of chlorides and other salts. The arsenic in the precipitate 

 can then be directly estimated in a Marsh apparatus. In 

 this way the thousand millionth of its weight of arsenic 

 can be detected in a substance, and its presence was shown 

 in the purest distilled water and many common reagents. — 

 On the torsion movements of the eye when looking in 

 certain directions, the socket remaining in the primary 

 position, by M. Yves Delagre. — On a new action produced 

 by the rays n, and on several facts with regard to these 

 radiations, by M. R. Blondlot. The rays n falling on 

 platinum foil heated to dull redness cause it to glow more 

 brightly. This effect is not due to increase of temperature. 

 The increased brilliancy is observed on both sides of the 



