April 30, 1903] 



NA TURE 



61 



T 



POSITIVE SCIENCES AT THE 

 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF HISTORY. 



1 HE name of Rome and the favourable season gave 

 to the congress recently held in the Italian 

 capital an international character, evident, not so much 

 in the numerous concourse of visitors from all parts, 

 as in the nature of the subjects treated, i he congress 

 was interesting, not only with regard to the original 

 communications on historical subjects, but still more 

 so respecting the series of discussions on the necessity 

 of collecting and putting in order the material for 

 study so as to render it easily accessible. Biblio- 

 graphical questions are of greater importance to the 

 historian than to the man of science. The latter, who 

 has at his disposal material in a great measure of recent 

 date and easily accessible, has been able, with greater 

 facility than the historian, to get up good indexes and 

 catalogues ; but the difficulties which stand in the way 

 of those desirous of collecting historical data, and of 

 those who have to put them in order, varying, un- 

 certain, obscure as such data are, scattered here and 

 there in innumerable archives and libraries, are very 

 great indeed. 



All, or nearlv all, the resolutions voted by the con- 

 gress refer persistently to the necessity of the publica- 

 tion of catalogues, bibliographies, of entire bodies of 

 documents of a given kind, of atlases, reproduction^, 

 &c, and, contrary to what is customary amongst 

 Anglo-Saxon peoples who rely more on personal 

 initiative, an appeal is, of course, made to Govern- 

 ments and academical bodies. 



The importance assumed by the eighth section — 

 " History of the Sciences " — is a gratifying fact to the 

 cultivators of positive sciences. At the historical con- 

 gress of Paris in 1900 this section was less attended ; 

 in Rome, on the contrary, the students of the history 

 of the principal sciences were represented, assembled 

 in friendly unanimity for a common object. 



Amongst the mathematicians I may mention 

 Tanner)-, who traced the origin of the terms 

 " analysis " and " synthesis " in mathematics; Loria, 

 who, besides other communications, spoke in favour 

 of the publication of the works of Torricelli ; Vailati, 

 who spoke on the theory of the lever according to 

 Archimedes; Torni-Bazza, who treated of Niccolo 

 Tartaglia and of an ihedited manuscript of Oxford, 

 and others. 



Pirotta gave an account of the science of botany 

 and its bibliography in Rome, Mattirolo spoke on 

 Aldovrandi, Celani and Baldacci presented antique 

 herbaria. 



Camerano narrated the history of the doctrines of 

 Lamarck in Italy at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century. 



Guareschi, with the aid of documents, showed the 

 accusations of plagiarism against Lavoisier, formu- 

 lated originally in England, to be unfounded. 



Sudhoff treated of Paracelsus and his writings ; 

 Blanchard, of the jetons of the members of the medical 

 faculty of Paris; Barduzzi, of the University of Siena 

 and of Andrea Mattioli ; Pensuti, of the hospitals of 

 antiquity. 



Gunther discussed the Jacobsstab (Jacobs 's-staff or 

 cross-staff), an ancient astronomico-geodetic instrument 

 erroneously attributed to Regiomontanus ; Millosevitch 

 showed the necessity of promoting the knowledge of 

 Ginzel's canon of eclipses as a means of ascertaining 

 the dates of the period of classical antiquity. There 

 were communications on the history of the tides 

 (Almazia), on the mariner's compass (Moretti), and on 

 ^■Kmology (Baratto). 



On a motion of Giacosa, a catalogue of the writings 

 on scientific subjects extant in the archives and libraries 



NO. 1748, VOL. 67] 



of the kingdom was voted; the necessity of courses of 

 lectures on the history of the sciences in the universities 

 was discussed, the limits of these courses being then 

 determined, and finally, a permanent international com- 

 mittee was appointed, to which was entrusted the care 

 of the section of the history of the sciences at the 

 future congress of Berlin. 



Positive sciences were likewise dealt with in some 

 other sections. Montelius demonstrated the extension 

 of relations between Italy and Scandinavia, proved by 

 the amber trade up to the Bronze age. The woollen 

 industry, introduced principally from England, and its 

 economic results were discussed (Schulte). An interest- 

 ing communication by Bargagli-Petrucci related the 

 measures taken in Siena in the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth centuries to provide the town with drinking- 

 water, and the deliberations on the subject. 



Modern science with its positivistic ideas has like- 

 wise not been without influence on the history of 

 methodics. Thus, Vailati treated of the applicability 

 of the notions of cause and effect in the domain of 

 historical sciences, whereas Hartmann argued that 

 history must follow evolutionist methods, excluding 

 consciousness as a causal factor. Piero Giacosa. 



JULIUS VICTOR CARLS (1S23-1903). 



TWO generations of zoologists have been familiar 

 with the name of J. V. Carus, who died in Leip- 

 zig on March 10 at the age of fourscore years. His 

 name has come to be associated with zoological scholar- 

 ship, with bibliographical and historical work, with the 

 promulgation of Darwinism, and with the Zoologischer 

 Anzeiger, which he edited for the last quarter of a 

 century. 



Julius Victor Carus was born at Leipzig on August 

 25, 1823; he came of a scientific family, represented 

 by several famous names in the history of science. His 

 father was an illustrious surgeon — for a time professor 

 at Dorpat; his mother was the daughter of a renowned 

 gynaecologist. From 1841 onwards, Carus studied 

 medicine and natural science at the famous university 

 of his birthplace, and in 1846 he became assistant 

 physician at the Georgen-Hospital there. 



But zoology had a stronger hold on him than 

 medicine, and thus we find him pursuing comparative 

 anatomy at Wiirzburg, at Freiburg i. Br., and at 

 Oxford (autumn of 1849). At Oxford he acted as con- 

 servator of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy, and 

 it was there that he perfected his wonderful command 

 of the English language. In 1831 he returned to 

 Leipzig as a docent, and there he remained, as pro- 

 fessor extraordinarius of comparative anatomy, and 

 as director of the zootomical collections, for more than 

 half a century. There was, indeed, a notable break 

 in 1873 and 1874, when he acted as locum tenens in 

 the chair of zoology in Edinburgh for Prof. Wyville 

 Thomson, then absent on the Challenger expedition. 

 In Edinburgh memories still linger of his excellent 

 lectures on comparative anatomy, which seem to have 

 been somewhat in advance of the requirements and 

 desires of the majority of his large constituency of 

 medical students. 



Carus was a man of extraordinary industry, with a 

 high ideal of careful and scholarly workmanship, and 

 instinctively interested in the history of his science. 

 Thus he did more in the way of translation and biblio- 

 graphy, exposition and history than in the way of 

 original research. It will be an evil day for natural 

 science when this type of worker fails to be appreci- 

 ated. 



Among the works of Prof. J. Victor Carus we may 

 note an early paper on alternation of generations 



