APRIL 25, 1907 | 
NATURE 
621 
essential reform within the Board of Education is that 
there shall be such advice given to the Minister of Educa- 
tion as will enable him to grasp the principles of scientific 
education. It is the business of the State to see that the 
code and curriculum of education are arranged on a scien- 
tific and common-sense basis, and this will necessarily 
include the hygiene of common life and instruction in 
temperance. Sir Victor Horsley contended that we shall 
not make any headway unless we have expert advice at 
headquarters. It is clear that the whole system of educa- 
tion requires revision from a medico-scientific standpoint. 
The following resolutions were unanimously adopted :— 
(1) ‘‘ That this conference has heard with great satisfac- 
tion that instruction in hygiene and temperance is system- 
atically given in the elementary schools of the colonies of 
the Empire, and that there is strong evidence of the value 
of this teaching. While cordially acknowledging what has 
been already accomplished in the United Kingdom by 
certain educational bodies, this conference urges upon all 
local authorities the necessity of providing that the teach- 
ing of hygiene and temperance shall form an essential part 
of the whole curriculum of education of all children.” 
(2) “‘ This conference is of opinion that to meet adequately 
the responsibilities of the State towards school children, it 
is essential that a medical department should be instituted 
in the Board of Education.” 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, February 7.—‘‘ On the Combining Proper- 
ties of the Opsonin of an Immune Serum.’’ By Prof. 
Robert Muir and W. B. M. Martin. Communicated by 
Dr. C. J. Martin, F.R.S. 
(1) The thermolabile opsonin of a normal serum and the 
thermostable opsonin of an immune serum are two distinct 
classes of substances. In addition to differing markedly 
as regards their resistance to heat, they differ in their 
combining relationships. 
(2) The thermostable opsonin of the anti-serum investi- 
gated is a true anti-substance, and possesses the compara- 
tively specific characters of anti-substances in general; it 
is left undetermined whether it has the constitution of an 
agglutinin or of an immune body, though certain facts 
point in favour of the former. 
(3) Emulsions of other organisms other than the 
organism used in immunisation (Staphylococcus aureus) 
do not absorb the immune opsonin; on the other hand, they 
absorb large amounts of the normal complement-like 
opsonin. 
(4) Powerful complement-absorbers—red corpuscles or 
bacteria treated with immune body or serum precipitate— 
have no effect on the thermostable immune _ opsonin, 
whereas they remove almost completely the labile opsonin 
of the normal and the immune serum alike. 
Faraday Society, March 19.—Dr. T. Martin Lowry 
in the chair.—The potential of hydrogen liberated from 
metallic surfaces: H. Nutton and H. D. Law. The 
paper is chiefly concerned with the chemical reducing 
power of hydrogen when liberated from the surface of 
various metallic electrodes, and also the retarding action 
caused by the presence of small quantities of metallic 
salts. The metals are arranged in the following order :— 
mercury, lead, cadmium, tin, silver, bismuth, gold, nickel, 
platinum (black), the first-mentioned metal being the most 
capable of bringing about the reduction of a compound 
not readily attacked; platinised platinum, on the other 
hand, possesses this property in the lowest degree. Zinc 
as a reducer behaves in a very irregular manner; both 
copper and platinum (black) show a remarkable activity 
in the reduction of aromatic aldehydes, and iron and 
aluminium are variable. It was hoped by a careful study 
of the electrode potentials that it might be possible to 
differentiate between the purely chemical changes and 
those which were due to physical causes.—Electrode 
potentials in liquid ammonia: N. T. M. Wilsmore and 
F. M. G. Johnson. The measurements of electrode 
potentials in liquid ammonia were undertaken with a 
view to the determination of the free energy of formation 
of a series of metallic salts, and thereby to compare the 
NO. 1956, VOL. 75 | 
relative affinities of the corresponding metallic elements 
under conditions differing as much as possible from those 
obtaining in the case of measurements in aqueous salutions. 
