NA TURE 



[December i, 1904 



was present. He showed further that a certain tsetse fly, 

 the Glossiiia palpalis, acted as the carrier of the trypano- 

 some, and obtained evidence showing that the distribution 

 of the disease and of the fly were stritcingly similar. 



Bruce has therefore been instrumental in discovering and 

 establishing the exact nature and cause of three widespread 

 diseases of man and of animals, and in two of these, nagana 

 and Malta fever, he discovered the causal organism. In 

 the third, sleeping sickness, he was not the first to see the 

 organism, but he was quick to grasp and work out the dis- 

 covery, and he made the interesting discovery of the carrier 

 of the pathogenic organism, and thus discovered the mode 

 of infection and of spread of the malady, matters of the 

 highest importance as regards all measures directed to arrest 

 the spreading of the disease. 



All this research work has been done whilst serving in 

 the Royal Army Medical Corps, and engaged in the routine 

 work of the Service. 



Davy Medal. 



The Davy Medal is awarded to Prof. W. H. Perkin, jun., 

 F.R.S., for his masterly and fruitful researches in the domain 

 of synthetic organic chemistry, on which he has been con- 

 tinuously engaged during the past twenty-five years. 



Dr. Perkin 's name is identified with the great advances 

 which have been made during the past quarter of a century 

 in our knowledge of the ring or cyclic compounds of carbon. 

 Thus, in the year 1880, the cyclic carbon compounds known 

 to chemists were chiefly restricted to the unsaturated group- 

 ings of six carbon atoms met with in benzene and its deri- 

 vatives, whilst the number of compounds in which saturated 

 carbon rings had been recognised was very limited, and it 

 was indeed considered very doubtful whether compounds 

 containing carbon rings with more or less than six atoms 

 of carbon were capable of existence. 



The starting point for Dr. Perkin's researches in this 

 field of inquiry was his investigation of the behaviour of the 

 di-halogen derivatives of various organic radicals with the 

 sodium compounds of malonic, aceto-acetic, and benzoyl- 

 acptic esters, which led to the synthesis of the cyclic poly- 

 methylene compounds up to those of hexamethylene, whilst 

 heptamethylene derivatives were obtained by an adaptation 

 of the well known reduction of ketonic bodies leading to 

 pinacones. The reactions thus introduced by Perkin are 

 now classical, having proved themselves of the highest 

 importance for synthetical purposes, and having been in- 

 strumental in stimulating the further investigation of the 

 cyclic compounds of carbon. 



Dr. Perkin also extended the same methods to the syn- 

 thetical formation of carbon rings of the aromatic series, 

 obtaining by means of ingeniously designed reactions deri- 

 vatives of hydrindonaphthene and tetrahydronaphthalene. 



But whilst the above achievements depend mainly on 

 happily conceived and brilliantly executed extensions of the 

 malonic and aceto-acetic ester syntheses, Perkin has, by a 

 remarkable development of the Frankland and Duppa re- 

 action for the synthesis of hydroxyacids, been successful in 

 building up the important camphoronic acid in such a man- 

 ner as to place its constitution beyond doubt (1897). 



Dr. Perkin has further devoted much attention to the im- 

 portant subject of the constitution of camphor, towards the 

 elucidation of which he has contributed valuable experi- 

 mental evidence embodied in a most important and elaborate 

 paper, containing the results of many years' work in con- 

 junction with numerous pupils, entitled " Sulphocamphylic 

 Acid and Isolauronolic Acid, with Remarks on the Con- 

 stitution of Camphor and Some of its Derivatives " (189S). 

 Bearing on the same subject are later communications on 

 camphoric acid and isocamphoronic acid. 



About the year 1900, Perkin, in prosecuting his researches 

 on the constitution of camphor compounds, succeeded in 

 devising synthetical methods for the production of what he 

 has termed " brid(,fcd rings," of which a simple example is 

 furnished by the hydrocarbon dicyclopentane 

 /CH-CH., 



CH. 



