April 20, 19 16] 



NATURE 



101 



ef the Royal Physical Society. As an account of the 

 observations and experiments, which were numerous 

 and detailed, will appear in the next part of the Proc. 

 Roy. Physical Soc, an indication of their bearing is 

 all that is necessary for the present. 



(i) As regards Nosema apis, the authors have been 

 "unable to recognise any causal relation between the 

 presence of this parasite and the disease." Health}- 

 stocks with no signs of disease have been found to be 

 heavily infected by the protozoon, and that over 

 prolonged periods. Numerous stocks have exhibited 

 unmistakable symptoms of Isle of Wight disease, and 

 yet no trace of Nosema has been found in them. This 

 was markedly the case in the Deeside outbreak. 

 Lastly, deliberate infection of a stock with Nosema 

 did not produce the recognised symptoms of the 

 disease. " Nosema may be a contributing weakening 

 iactor, favouring in certain cases the development of 

 |;his disease, but we have not found that it is- an 

 j?ssential factor." 



' (2) As regards the infectiousness of Isle of Wight 

 disease : If it be allowed that Nosema, with its readily 

 ransported spores, is not the prime cause of the 

 disease, the supporting evidence of infectivity is 

 veakened, and the direct evidences must be examined 

 jnore critically. The authors have watched in detail 

 ihe natural course of Isle of Wight disease in three 

 independent localities, and have followed the history of 

 intainted swarms placed in contaminated hives and 

 led on contaminated honey. They have found 

 10 indubitable evidence of the infectiousness of 

 he disease, although the indications seem to be that 

 ; is "probably infectious"; but in any case they are 

 Issured that it is " not necessarilj' conveyed by mere 

 jontact with contaminated hives or combs, or by feed- 

 iig upon contaminated stores." 



j It is a point of some interest and importance that, 

 n account of the unsatisfactory nature of experiments 

 n a small scale in artificial conditions, the above 

 i'sults are based on observations and experiments 

 ~n hive bees living in natural conditions. 



James Ritchie, 

 (Hon. Secretar)-, Royal Physical Societv'). 

 Edinburgh. 



Regardi.ng Dr. J. Ritchie's communication, it would 



I em well to await the published paper of Messrs. 



jaderson and Rennie before making detailed remarks. 



ISO, as Dr. Ritchie is not the direct author of the 



jiper, it is inadvisable to bring in a third party. 



•^•ever, it is most surprising, to say the least, to 



1 that " Isle of Wight " bee disease is not con- 



.-red to be infectious. How, then, has the disease 



iread all over Great Britain and most of Ireland 

 ring the last ten years ? The statement of the non- 

 fectivity of the disease is emphatically inaccurate. 

 '. Ritchie writes of the "unmistakable symptoms" 

 j the disease. But, what are the characteristic 

 ^TJptoms? The investigators working under the 

 liard of Agriculture, in their reports of 1912 and 1913, 

 pwed conclusively that there were no well-marked 

 aferential symptoms of " Isle of Wight " bee disease. 

 J's J^as also pointed out in my article in N.ature, 

 ad the reason for this is obvious', namelv, the limited 

 Ijige of expression of the bee, as was also mentioned 

 '^■"y article. Of the workers contributing to the reports 

 Pthe Board of Agriculture, two were bacteriologists, 

 tlo were protozoologists, and one was an expert bee- 

 Iqiper. Many field experiments as to the pathogenicity- 

 oUNoscnja apis were conducted, and the investigators 

 Jjre unanimously of the opinion that " Isle of Wi^ht " 

 t)l disease is microsporidiosis. Apparently Dr. Ritchie 

 ?P J^*^^s. Anderson and Rennie have quite over- 

 med the importance of parasite carriers, a subject 

 NO. 2425, VOL. 97] 



which was carefully pointed out in my article and in 

 the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, Supplements 

 Nos. 8 and 10. Healthy carriers of most parasitic 

 diseases are known. 



As to "drastic recommendations," the simple 

 elements of sanitation only were suggested, about 

 which there can be no dispute. The destruction of 

 hives was not suggested in my article. Regarding 

 the experiments of Mr. J. Anderson and Dr. J. Rennie, 

 there is no statement in the above letter as to what 

 stages of Nosetna apis were used by them. 



These remarks must suffice for the present. My 

 article was written after ten years' personal investiga- 

 tion of "Isle of Wight" bee disease, in nearly every 

 part of Great Britain. Judging from Dr. Ritchie's 

 letter, the paper of Messrs. Anderson and Rennie 

 appears to contain little but negation. F. 



Preventive Eugenics. 



The writer of the valuable article in N.xture of 

 April 6, on the report of the Royal Commission on 

 Venereal Diseases, has given it the title of "' Preven- 

 tive Eugenics," a term for which I am responsible, 

 defining it as " the protection of parenthood from the 

 racial poisons," by which latter I mean all such 

 agents as, injuring the individual, injure also the next 

 generation through him, or her, as parent. 



Syphilis is, of course, an example of a racial poison, 

 and your writer's protest against the term "hereditary 

 S3^philis " is most welcome to one who has made such 

 protests for many years. As Dr. J. W. Ballantyne 

 has said, the term is "an insult to heredity." It 

 indicates the persistent medical and popular blindness 

 to the ante-natal stage of human life. All syphilis is 

 acquired syphilis, an infection of which the date may 

 be ante-natal, when we inexcusably call it " here- 

 ditary," or post-natal, when we call it acquired, the 

 fact being too obvious for even the "idols of the 

 forum " to obscure. The Commissioners should have 

 condemned the false term, and used " ante-natal 

 syphilis " instead. 



The point is not only academic. Eugenists who 

 have had no medical, much less obstetrical, experience, 

 unaware of the fallacy involved, have assumed much 

 infant mortality to be due to bad heredity, and thus 

 to be an instance of natural selection, when, in fact, 

 ante-natally acquired infection of syphilis was respon- 

 sible. This grave error is involved in the biometrical 

 publications on infant mortality throughout, and has 

 long discouraged the efforts now being made, at last, 

 to save the infants who are our national future. 



C. W. Saleeby. 



Royal Institution, W.. April 8. 



Atmospheric Electricity. 



It would be interesting to know if any reader of 

 Nature has made observations similar to those made 

 here on the afternoon of April 14. 



A large thundercloud was just passing off in the 

 east without having produced any obvious thunder- 

 j storm phenomena. The sky overhead was occupied bv 

 \ cirrus, while a second thundercloud was coming up 

 I in the west. It was found that sparks, one of them 

 j certainly reaching 2 or 3 mm. length, could be drawn 

 j from the metal of a Besson comb nephoscope, sup- 

 ! ported on a wooden stand, with the comb at a height 

 of 3 J metres above an asphalt roof (itself 12 metres 

 above ground), on which obser\'er and nephoscope 

 stood. The leaden roof of a w-ooden cistern casing 

 yielded similar results, but the most surprising ob- 

 servation was that a Campbell-Stokes sunshine re- 

 I corder, bolted and cemented to a concrete parapet 

 I extending about a metre above the asphalt, also gave 



