December 18, 1902] 



NA TURE 



J 55 



pathology of inflammation, the nature and mechanism of 

 blood coagulation and the bacteriology of fermentation 

 would alone entitle him to a place among the " Scientific 

 Worthies." A characteristic trait of a great personality 

 must have struck all those who had the privilege of work- 

 ing under Lister ; this was his intense regard for the 

 welfare of his patients. The writer well remembers Lord 

 Lister's distress at some mishap which befell a patient, 

 unforeseen at the time, but which, in the light of after 

 events, might have been preventable. 



Lord Lister's great experience has been called into 

 requisition at least twice in recent years to aid the 

 deliberations of those in whose hands the health of His 

 Majesty the King has been entrusted, once when he was 

 Prince of Wales and secondly in his recent severe illness. 

 Lastly, as chairman of the King's Hospital Fund, he 

 still continues his benefits to humanity. His various con- 

 tributions to science and the honours bestowed upon him 

 have already been detailed in Nature, but it may be 

 mentioned that this year he has been the recipient of the 

 Copley medal of the Royal Society and of the Order of 

 Merit. R. T. Hewlett. 



NOTES. 

 The First Lord of the Treasury has appointed a committee to 

 inquire and report as to the administration by the Meteorological 

 Council of the existing Parliamentary grant, and as to whether 

 any changes in its apportionment are desirable in the 

 interesls of meteorological science, and to make any further 

 recommendations which may occur to them, with a view to in- 

 creasing the utility of that grant. The committee will consist of : — 

 the Right Hon. Sir Herbert E. Maxwell, Bart., M.P., (chair- 

 man), Mr. J. Dewar, M.P., Sir W. de W. Abney, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., Sir F. Hopwood, K.C.B., Board of Trade, Sir T. H. 

 Elliott, K.C.B., Board of Agriculture, Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, 

 F.R.S., Mr. T. L. Heath, Treasury, and Dr. J. Larmor, F.R.S. 

 Mr. G. L. Barstow, of the Treasury, will act as secret ary to the 

 committee. 



Announcement has now been made of the Nobel prize 

 awards this year. The awards include the following for science : — ■ j 

 Medicine, Major Ronald Ross, School of Tropical Medicine, 

 Liverpool ; chemistry, Prof. Emil Fischer, Berlin ; physics, 

 divided between Prof. Lorenz, Leyden, and Prof. Zeeman, 

 Amsterdam. 



Dr. Bordas, assistant-director of the Paris Municipal I 

 Laboratory, has been awarded the Lacaze prize for his inves- 

 tigations in connection with typhoid fever. The prize is I 

 worth 400/. 



Dr. T. K. Rose has been appointed chemist and assayer in 

 the Royal Mint, in succession to the late Sir W. C. Roberts- 

 Austen, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



Dr. Sven .Hedin delivered an address before the Royal 

 Scottish Geographical Society at Edinburgh on Tuesday. Sir 

 John Murray, who presided, announced that the council had 

 awarded Dr. Hedin the Livingstone memorial gold medal for 

 the distinguished services which he had rendered to science by 

 his explorations in Central Asia. . 



We regret to see in the Athenaeum the announcement of the 

 death of Prof. J. Wislicenus, professor of chemistry at 

 Leipzig University. 



Colonel SirT. H. Holdich has been appointed Knight 

 Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for 

 services in connection with the Chile-Argentine Boundary 

 Tribunal. 



no. 1729, VOL. 6;] 



According to the Paris correspondent of the Times, Prof. 

 Lacroix, the head of the French Scientific Mission at Martinique, 

 has reported that owing to the undermining of the point of the 

 cone formed in the crater of Mont Pelee, masses of material 

 have rolled down in the direction of White River, completely 

 choking it. The ashes which filled the lower valley at a distance 

 of six kilometres from the crater had still a temperature of more 

 than 100° C. a week after they had been projected from the 

 volcano. 



We regret to have to announce the death of Dr. Antonio 

 d'Achiardi, of Pisa, in his sixty-fourth year. Dr. d'Achiardi 

 was born and educated at Pisa, and had occupied the chair of 

 mineralogy and geology in the University there since the year 

 1876. He was the author of treatises on both mineralogy and 

 petrology, and published numerous memoirs, many of them rela- 

 tive to the mineralogy of Tuscany. Prof. d'Achiardi was an 

 honorary member of the Mineralogical Society of this country. 



The following announcements of deaths, from yesterday's 

 Times, will be read with regret by many men of science : — Prof. 

 Millardet, professor of botany, first at Nancy and afterwards at 

 Bordeaux, where his researches checked the ravages of the phyl- 

 loxera. — Privy Councillor von Kupffer, professor of anatomy at 

 the University of Munich. — Major Walter Reed, one of the fore- 

 most bacteriologists and pathologists of the United States. During 

 the Spanish war he was a member of the board to investigate 

 typhoid fever in the army. Later, he made several trips to 

 Cuba and was on duty in Havana studying the diseases of the 

 island as a member of the board to investigate the causes of 

 yellow fever. As the result of investigations, the conclusion was 

 arrived at that yellow fever is conveyed by a certain variety of 

 mosquito, which, by its bite, introduces the disease into the 

 blood of non-immunes. Sanitary measures for the destruction 

 of the insect and for the screening of infected persons were at 

 once put into effect in Havana, with the result that for more 

 than a year no case of yellow fever has been developed there. 



The thirtieth annual dinner of the old students of the Royal 

 School of Mines will be held on Tuesday, February 3, 1903, at 

 the Hotel Cecil. The chair will be taken by Mr. A. C. 

 Claudet. Tickets can be obtained from Mr. D. A. Louis, 77 

 Shirland Gardens, London, W. 



The fifth International Congress of Applied Chemistry will 

 he opened in Berlin on May 31, 1903. Prof. Clemens 

 Winkler will be honorary president, and Prof. Otto N. Witt, 

 the president of the German committee, will occupy the chair. 

 Dr. H. T. Biittinger is now actively engaged in securing the 

 cooperation of British men of science. There will be twelve 

 sections in all, at which every branch of pure and applied 

 chemistry will be discussed. 



The annual meeting of the Geographical Association will be 

 held on Friday, January 9, 1903, at 3.30 p.m., in the College 

 of Preceptors, Bloomsbury Square, London, W.C. The presi- 

 dent, Mr. Douglas W. Freshfield, will be in the chair, and will 

 give an address. There will also be an address on the Austral- 

 asian Commonwealth, by Sir John A. Cockburn, K.C.M.G., 

 and an exhibition of maps, views and diagrams by lantern pro- 

 jections,'illustralive of the Ordnance Survey maps, by Mr. A. W. 

 Andrews. 



The success of the general meeting of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, held last April, established most satisfactorily 

 the claim that the interests of useful knowledge in the United 

 States may be greatly promoted by holding an annual general 

 meeting of the Society. It was therefore decided to hold a 

 second meeting, and in accordance with this resolution the meet- 

 ing will take place on April 2 and 3, 1903. A strong and 