/^ 



"^CH— CH„ 



The universal admiration of organic chemists has been 

 called forth by these investigations ; they reveal, indeed, a 

 wonderful capacity for devising reactions which coerce 

 carbon atoms to fall into the desired groupings. 



NO. 183 1. VOL. 71] 



Of other publications displaying not only extraordinary 

 experimental skill but close reasoning and the power of 

 interpreting results, mention may be made of Dr. Perkin's 

 memorable researches on the constitution of dehydracetic 

 acid, berberine, brasilin, and ha;matoxylin respectively. 



During the present year (1904), Dr. Perkin has made 

 perhaps the most remarkable addition to the long list of 

 his achievements by successfully synthesising terpin, inactive 

 terpineol, and dipentene, substances which had previously 

 engaged the attention of some of the greatest masters of 

 organic chemistry. 



In conclusion it may be stated that Prof. Perkin is not 

 only the author of the above and numerous other important 

 researches which are outside the scope of this brief sum- 

 mary, but that he has also created a school of research in 

 organic chemistry, which stands in the very highest rank. 



Darwin Medal. 



The Darwin Medal is awarded to Mr. William Bateson, 

 F.R.S., for his researches on heredity and variation. 



Mr. Bateson began his scientific career as a morphologist, 

 and distinguished himself by researches on the structure 

 and development of Balanoglossus, which have had a far- 

 reaching influence on morphological science, and which 

 established to the satisfaction of most anatomists the affinity 

 of the Enteropneusta to the Chordate phylum. Dissatisfied, 

 however, with the methods of morphological research as a 

 means of advancing the study of evolution, he set himself 

 resolutely to the task of finding a new method of attacking 

 the species problem. Recognising the fact that variation 

 was the basis upon which the theory of evolution rested, he 

 turned his attention to the study of that subject, and entered 

 upon a series of researches which culminated in the publica- 

 tion in 1894 of his well-known work, entitled " Materials 

 for the Study of Variation, &c." This book broke new 

 ground. Not only was it the first systematic work which 

 had been published on variation, and, with the exception of 

 Darwin's " Variation of .Animals and Plants under Domesti- 

 cation," the only extensive work dealing with it ; but it was 

 the first serious attempt to establish the importance of the 

 principle of discontinuity • in variation in its fundamental 

 bearing upon the problem of evolution, a principle which he 

 constantly and successfully urged when the weight of 

 authority was against it. In this work he collected and 

 systematised a great number of examples of discontinuous 

 variation, and by his broad and masterly handling of them 

 he paved the way for those remarkable advances in the study 

 of heredity which have taken place in the last few years, and 

 to which he has himself so largely contributed. He w'as the 

 first in this country to recognise the importance of the work 

 of Mendel, which, published in 1864, and for a long time 

 completely overlooked by naturalists, contained a clue 

 to the labyrinth of facts which had resulted from the 

 labours of his predecessors. He has brought these 

 results prominentlv forward in England in his im- 

 portant reports to the Evolution Committee of the Royal 

 Society, and in papers before the Royal and other societies, 

 and also before horticulturists and breeders of animals. He 

 has gathered about him a distinguished body of workers, 

 and has devoted himself with great energy and with all 

 his available resources to following out lines of work similar 

 to those of Mendel. The result has been the supporting of 

 Mendel's conclusions and the bringing to light of a much 

 wider range of facts in general harmony with them. It is 

 not too much to say that Mr. Bateson has developed a school 

 of research to which many biologists are now looking as 

 the source from which the next great advance in our know- 

 ledge of organic evolution will come. 



Sylvester Medal. 

 The Sylvester Medal is awarded to Georg Cantor, pro 

 fessor in the University of Halle, on account of his re- 

 searches in pure mathematics. His work shows originality 

 of the highest order, and is of the most far-reaching im- 

 portance. He has not only created a new field of mathe- 

 matical investigation, but his ideas, in their application to 

 analysis, and in some measure to geometry, furnish a 

 weapon of the utmost power and precision for dealing with 

 the foundations of mathematics, and for formulating the 

 necessary limitations to which many results of mathematics 

 are subject. 



