IO 



NA TV RE 



[November 6, 1902 



in refusing to undertake it. They have accordingly com- 

 menced operations, and it is hoped that the copy may be 

 produced ready for the press in about five years. Owing 

 to the enormous increase in the number of scientific 

 publications at the close of the last century, it is estimated 

 that to complete the Catalogue and to subsidise a 

 publisher for undertaking the printing and publication, 

 he retaining the proceeds of the sale, will cost at least 

 12,000/. 



The question now arises whether the funds of the 

 Royal Society ought to continue to be burdened with any 

 part of this expense. The activity and responsibilities 

 of the Society have greatly increased in recent years, 

 and it is much straitened by its inability to increase its 

 expenditure, either on its own establishment or in other 

 directions, owing to the incessant demands of the Cata- 

 logue. The Council consider that the time has now 

 come for them to appeal to those who are in a position 

 to afford substantial financial assistance, to enable them 

 to complete this great undertaking without devoting any 

 part of their funds, so sorely needed for other purposes, 

 to this object. They are thankful to be able to announce 

 that Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S., has been so impressed 

 with the importance of the Catalogue, with the necessity 

 for producing the subject index of the scientific literature 

 of the past century so far as possible in the same com- 

 plete form as that adopted by the International Council 

 for the literature of the present century, and with the 

 justice of the view that the Royal Society ought for the 

 future to be relieved of the cost of producing the Cata- 

 logue, that he has most generously added to his previous 

 gift of 2000/. the munificent donation of 6000/., payable 

 in four annual instalments of 1500/. 



The President and Council have also much pleasure in 

 stating that Mr. Andrew Carnegie, fully appreciating the 

 value of the Society's undertaking and the claims that it 

 has on the liberality of those who, though not Fellows of 

 the Society, are interested in the promotion of natural 

 knowledge, has contributed the handsome sum of 1000/. 

 towards its accomplishment. They venture to hope that 

 others may be willing to contribute towards a fund to 

 provide for the total cost of this national work. 



November, 1902. 



THE BERLIN TUBERCULOSIS CONGRESS. 



THE Congress on Tuberculosis, which has recently 

 concluded its sittings in Berlin, was instituted 

 under the auspices of the Central International Organ- 

 isation for the Prevention of Consumption, which is 

 itself an outcome of the international congresses which 

 have met during recent years in Paris, Berlin, Naples 

 and London. An international association of this kind 

 is to some extent a new departure and is not without 

 political significance ; its analogue may be found in the 

 international systems at present existing for meteor- 

 ological observations. Heretofore international co- 

 operation against disease has been confined to sudden 

 outbreaks of the more virulent epidemic maladies. It 

 must be the sincere hope of every philanthropist that 

 the result of this organisation may be the complete 

 annihilation of one of the most potent and widespread 

 causes of disease in existence. 



The dissemination of tuberculosis was naturally one of 

 the subjects which engaged the attention of the Congress. 

 It is now recognised that tuberculosis is an infectious 

 disease, and therefore that it is preventable. One of the 

 chief sources of infection is the sputa of consumptive 

 patients. In this connection much has been done 

 recently to check the habit of indiscriminate spitting in 

 public places. At the present time in Glasgow, Man- 

 chester, Liverpool and some other towns, it is a penal 



NO. 1723, VOL. 67] 



offence to spit on the corporation tramcars, and the 

 Glamorganshire County Council has made a bye-law to 

 the effect that spitting on the floor of public carriages, 

 churches or other public buildings is punishable by a 

 fine not exceeding 5/. 



Another point of interest brought to light by the Con- 

 gress was the growth during recent years of provision for 

 consumptive patients in sanatoria. This has occurred 

 through new hospitals being built and old ones being 

 enlarged. As a marked instance of the latter, the 

 Mount Vernon Hospital at Hampstead may be quoted. 

 Four years ago there was accommodation at this hospital 

 for fifty patients ; when the present building operations 

 are complete there will be accommodation for two 

 hundred and fifty. At the present time in the United 

 Kingdom there are, however, only about 1000 beds for 

 poor patients and about 1200 for paying patients. 



The question of the compulsory notification of tuber- 

 culosis and the disinfection by the municipal authorities 

 after deaths from tubercular disease was also discussed. 

 The opinion seemed generally in favour of compulsory 

 notification, which already exists in Norway. An in- 

 teresting paper was read on the subject of dispensaries 

 for consumptives, which have been founded in Belgium. 

 They are supported by private societies with the aid of 

 town councils. The patients receive food, coal, clothes, 

 bedding, antiseptics, lodging disinfection every three 

 months, and family washing every week. 



Perhaps the most interesting item in the proceed- 

 ings of the Congress was Prof. Koch's address upon the 

 transmission of bovine tuberculosis to man. This 

 authority maintains the thesis he enunciated in London 

 last year, that the meat and milk of tuberculous cattle 

 are very rarely, if ever, the sources of tuberculous in- 

 fection to the human subject. In this connection Prof. 

 Koch laid special emphasis on the fact that though for 

 more than a year past he had received official reports of 

 all tuberculous cases coming under the notice of the 

 German hospitals and the professors of pathology at 

 Geiman universities, no undoubted case of primary 

 tuberculous infection of the intestines had occurred. He 

 also drew attention to the fact that most drastic measures 

 would be required if the meat and milk of tuberculous 

 cattle were condemned as food, and that such an action 

 would cause a great increase in the price of these foods, 

 which would be to the detriment of the community. 



F. W. T. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AND GOVERNMENT IN 

 THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE. 1 



IF the population of British East Africa, or even of the 

 Uganda Protectorate only, can furnish as many 

 anthropological problems as that of the little corner of the 

 country between the north-eastern horn of Lake Victoria 

 Nyanza and Mount Elgon, it is quite time that a scientific 

 collection of the facts were commenced. Mr. Hobley's 

 •'Ethnological Survey" deals only with a district about 

 120 miles long by 60 or 70 miles wide. He enumerates 

 within this area four distinct races, or at least peoples of 

 four stocks, beside a number of miscellaneous tribes whose 

 racial connections are at present unknown. It is obvious 

 that with such a wealth of material a work of 95 imperial 

 octavo pages must simply be of a preliminary character. 

 The only stocks with which the author attempts to 

 deal in detail are the Bantu Kavirondo, interesting as 

 being " practically the most northerly representatives of 

 the Bantu race," the Ja-luo, a Nilotic people, and the 

 Nandi and allied tribes, conjectured to be a mixture of 



1 " Eastern Uganda : an Ethnological Survey." By C. W. Hobley, Assoc. 

 M.Inst.C.E., Sub-commissioner Uganda Protectorate. Occasional Papers, 

 No. 1. (Published by the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, roo2.) Price 10s. 



