oe 
178 
NATURE 
| DECEMBER 20, 1906 
tumour), injections of trypsin caused shrinkage and | 
degeneration of the tumours,’ a not unlikely event 
considering the active digestive properties of trypsin, 
and his method is stated to have been carried out 
with success in the human subject by Prof. Morton 
in America. 
The full report of the work of Prof. Morton will 
be awaited with interest, but, in the meantime, the 
premature publication of details cannot be too strongly 
condemned. It is well known that trypsin has been 
tried in this country by many without any startling 
success; it is possible that it may be valuable in 
certain localised growths, just as radium and the 
X-rays are in selected cases, but, on the data avail- 
able, to assert that the conquest of cancer is near at 
hand is unreasonable, and does infinite mischief to 
science as well as increasing the suffering of the un- 
fortunate victims of this dire malady by hopes that 
are destined not to be realised. 
With reference to Mr. Beard’s experiments on 
mouse cancer, it is to be noted that this so-called 
experimental cancer is an implantation of the disease 
into an animal, and not a cancerous metamorphosis 
of the animal’s own tissues, a thing very different 
from spontaneous cancer. Chian turpentine, violet 
leaves, Doyen’s serum, and a host of other remedies 
have all at some time or other been vaunted as 
specifics for cancer, but none has stood the test of 
rigorous trial. 
In conclusion, an extract from the Bradshaw lecture 
may be quoted :— 
““ Surgery must not go in advance of facts, or she 
will assuredly be overtaken and tripped up, as she 
has learnt from sad experience. At present it is 
beyond her power to promise to cure cancer, whether 
by a cutting operation, by X-rays, by Finsen’s light, 
or by any drug or nostrum injected into the blood, 
taken internally, or applied locally. Treatment is, 
unfortunately, not the same thing as cure, and the 
most effectual treatment for cancer—no matter how 
small it may be—is still removal by the knife.’ 2 
NUBIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
(Ne important philological discovery is announced 
from Berlin. Profs. Karl Schmidt and H. 
Schafer, who are well known for their work in con- 
nection with Coptic literature and Nubian antiquities 
respectively, have succeeded in making out something 
of the meaning of some religious documents. of the 
eighth century A.D., written in Coptic characters, but 
in the Nubian language. The three Nubian dialects 
of to-day, Kents, Mahass, and Danakil, are not 
written. We have, of course, considerable knowledge 
of the grammar, &c., of these modern dialects, but of 
the earlier history of the language but little is known. 
Hence the interest of Prof. Schmidt’s discovery. If 
the two savants concerned succeed in making out 
more of the language, we may be able to decipher 
some of the few Nubian inscriptions written in Coptic 
characters which still exist. 
In the description of the rock-cut grottoes of Gebel 
Adda, near Abu Simbel, in Murray’s ‘‘ Handbook for 
Egypt’ (1896, p. 977), we find the following pas- 
sage :—‘ On the walls are some Coptic inscriptions, 
and on the S. wall of the adytum is a long text of 
14 lines, in what Lepsius calls ‘Christian Ethiopic,’ 
of which another example exists on a rock (now partly 
broken) at the foot of the cliff on which Qasr Ibrim 
stands. The letters are those of the Coptic alphabet, 
but the language is unknown.’’ This is the kind of 
1 Brit. Med. Journ., 1906, 1, p. 140. 
2 Brit. Med. Journ., 1906, ii., p. 1681. 
NO. 1938, VOL. 75] 
inscription referred to. Such records are very rare, 
and we fear that even when read they will prove to be 
of religious character, and will not throw the ‘ light 
on the history of the earliest Nubian races’? which 
the sanguine Berlin correspondent of the Globe 
(December 11) anticipates. The discovery referred to 
is published in the Abhandlungen of the Royal 
Prussian Academy of Sciences under the title ‘* First 
Fragments of Christian Literature in the Old-Nubian 
Language.”’ 
The Old-Nubian inscriptions of Qasr Ibrim and 
Gebel Adda are not referred to in Prof. Breasted’s 
recently published report on the ‘‘ Temples of Lower 
Nubia”? (Chicago, 1906). We hope they have not 
suffered of late years. With regard to the grottoes of 
Gebel Adda, we note that on p. 18 of his report Prof. 
Breasted claims to have discovered a fact that has 
in reality been known for at least ten years, namely, 
that the ancient Egyptian Viceroy of Nubia, Paser, 
who cut a ‘‘memorial niche’? for himself in this 
rock, lived in the reign of Eye (Ai) as well as in that 
of Harmhab (Horemheb). Prof. Breasted errs in his 
statement that Paser was ‘‘ heretofore [? hitherto: 
heretofore can only refer to matter comprised in Prof. 
Breasted’s previous pages] supposed to have been in 
office only under Harmhab.’’ He will find the fact 
noted in the 1896 edition of Murray’s ‘‘ Egypt,’’ prob- 
ably by that indefatigable collector of Egyptian epi- 
graphic material, Prof. Sayce. 
Murray’s book is especially useful for rock-tombs 
and inscriptions, and has far more detail of sites not 
usually visited by tourists than Baedeker has; but 
Prof. Breasted has religiously followed his German 
guide, and so has fallen into Baedeker’s error of 
calling the temple of Serret el-Gharb, south of Gebel 
Adda, ‘the temple of Aksheh”’ (p. 17). This mis- 
take was pointed out by Prof. Sayce in the ‘‘ Recueil 
de Travaux’ for 1895, but still remains uncorrected. 
Aksheh, Aksha, or Akasheh, is many miles away, 
south of Wadi Halfa; there is a village called Eshka, 
however, not far off, which may be the origin of 
Baedeker’s mistake. 
NOTES. 
Tue following presidents of sections have accepted office 
for the meeting of the British Association to be held at 
Leicester next year :—A (Mathematics and Physics), Prof. 
A. E. H. Love, F.R.S.; B (Chemistry), Prof. A. Smithells, 
F.R.S.; C (Geology), Prof. J. W. Gregory, F.R.S.; 
D (Zoology), Dr. W. E. Hoyle ; E (Geography), Mr. George 
G. Chisholm; F (Economics), Prof. W. J. Ashley; 
G (Engineering), Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F.R.S. ; 
H (Anthropology), Mr. D. G. Hogarth; I (Physiology), 
Dr. A. D. Waller, F.R.S.; K- (Botany), Prof. J. B. 
Farmer, F.R.S.; and L (Educational Science), Sir Philip 
Magnus, M.P. 
Tue Royal Irish Academy held a very successful con- 
versazione in the Academy House on December 4. Their 
Excellencies the Lord Lieutenant (visitor of the academy) 
and the Countess of Aberdeen were present, and a large 
and distinguished company accepted the invitation of the 
president and council. Some of the rare manuscripts in 
the possession of the academy were on exhibition, and 
attracted much attention; and interesting demonstrations 
were given in connection with recent scientific develop- 
ments. There were shown by the fisheries branch of the 
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for 
Ireland a number of important additions to the marine 
fauna of Ireland. Some new scientific instruments were 
