i66 



NATURE 



[April 20, 19 16 



June, at 3 o'clock, commencing on April 27, and 

 tickets for Thursdays may now be obtained at the 

 Imperial Institute. 



The annual meeting of the Marine Biological Asso- 

 ciation of the United Kingdom was held in the rooms 

 of the Royal Society on April. 12. Sir E. Ray Lan- 

 kester was re-elected president, and Dr. A. E. Shipley 

 chairman of council. The report of the council showed 

 that a considerable amount of valuable research work 

 was still in progress at the Plymouth Laboratory, not- 

 withstanding the loss of staff and difficulties in collect- 

 ing caused by the war. Experiments on the growth 

 of scales of fishes under difterent temperature condi- 

 tions are being carried on, and the regular study of 

 the nannoplankton is continued. The laboratory con- 

 tinues to be used by a number of voluntary workers 

 in addition to the members of the staff. 



At the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel 

 Institute, to be held on May 4 and 5, the following 

 bye-law will be formally moved and voted upon :■ — 

 " In the event of a state of war existing between the 

 United Kingdom and any other country, or State, 

 all members, honorary members, and honorary vice- 

 presidents who shall be subjects of such enemy 

 country, or State, shall forthwith cease to be mem- 

 bers, honorary members, or honorary vice-presidents 

 of the Institute, but they shall be eligible for re- 

 election after the war in the usual manner." The 

 acting president, Mr. Arthur Cooper, will induct into 

 the chair the president-elect, Sir William Beardmore, 

 Bart., and the Bessemer gold medal for 19 16 will be 

 presented to Mr. F. W. Harbord. 



The death is announced of Mr. W. W. Cook, a 

 biologist attached to the United States Department 

 of Agriculture, and one of the leading American 

 authorities on bird migration and distribution. In 

 his collection of information on this subject he had 

 especially utilised reports sent to him by lighthouse- 

 keepers. 



We regret to announce the death of Colonel A. E. 

 Barker, professor of surgery at University College, 

 London, and one of the most active and successful ol 

 British surgeons. He was in his sixty-sixth year, 

 and died from inflammation of the lungs contracted 

 while on active service abroad on April 8. Born and 

 trained in Dublin, he was appointed assistant-surgeon 

 to University College, London, in 1885, and became 

 professor of surgery eight years later. In more recent 

 years he applied himself with great success to improve 

 the methods of obtaining anaesthesia by spinal injec- 

 tions, and did much to secure a safe means of adminis- 

 tration. He improved the technique employed by sur- 

 geons in many operations, particularly in those in- 

 volving operations on the abdomen and on joints. He 

 was a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Eng- 

 land, and took an active share in the work of his 

 adopted college and hospital. 



The British Medical Journal gives particulars of the 

 career of Sir Thomas B. Crosby, the first doctor of 

 medicine to become Lord Mayor of London, who died 

 at the age of eighty-six, on April 7. Sir Thomas 

 studied at St. Thomas's Hospital, where he filled the 

 appointments of house-surgeon and deinonstrator of 

 anatomy. He became F.R.C.S. Eng. in i860, and two 

 years later M.D. St. Andrews. He was elected Lord 

 Mayor in 191 1, being then in his eighty-second year, 

 and it was noted that he was not only the first doctor 

 of medicine but the oldest citizen to receive that office. 

 He attended, as Lord Mayor, at the funeral of Lord 

 Lister on February 16, 1912, at Westminster Abbey, 

 following the pall-bearers in company with the Lord 



NO. 2425, VOL. 97] 



Provost of Edinburgh. He was at one time president 

 of the Hunterian Society, before which he delivered, 

 in 1871, the annual oration on "Modern Medicine"; 

 he was also a member of the Senate of the University 

 of London. He received several foreign Orders, in- 

 eluding that of the Legion of Honour of France, oi 

 the Crown of Russia, St. Olaf of Norway, Danebrog 

 of Denmark, and the Rising Sun of Japan. 



By the death of M. Leon Labbe, full of honours and 

 of years, France has lost one more of the Old Guard, 

 the physicians and surgeons who were already in 

 practice when Pasteur and Lister were young. It is 

 just forty years since Labb^'s "wonderful case," in 

 1876, of the successful removal of a fork from the 

 stomach of a young man who had been playing tricks 

 with that implement. The case got into the papers; 

 Mr. Andrew Lang, in a delightful article in the Daily 

 News, quoted Horace, "" Naturam expellas furca," and 

 observed that the surgeon, being unable to expel the 

 fork by nature, had to call in the aid of its brother, the 

 knife. But the point of the case is that it advanced 

 the surgery of the stomach, especially the relief oi 

 patients with obstruction of the oesophagus by the 

 introduction of food straight into the stomach through 

 a narrow tube. For half a century Labbe practised 

 and taught surgery in Paris, and his renown was great 

 and well deserved. It was he, also, who in 1914 helped 

 to bring about the law by which the protective treat- 

 ment against typhoid fever is compulsory in the French 

 Army. At the tirne of his death he was working hard 

 in Paris for the French Army Medical Service. Tht 

 honours of his profession came to him : he was presi- 

 dent of the Soci6t6 deChirurgie in 1882; he was a 

 member of the Acad^mie de M^decine, and Com- 

 mander of the Legion of Honour. He was a great 

 French gentleman, handsome in face and in sou), and 

 it seems a pity that he did not live to see France set 

 free, and the dragon under her feet. 



We record with regret the death, at Southsea, or 

 March 30, of Dr. J. T. Leon, from cerebro-spina 

 meningitis, contracted from a military patient undei 

 his care. From an obituary notice in the Lancet \v< 

 learn that Dr. Leon, who was fifty years of age 

 started his scientific career with the intention of bein^, 

 a chemist, and after leaving Clifton went to Germany, 

 Later he entered at Unversity College, London, wher<' 

 he was Tufnell scholar in 1885. Two years afterwar*^' 

 he graduated as B.Sc. Lond., and in 1890 was ■>■■ 

 pointed assistant lecturer on physics and demonstrat 

 of chemistry in St. Mary's Hospital Medical Schd 

 After holding those appointments for three years, h ^ 

 commenced his medical studies at St. Mary's, wherj 

 he had a successful career, graduating as M.B. Lon<^' 

 in 1896, and D.P.H. Camb. in the following ye;: 

 After qualifying he was appointed on plague duty 

 India, where he did useful work in collaboration wi: 

 Prof. Haffkine. He served throughout the Sou' 

 African War, and upon his return settled in practi 

 at Southsea. On the outbreak of the present war 1 

 was mobilised as captain in the Royal Army Medic 

 Corps (T.), and was appointed sanitary speciaii 

 officer for Portsmouth. His duties involved the ul 

 spection of the sanitation of the various camps ij 

 Hampshire, and the carrying out of the bacteriologidij 

 work in connection with the various epidemics thlj 

 arose. He worked assiduously at these posts, anj 

 there is no doubt that his death was due to his unspaj 

 ing devotion to duty. 



The announcement of the death of Mr. J. 

 Collins, F.G.S., on April 12, at the age of seventy-fil 

 will be received with deep and sincere regret byj 

 wide circle of friends, including nearly every perr 

 in Cornwall, where he was such a well-known ati 