To this end the electrode potentials of the metals against 
solutions of their salts of known strength were measured 
against a standard electrode (cadmium in. a_ saturated 
solution of cadmium nitrate). The results are given in 
the paper in tabular form.—The impedance of solutes in 
solvents as manifested by osmotic pressure: J. G. A. 
Rhodin. The author’s object is to substitute for the 
theory of van ’t Hoff, the main objection to which, in 
his opinion, is the direction of pressure, a theory which 
regards the solyent—and not the solute—as the source of 
the energy manifested in osmotic-pressure experiments.— 
The electrolytic deposition of zinc, using rotating elec- 
trodes, part ii.: Dr. IT. Slater Price. The effect of the 
addition of various electrolytes on the electrolytic deposi- 
tion of zinc, using a rotating kathode and the apparatus 
described in the previous paper, has been investigated. 
In all the experiments the kathode was silvered before 
the zinc was deposited. Excellent results were obtained, 
using 2 grams of sodium sulphate and 1 gram of sodium 
acetate for each gram of crystallised zinc sulphate, the 
addition of free acetic acid being unnecessary. The 
number of revolutions per minute of the kathode was 
600-700, and the time of deposition was fourteen minutes. 
Linnean Society, March 21.—Prof. W. A. Herdman, 
F.R.S., president, in the chair.—The origin of Angio- 
sperms: E. A. Newell Arber and John Parkin. In 
attempting to trace the ancestry of this group, the authors 
commence by a survey of living Angiosperms with a 
view to determine which among them present primitive 
features, and also with the hope of arriving at some 
hypothesis as to the type of fructification possessed by the 
earliest members of the group. They dissent emphatically 
from the view generally held, and especially advocated 
by Engler, that the most primitive Angiosperms to-day 
are those with unisexual flowers, and without perianth, 
e.g. Piperales, Pandanales, &c. This conclusion is 
criticised on the grounds that (1) the perianth must be 
assumed to arise de novo, and to be an organ sui generis ; 
(2) such plants have a sharply defined and highly com- 
plicated inflorescence, which can hardly be regarded as 
primitive; (3) it has so far proved barren from a phylo- 
genetic standpoint. On the contrary, they urge the 
acceptance of a strobiloid theory of the angiospermous 
fructification on the grounds that it is typically and 
primitively a diplosporangiate (hermaphrodite) cone with 
a well-marked perianth, and one in which all the organs 
were originally numerous, spirally arranged, and hypo- 
gynous. It is pointed out that some of these primitive 
features are still retained among members of the Magno- 
liaceze, Ranunculacee, Alismaceze, &c. From such a cone 
the authors would derive by reduction the apetalous, 
unisexual flowers. The flower is recognised as a special 
type of strobilus, to which the name Anthostrobilus is 
given, and of which two forms can be distinguished, the 
one gymnospermic, the other angiospermic. Both, how- 
ever, are essentially of similar construction, especially 
as regards the peculiar juxtaposition of the micro- and 
mega-sporophylls, and the presence of a perianth. The 
view is expressed that the ‘‘ motive force,’’ which called 
the Angiosperms into existence, was a radical change in 
the method of pollination. 
Physical Society, March 22.—Prof. J. Perry, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair.—Experimental mathematics: Mr. 
Pochin. An instrument for describing logarithmic spirals 
was exhibited, and it was shown how the principal proper- 
ties of logarithms and of the equiangular spiral may be 
established as experimental results. A spiral was de- 
scribed with an angle of 45°, and the positions of the 
radius vector, representing the first ten natural numbers, 
were drawn in. Cardboard sectors having been cut to fit 
the various angles, under the successive positions of the 
radius vector, it was shown that these sectors represented 
the logarithms of the numbers. Multiplication and division 
were illustrated by placing the sectors in juxtaposition, so 
that the angles were added or subtracted, the result being 
read off directly from the curve. <A table of natural 
logarithms was also prepared from the spiral, by direct 
