I 12 



NATURE 



[March 30, 1916 



wealth. As regards the real wealth of the world, its 

 matter and its energy, as man had found it so, largely, 

 had he left it, until the beginning of last century. 

 Eternally moralising and philosophising about himself, 

 he left little behind him but a vast legacy of morbid 

 introspection for the "education" ot his children. 

 Ignorant of the simplest principles which control abso- 

 lutely his life from the cradle to the grave, he strove 

 to entail upon his successors in perpetuity the conclu- 

 sions of his preposterous self-examinations. The time 

 had come when, as the result of a disastrous war, 

 this entail had been broken. Henceforth it would be 

 known that science had in its control the major physical 

 factors of human existence. Already the attempt had 

 been made to foist upon science the responsibility of 

 the war. But science was neither the destroyer nor 

 rhe upbuilder ; it was the docile slave of its human 

 masters. The use made of it depended upon whether 

 they were awake to their position with regard to the 

 external realities of nature, or whether they were still 

 .trying to compromise with the old mixed mythologies. 

 After the war, whatever its outcome, science and its 

 application could retrieve every disaster, and make 

 good even the present seemingly irreparable destruc- 

 tion. 



A change had come over the relations of man to 

 matter and energy. No longer between these two, as 

 -between a steam-hammer and an anvil, he now had 

 .a hand on the valve. And if they examined the hand 

 they would find that it was the hand of the chemist. 



Just as the control of money was put into the hands 

 of a properly authenticated banker, let them see to the 

 hand in the control of their wealth. Let it not be 

 the hand of the lawyer-politician, or of a hypnotised 

 • dreamer "born in the menagerie," as Mr. H. G. Wells 

 had expressed it, whose intellectual faculties were in 

 .thrall to the past, nor even of the medical inan, as, 

 now too long, the exclusive public representative of 

 science. Let it be in the hands of honest and well- 

 trained chemists and similar representatives of the 

 <t)ther physical sciences, and they would be surprised 

 what unimagined wealth was rolling by unheeded, as 

 ^Niagara used to do, but rarely as picturesquely and 

 ; inoffensively. Let them not be frightened by those 

 who would have them believe that science — the know- 

 ledge and control of the world outside and independent 

 ■ of themselves — was a monstrous materialism. Such 

 people merely disclosed their ignorance of science, and 

 all that it meant for humanity. 



A chemist if he were genuine was rarely worldly- 

 wise. To him secrecy and individualism were the anti- . 

 .thesis of the spirit of science. He might be able to 

 put on half a sheet of notepaper that which would 

 keep a whole class in the communitj'' in prosperity 

 for a generation. But he would be lucky if until the 

 end he kept out of the poor-house, and still more lucky 

 if in his old age he could still call any of his dis- 

 coveries his own. But the real discovering type of 

 chemist was a very rare bird, and it was scarcely neces- 

 sary to say he was not the type specially catered for 

 by university curricula. From a business point of 

 view he was a thoroughly bad investment. He paid 

 no more fees than his numerous fellows, his training 

 was preposterously expensive, if he was to know his 

 subject and not know about it, and, worst of all, when 

 he was hatched, no one could be sure whether he was 

 a svi^an or a goose. Obviously with universities, 

 financially managed by business men, the good staple 

 lines of chemical students are far more attractive. 

 They can be turned out in large numbers relatively 

 cheaply, their fees aggregate to a considerable sum 

 and bear an appreciable proportion to the cost of their 

 'education, and their numbers speak for themselves. 



But a chemist, gauging the relative chemical value 



NO. 2422, VOL. 97] 



to the nation of all this teaching, would rate it in the 

 inverse ratio to that in which it would be regarded if 

 numbers or revenue accruing to the university were 

 the criterion. You need the small army of profession- 

 ally trained students to keep the existing machine 

 gomg. But a machine that just keeps its own cum- 

 brous self going has no right to the title of a prime- 

 mover. As much and more do you need the pioneers, 

 those who are to stand erect for the first time and 

 know their way, where all before have been befogged, 

 in whose solitary footsteps the army can follow. A 

 university that does not give of the best it can afford 

 for these is oblivious to the more difficult and more 

 repaying side of its dual function. 



HIGH EXPLOSIVES AND THE CENTRAL 

 NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



IV/r AJOR F. VV. MOTT, who recently delivered the 

 ^^^ Lettsomian Lectures ^ to the Medical Society of 

 London upon "The Effects of High Explosives on the 

 Central Nervous System," pointed out that a new 

 epoch in the medical history of war had arisen in 

 consequence of trench warfare and the employment of 

 projectiles containing large quantities of high explo- 

 sives. In particular, he discussed the causation of 

 death without visible injury, resulting from the detona- 

 tion of large quantities of high explosives, e.g. tri- 

 nitrotoluene contained in shells, as well as other pro- 

 jectiles, and mines. The central nervous system con- 

 tained in the closed cranio-spinal cavity is suspended 

 in a water-jacket of cerebro-spinal fluid, which, under- 

 ordinary conditions of shock, effectually protects the 

 delicate nervous structures from commotion ; and the 

 large quantity of this fluid at the base of the skull 

 serves particularly as a water-cushion protecting the 

 vital centres of the medulla oblongata from the effects 

 of concussion. 



Major Mott discussed the possibility of the aerial 

 force generated by detonation of 50-200 lb. of trinitro- 

 toluene being so great as to be transmitted through 

 the fluid to these vital centres, and cause death by 

 instant arrest of the cardiac and respiratory centres. 

 Considerable attention was given to the observations 

 of a French civil engineer, M. Arnoux, who found 

 that the effects of the explosion of a large shell upon 

 an aneroid barometer were such that decompression 

 experiments to produce similar effects on the barometer 

 indicated that a pressure of 10,000 kilos per square 

 metre must have been generated by the explosion. 

 M. Arnoux inferred from this that the bursting of a 

 large shell might cause such an intense atmospheric 

 decompression as to liberate enough bubbles of air and 

 CO2 in the blood to prove fatal by the blocking of 

 multiple small vessels (embolism). In support of this 

 hypothesis, it was pointed out that multiple embolism 

 is the cause of Caisson disease. Lord Sydenham ex- 

 pressed the opinion to Major Mott that the explosive 

 force might cause death by the sudden pressure on 

 the thorax and abdomen, arresting the action of the 

 heart and lungs. 



The possibility was also discussed of the production 

 of noxious gases, e.g. CO, which would deoxygenate 

 the blood by combining with the haemoglobin, and 

 thus cause the sudden death of groups of men who 

 have been found in trenches and closed spaces without 

 visible signs of injury and in the last attitude of life. 

 In explanation thereof, he suggested that the muscles 

 of fatigued men suddenly poisoned by inhalation of 

 carbon monoxide in large quantities might pass rapidly 



1 The Lett<;omian Lectures on "The Effects of High Explosives upon 

 the Central Nervous System," delivered before the Medical Society of 

 London by Dr. Fred W. Mott, F.R.S., Major, R.A.M.C. (T.), 4th London 

 General Hospital. Lancet, February 12, 26, March 11, 1916. 



