138 
The officers of the laboratory have carried out 
numerous investigations in connection with animal 
diseases. Much of the research work deals with 
the study of rinderpest, and the results of Dr. 
Lingard and Major Holmes (the present director 
of the laboratory) in this field have found practical 
application in the preparation of rinderpest anti- 
serum. Investigations on surra were commenced 
by Lingard at Poona, and continued by him until 
1907, when he retired from the service. Holmes 
directed his attention to the problem of the treat- 
ment of surra in equines, and a method has been 
discovered which, in his hands, has given 75 per 
cent. of recoveries. The treatment has been suc- 
cessful in animals experimentally inoculated with 
the disease, and also in cases in which the disease 
has been contracted naturally. Various other sub- 
jects have been studied, and the results of the 
investigations have been published in_ scientific 
journals in India and Europe. 
The problem of dealing with infectious diseases 
of animals in India presents many difficulties which 
arise from the somewhat peculiar local conditions. 
Measures of treatment, segregation, and disinfec- 
tion cannot be imposed without the permission of 
each individual owner. Formerly a good deal of 
opposition to serum inoculation for rinderpest was 
encountered, but this has now almost disappeared, 
a result which is largely due to the repeated prac- 
tical demonstrations of the efficacy of serum inocu- 
lation in the control of rinderpest epidemics. In 
dealing with an outbreak of disease it is essential 
that the measures adopted shall be free from all 
danger to the lives of the animals treated, and 
shall in no way interfere with their work. Under 
these conditions serum therapy has proved to be 
the safest and most efficient method of operation. 
Dead vaccines are also used as a_ preventive 
measure in districts where disease is seasonally 
prevalent. Vaccination by- means of living or 
attenuated organisms is not practised, except in 
the case of black quarter. 
A consideration of the subject matter of this 
pamphlet, and a study of the thirty full-page illus- 
trations, shows that a successful attempt has been 
made to deal with a subject of great economic 
importance, viz., the health and well-being of the 
stock of a great agricultural country. The 
rapidity of the progress made, since the establish- 
ment of the laboratory some twenty years ago, 
is remarkable, and especially so when one con- 
siders the nature of the difficulties which have 
been encountered. PEeRCcIVAL HARTLEY. 
PRG tate. SPO VIN DING, Ae Ro Se 
N the evening of Monday, March 30, sur- 
rounded by his family, John Henry Poynt- 
ing passed quietly away. A memorial service was 
held in Birmingham on the Thursday following, 
and was attended by representatives of many 
universities and learned societies, including Sir 
J. J. Thomson, Sir Joseph Larmor, Dr. Glazebrook, 
Sir William Tilden, Prof. W.-M. Hicks, Dr. 
W. N. Shaw, and of course by many colleagues 
NO. 2319, VOL. 93] 
NATURE 
[APRIL 9, 1914 
and councillors of the University in which he 
occupied a chair, as well as by a large number of 
private citizens and friends. For he was a man 
universally beloved. 
He was born on September 9, 1852, at Monton, 
near Manchester, son of the unitarian minister of 
that place. His first education was at home, but 
the years 1867 to 1872 he passed at Owens College, 
Manchester, graduating B.Sc. at the London 
University, and proceeding, in 1872, to Trinity 
College, Cambridge, where he was_ bracketed 
third wrangler in 1876. 
He was then appointed demonstrator at Owens 
College by Balfour Stewart, and began a life-long 
friendship with Sir J. J. Thomson, who was at 
that time a student. In due time Poynting became 
a fellow of Trinity, and in’¥880 was appointed to 
the professorship of physics at Birmingham, 
which he held to the day of his death. 
The four first professors of the Mason College, 
which was opened by Huxley in 1880 (who de- 
livered, on this occasion, a notable address, re- 
printed as the first of his collected essays), were 
Sir Wm. Tilden, Prof-'M. Jo M. ceil, Dr ae 
Bridge, who died a few years ago, and Poynting. 
In this same year Poynting married Miss M. A. 
Cropper, daughter of the Rev. J. Cropper, of 
Stand, near Manchester. In 1887 he received the 
Sc.D. of Cambridge, and in 1888 the fellowship 
of the Royal Society. In 1891 the Adams prize 
was awarded to him, and in 1899 he presided over 
Section A of the British Association at Dover. 
This meeting was memorable for the clear dis- 
covery of the separate existence of electrons, 
which was announced to Section A by Sir J. J. 
Thomson on an occasion when many members of 
the French Association, meeting simultaneously at 
Boulogne, had come over for friendly fraternisa- 
tion. 
In ro905 Poynting became president of the 
Physical Society, and was awarded a Royal medal 
by the Royal Society “for his researches in 
physical science, especially in connection with the 
constant of gravitation and the theories of electro- 
dynamics and radiation.” In this brief summary 
an immense amount of work is referred to. The 
work for which he is locally best known was his 
determination of the Newtonian constant of gravi- 
tation by the very accurate use of an ordinary 
balance with an adjustable mass under one or 
other of the pans—a determination which is popu- 
larly called “weighing the earth.” His account 
of it appears in the Phil. Trans. for 1891. It is 
a classical memoir of its kind, and very instructive 
to the physical student, but the papers on electro- 
dynamics eclipse it in value. These were “com- 
municated ” to the Royal Society in 1884 and 1885 
respectively, their titles being ‘““On the Transfer 
of Energy in the Electromagnetic Field,” and 
“On the Connection between Electric Current and 
the Electric and Magnetic Inductions in the Sur- 
rounding Field.” 
The memoir on the transfer of energy aroused 
universal attention. The paths by which energy 
travels from an electromotive source to various 
~“—- ,. 
