May 30, 1 901] 



NA TURE 



Vol. ii. contains the articles on meteorology, photo- 

 graphy, geology, natural history, anthropology, medical 

 hints, &c. Of these, the sections on meteorology and 

 medical items have been entirely re-written and consider- 

 ably enlarged ; the others all revised and brought up to 

 date. 



This work has already gained its reputation as a most 

 serviceable and complete guide for almost all classes of 

 travellers, and in its present elaborated form cannot fail to 

 give additional satisfaction. 



L'Optique des Rayons de Rontgen el des Rayons secondaires 

 que en d^rivent. Par G. Sagnac. Pp. 166. (Paris : 

 Gauthier-Villars, igoo.) 

 This book gives a useful account of some of the proper- 

 ties of the Rontgen rays. The earlier chapters deal with 

 the properties of the primary rays as they issue from the 

 vacuum tube. A valuable feature is the e.\planation given 

 of the cause of certain spurious effects which have been 

 put forward as proving diffraction of the rays. 



The second and larger part of the book deals with the 

 secondary rays which issue from heavy metals when the 

 primary rays from the tube falls on them. M. .Sagnac 

 makes it clear that this phenomenon is not properly to be 

 described as a " surface effect." He shows that an 

 element of volume of a heavy metal traversed by the rays 

 gives out secondary radiation equally in all directions. 

 The sudden change of conditions at the surface of the 

 metal is not what is primarily concerned. The heavy 

 metals absorb the primary rays so powerfully, however, 

 that they can only penetrate to a small depth, conse- 

 quently the secondary radiation does, in fact, come 

 principally from near the neighbourhood of the surface. 

 Many other original observations are described, but 

 though of considerable interest they seem to leave the 

 question of what causes the secondary radiation, and 

 why only heavy metals emit it, almost as far from solution 

 as ever. R. J- S. 



Cerebral Science. Studies in Anatomical Psychology. 

 By Wallace Wood, M.D., Professor of History of Art 

 in the New York University. Pp. xii-f 1 28. (London : 

 Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 1901.) 

 The subordinate title of this book alone renders it 

 impossible for us to take it seriously, despite the fact of 

 its being dedicated to the memory of Taine and Broca. 

 The book abounds in platitudes, ejaculations and short 

 dictatorial declarations, with here and there an allusion 

 to the historic, poetic and classic ; but all without plan or 

 logical sequence of ideas. The '' creation of the human 

 head — the study of the human brain," is defined as "the 

 new science for the opening century," and " character- 

 ology " is regarded as the great field through which, by 

 the study of man and the lower animals, there is to be 

 reached the classification of souls. Of these our author 

 would distinguish five classes, and when it is seen that he 

 would locate the " strong " soul in the " parietal regions," 

 the " good " in the " metopic chambers " and the " beau- 

 tiful" in those of the "summit," we deem further comment 

 needless, except to remark that the author is indeed 

 amusing. 



The Humane Review. Vol. i. April, 1900, to January 



1901. Pp. 3S4. (London : Ernest Bell, 1901.) 

 With a few of the contributions to this volume, men of 

 science and other observers of nature will find themselves 

 in sympathy. Mr. W. H. Hudson pleads for the preser- 

 vation of the furze wren or Dartford warbler, and other rare 

 birds, and criticises the feather fashion ; Prof J. Howard 

 Moore writes on the psychical kinship of man and the 

 other animals ; Mr. H. R. Fox Bourne states the claims 

 of uncivilised races ; I\L Elisee Reclus champions vege- 

 tarianism ; and Mr. Bernard Shaw makes amusing and 

 characteristic remarks upon the alleged conflict between 

 science and common sense. 



NO. 1648, VOL. 64] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsilde for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to cot respond with the writers of, rejeciel 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NatIJRE. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.'i 



The National Anti-Vivisection Society and Lord Lister. 



I HAVE read your attack upon me in your issue of May 16. 



In your comments on the anti-vivisection meeting at St. 

 fames's Hall you say that I " discoursed inaccurately on Lord 

 "Lister's scientific work." I did nothing of the kind, I never 

 made any allusions whatever to his scientific work. You next say 

 with respect to the fifty-eight vivisectors for whom Lord Lister 

 signed certificates exempting them from the use of anaesthetics 

 that "the probability is that personally he was not .acquainted 

 with half-a-dozen of the licensees." This is to bring a graver 

 charge against Lord Lister than anybody has yet formulated, 

 for the signature of Lord Lister is the evidence offered the 

 public in the parliamentary report that the vivisectors in 

 quesdon are individually known to Lord Lister to be persons 

 who will not inflict needless cruelties upon animals. I pre- 

 ferred to assume that they were all his intimate friends than 

 to suppose that he had signed such certificates merely because 

 he was asked to do so. 



You are quite right in saying that I did not tell the audience 

 that the vast majority of experiments under these certificates are 

 mere " pin pricks." If I had done so I should have been mis- 

 leading it. Inoculations may begin with a pin prick, but they 

 commonly involve much subsequent suffering. 



You next complain of my statement that " the more hospitals 

 connected themselves with vivisection the larger was the grant 

 per bed they might expect to receive from the Prince of Wales's 

 Fund." It is simply waste of time to abuse me for making that 

 statement till you can disprove it. I have given the figures and 

 you will find them in the audited accounts of the hospitals. 



Your account of what passed between my Society and the 

 Poplar Hospital is inaccurate, and " the reply of this institution " 

 cited by you is not to be found in the correspondence which has 

 been published and which you should have read before affecting 

 to quote from it. 



Lastly, what we have suggested to the heads of the religious 

 bodies in the matter of Hospital Sunday is, that if the offertories 

 are to be handed into the general funds of hospitals from 

 which same general funds schools licensed for vivisection are 

 subsidised, the congregations should be informed from the 

 pulpits that their money is not exclusively intended for the 

 tending of the sick, but will in part be diverted to the education 

 of medical students and to the support of vivisectional 

 laboratories. 



May I ask what is your objection to such a course being 

 pursued ? 



I do not mind your attacking me in your paper personally by 

 name— I have entered this controversy intending to give and 

 expecting to receive good blows — but I have myself been 

 scrupulous to make no statement that is not supported by 

 unimpeachable authority, and I have a right to expect that 

 a responsible paper such as yours should exercise a similar 

 exactitude if it joins in the controversy and takes upon itself 

 to allude to any statement of mine as "scurrilous." 



Stephen- Coleridge. 



The National Anti-Vivisection Society, London, S.W. , May 21. 



[(i) Mr. Coleridge is reported to have stated that Lord Lister's 

 experiment consisted in passing a needle and thread through the 

 eyeball of a rabbit and leaving the thread there. The needle 

 and thread were passed through a special part of the skin of 

 the eye only (cornea). The object of the experiment would 

 have been entirely frustrated if the needle and thread had been 

 passed through the eye. The question to be answered was 

 whether inflammation could be caused by irritation of non- 

 vascular tissues. Speaking of Lord Lister's experiment as he 

 did, showed that Mr. Coleridge not only did not take the trouble 

 to get accurate fact with regard to the experiment, but also was 

 totally ignorant of its object. 



(2) The inference to be drawn from Mr. Coleridge's remark 

 that Lord Lister was the " intimate friend " of fifty-eight vivi- 

 sectors is that the s^ning of the respective licensees, exempting 

 from the use of anaesthetics, was of the nature of a "job." 

 This remark was obviously "scurrilous." Lord Lister signed 



