May i6, 1901] 



NA TURE 



55 



On adopting a convention governing signs, couple-moment can 

 be represented, for a normal axis, by an algebraic sum of areas. 

 The application here also of the projection-process is an im- 

 mediate consequence, and it is seen that the values of couple- 

 moment for all parallel axes are equal. The final step in making 

 the transition to the axis vector is the convention according to 

 which areas are represented by lengths properly laid off on their 

 normals. The process of reasoning for moment of momentum 

 is entirely parallel to that outlined for moment of force. And it 

 can be shown (cf. Heaviside, "Electromagnetic Theory," i. p. i8l) 

 to cover the cases of angular velocity and acceleration. For the 

 representation of an area by a length of its normal is the basis 

 of the idea in the vector product of two vectors. The argu- 

 ment of the present instance forms a good elementary introduc- 

 tion to that conception. F. Slate. 

 University of California, April 24. 



The New Comet. 



Although others besides myself have probably noticed the 

 remarkable inconsistencies in the published reports of the new 

 comet, it seems worth while to draw attention to them. Its 

 reported position for April 25, May 2 and May 4 are based on 

 telegrams from the Cape and Peru, and there seems no reason 

 to doubt their correctness. If, however, they are accurate, the 

 comet could not have been seen in England in the morning, as 

 at no time did it rise till after the sun. Vet Mr. Chambers saw- 

 it at Eastbourne at 3.5 a.m. on the 2nd, and a correspondent in 

 the Daily News says it was fifteen degrees above the southern 

 horizon at 3.30 a.m. on the 7th. E. C. Willis. 



Southwell Lodge, Ipswich Road, Norwich, May 13. 



Blood-Rain. 



I\ view of the recent letters in Nature regarding the fall of 

 red rain in Italy, the following extract from Roger of Wend- 

 over's Chronicles of the year 1223 may possibly be of interest : — 

 " In the same year it rained blood-coloured earth at Rome for 

 three days, to the great wonder of numbers of people (vol ii. 

 p. 444 of Bohn's edition of Wendover's " Flowers of History.") 

 It is rather curious that so miserably superstitious a gobemoiiche 

 as Wendover should have described the phenomenon so 

 accurately instead of calling it a rain of blood. 



Polperro, Cornwall. F. H. Perry-Coste. 



THE ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY AND 

 LORD LISTER. 



THE Anti-\'ivisection Society held its annual meeting 

 last week in St. James's Hall. We know these 

 annual meetings ; they are accompanied by an annual 

 crop of distortions of scientific work and an annual volley 

 of scurrilous charges against scientific workers and 

 philanthropic administrators. Beforehand, all the per- 

 severance of the accomplished party "whip" is drawn 

 upon to get these meetings together, and afterwards all 

 the ingenuity of the unscrupulous pamphleteer to boom 

 in the Press what has taken place at them. The usual 

 copies of certain daily papers marked in blue pencil 

 under the name of Mr. Stephen Coleridge are sent out 

 broadcast, reporting in detail the sentiments of the 

 audience and the horrors of so-called vivisectors. Were 

 this all it might well be passed over in contemptuous 

 silence, but this year it pleased the meeting to impugn 

 the philanthropic impartiality of one whom all the 

 scientific, and indeed cultured, world delights to honour. 

 Mr. Coleridge gravely informed his audience, after 

 having discoursed inaccurately on Lord Lister's scientific 

 «ork, that this man of science was the intimate friend 

 of fifty-eight licensed vivisectors, presumably because he 

 had signed a certificate exemptmg them from the use of 

 anaesthetics in their scientific experiments. These cer- 

 tificates were signed by Lord Lister in his capacity as 

 president of the Royal Society, and the probability is 

 that personally he was not acquainted with half-a-dozen 

 of the licensees. Mr. Coleridge carefully avoided telling 

 his audience that the vast majority of these "horrid 

 vivisections," in which the use of an;esthetics was dis- 

 pensed with, were simply inoculations, or, in other 



NO. 1646. VOL. 64 I 



words, mere pin-pricks ; also that by the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Animals Act only very few persons of high 

 scientific standing and training can sign these certificates, 

 and that the president of the Royal Society is one. 



Mr. Coleridge next turned his attention to scurrilous 

 charges against Lord Lister, in particular, as chairman, 

 and the committee, in general, of the Prince of Wales's 

 Hospital Fund. He impugned the integrity of these 

 gentlemen in that he stated they had given larger grants 

 per bed to those hospitals which either had licensed labora- 

 tories attached to their medical schools, or had upon their 

 staffs physicians and surgeons who were actually vivi- 

 secting, or had at some past time done so, than to those 

 hospitals which had no connection either direct or remote 

 with vivisectors. Further, that the Hospital Fund 

 Committee had done this with the express object of 

 encouraging so-called vivisection. Mr. Coleridge de- 

 duced the necessary corollary from this assertion, and 

 stated point-blank that the Prince of V^'ales's Hospital 

 Fund had simply been used to endow vivisection on a 

 huge scale. 



If we examine the facts we shall find that any hospital 

 in London of any eminence whatever and performing 

 philanthropic work of any magnitude, has upon its staff 

 physicians and surgeons who have at one time or another 

 experimented on animals. The small hospitals received 

 small grants because their need was relatively small, 

 and the large hospitals large grants because their need 

 was relatively large, not because the former were un- 

 connected and the latter connected with so-called vivi- 

 sectors. Mr. Coleridge did not include in his speech 

 the fact that he himself had endeavoured to strike a 

 bargain with a London hospital, promising this insti- 

 tution the pecuniary support of the .\nti-Vivisection 

 Society if it would exclude from its start all those whose 

 medical knowledge had been derived from experiments 

 upon living animals. The reply of this institution is 

 worthy of record : it refused to allow any other con- 

 siderations than those of medical or surgical efficiency 

 to guide it in the choice of its otiicers. 



This point has just now a very special interest, in that 

 we believe that vivisection is to be made a party cry in 

 the case of contributions to the Hospital Sunday Fund. 

 Contributors are to be asked by the Anti-\'ivisection 

 Society when giving their contributions to demand that 

 they shall only be devoted to hospitals having no connec- 

 tion with vivisectors or vivisection. So valuable have 

 the results of experiments upon animals been to medical 

 science that scarcely a hospital can be found independent 

 of medical men who have derived their knowledge from 

 them ; .and the Anti-\'ivisection Society, with all its 

 ingenuity and perseverance, cannot find amongst the 

 ranks of its supporters a single medical inan or indeed 

 biologist of eminence. It is earnestly to be hoped that 

 this fact will have its full weight with all contributors to 

 hospitals, and that they will give their donations as they 

 have done before, resting assured that their money will 

 be duly apportioned by competent philanthropists accus- 

 tomed to weighing justly the relative claims of charitable 

 institutions, and not easily influenced by the clamourings, 

 however loud, of ignorant partisans. 



THE ARMY EDUCATION COMMITTEE. 

 \X/E are glad to learn that Sir Michael Foster has 

 • ' been added to the committee appointed to con- 

 sider the present methods of selecting and training officers 

 for the various branches of the Army. As stated in our 

 number of May 2 (p. 23), this committee, as originally 

 constituted, consisted of Colonel jelf, Lieut. -Colonel 

 Hammersley and Captain Lee, together with the Head 

 Master of Eton, the High Master of St. Paul's, and 

 the Right Hon. A. Akers-Douglas chairman) and 

 Captain Cairnes (secretary). Sucli a change as that 



