March 9, 1905] 



NA TURE 



441 



SOME SCIENTIFIC CENTRES. 

 VII. — The Physiological Research Laboratory of 



THE University of London. 

 ^T^HE seat of the LIniversity of London was trans- 

 ^ ferred to the Imperial Institute in igoo, and in 

 (he same year the University received a new constitu- 

 tion, and commenced its career as a teaching 

 university. In May, 1902, a laboratory devoted to 

 researcli physiology was housed within the same 

 Imperial building-, and the secretariat of the University 

 of London was for the first time brought into contact 

 with one of the sources of knowledge, which it 

 had been newly arranged not only to control but 

 also to foster. 



The laboratory occupies the upper floor of the 

 eastern wing of the Imperial Institute, and has already 

 been described in the pages of this Journal (Nature, 

 vol. Ixvii., pp. 441, 442). It covers a space of about 

 3000 square feet. 



There are special rooms for experimental psychology, 

 experimental physiology, electrical and chemical work, 

 a lecture theatre fitted up for the delivery of the special 

 courses of lectures in advanced 

 physiology, and a departmental 

 library. The work carried on has 

 been of the double character 

 indicated in the scheme originally 

 adopted by the L'niversity Senate. 

 In the first place courses of lec- 

 tures have been»given by a large 

 number of the physiologists who 

 form the professorial staff of the 

 LTniversity in this subject. It 

 should not be forgotten that this 

 cooperation has been obtained 

 without an offer of the mosi 

 trifling award. The professorial 

 staff, by this free gift of its labour, 

 has once more shown its loyaltv 

 to interests which are really 

 wider than the interests of anv 

 local scheme, but which, never- 

 theless, are well expressed as the 

 interests of the LTniversity of 

 London. 



."Ml these lectures, as wa>. 

 originally intended, have been of a 

 peculiarly living type — lectures 

 delivered upon subjects on which 



each lecturer was actually en- ..0.1.— 



gaged in research at the time. 



.'\fter submission to referees, they arc published for 

 the University by Messrs. Murray ; a volume entitled 

 " Signs of Life," by Dr. Waller, and another on the 

 " Biochemistry of Muscle and Nerve," by Prof. 

 Halliburton, have already appeared, and a volume on 

 the Blood, by Dr. Buckmaster, is in the press. 



In the second place, room and facilities are afforded 

 to workers in the prosecution of research whether for 

 their doctoral theses or for other purposes. The re- 

 searches carried on since May, 1902, have resulted 

 in thirty published papers; among them, and specially 

 noteworthy as regards their immediate practical 

 bearing, are the contributions of Captain Leonard 

 Rogers, I. M.S., to our knowledge of the physio- 

 logical action of the poison of the Hvdrophidse and 

 the physiological action and antidotes of colubrine 

 and viperine snake poisons; of Waller and Plimmer 

 on the physiological action of a ptomaine extracted 

 from commercial beet sugar ; and of \\'aller on the 

 quantitative estimation and graduated administration 

 of chloroform. In physiological psychology, work is 

 continuously carried on by Miss Edgell, who has pub- 

 lished a paper on time judgment, and whose work on 



NO. 1845, VOL. 71] 



memory and grasp of the meaning of words is opening 

 out a most important subject. 



The output of work from most laboratories bears 

 the stamp of the Director, for in his hands mainly 

 lies the attraction of workers, and their useful em- 

 ployment in the earlier stages of their career. It is 

 his constant patient interest in the problems under 

 investigation in the laboratory which largely 

 determines their direction, and serves to weld them 

 into a solid phalanx of advancing facts. An examin- 

 ation of the list of papers shows the presence of such 

 an influence here, an influence which has already 

 started several workers upon paths of independent 

 inquiry. .•\cknowledgments of this fact may, for 

 instance, be found in the papers of Drs. Alcock, 

 Collingwood, Legge Symes, Wells, from all of whom 

 valuable contributions have come. Dr. Alcock has 

 carried out several excellent researches upon the 

 electrical response of mammalian medullated and 

 non-meduUated nerve. Boldly selecting material 

 offering, as it was thought, almost insuperable 

 difficulties, he has been able to make many observ- 

 ations of value, and in doing so has also extended 



Laljoratory. 



the general field of inquiry. Dr. Collingwood has de- 

 signed an apparatus for the exact dosage of chloro- 

 form, and elaborated a method for the estimation of 

 percentage of chloroform vapour in expired air. Mr. 

 Legge Symes has published work on the respiratory 

 quotient, estimation of chlorides in blood, and is carry- 

 ing on work on the phvsiological action of chloroform 

 and betaine. Mrs. Waller has continued the work 

 upon the distribution and meaning of " blaze 

 currents." 



That the manv-sided industries of this laboratory 

 are by no means completely stated in the last para- 

 graph is at once seen from the fact that its walls 

 have also looked out upon the work of several 

 investigators who have obviously been attracted by 

 its conveniences and equipment alone. It is 

 sufficient to mention the names of Drs. Brodie, Buck- 

 master, Goodall, Locke, Macdonald, Mummery, See- 

 mann. Dr. Pavy is engaged in work on the meta- 

 bolism of the carbohydrates, and will give a course 

 of three lectures in the summer on the results of his 

 investigations. Dr. George Oliver is now working 

 in the laboratory on the effects of various organic pro- 



