NA TURE 



[July 



1901 



A noticeable feature of this eclipse has been the misleading 

 effect of meteorological statistics as influencing the observers' 

 choice of sites for their stations. The eclipse was observed 

 under almost perfect conditions from Padang Pandjang, which is 

 regarded as the rainiest and cloudiest region in Sumatra, while 

 those who camped in the old Solok Fort were the least favoured 

 on the entire coast. 



The Twelve MovEiMENXS of the Earth. — In the Bulletin 

 de la Soc. Ast. de France (1901, pp. 262-266), "M. Flanimarion 

 gives an interesting review of the various movements by which 

 the terrestrial sphere is known to be affected at the present time. 

 These are due to, or consist of, the following phenomena : — 



(i) Rotation, having a period of 24 hours. 



(2) Revolution, having a period of 365^ days. 



(3) Precession, having a period of 25,765 years. 



(4) Luni-solar gravitation, having a period of 28 days. 



(5) Nutation, having a period of \%\ years. 



(6) Variation of obliquity of ecliptic, about 47" arc in 100 

 years. 



(7) Variatiotv of eccentricity of orbit. 



(8) Change of line of apsides, period about 21,000 years. 



(9) Planetary perturbations. 



(10) Change of centre of gravity of whole solar system. 



(11) General translation of solar system in space. 



(12) Latitude variation with several degrees of periodicity. 

 New Nebul.b. — In the CompUs reit<iiis{vo\.c\-f.\\\\. pp. 26- 



28 and S6-SS), M. G. Bigourdan gives two further lists of 

 new nebuku discovered with the west equatorial at the Paris 

 Observatory. The first paper deals with twenty-one objects, 

 observed during the perioil 1S97-1S99, copious notes and 

 comparisons with the N.G C. being appended. 



The second list contains similar information regarding 

 nineteen nebula: observed between 18S4 and 189S. 



THE SUPPRESSION OF TUBERCULOSIS} 

 T^HE task with which this Congress will have to busy itself is 

 one of the most difficult, but it is also one in which labour 

 is most sure of its reward. 



I need not point again to the innumerable victims tubercu- 

 losis annually claims in all countries, or to the boundless 

 misery it brings on the families it attacks. You all know that 

 there is no disease which infltcts such deep wounds on mankind 

 as this. All the greater, however, would be the general joy 

 and satisfaction if the efforts that are being made to rid man- 

 kind of this enemy, which consumes its inmost marrow, were 

 crowned with success. 



There are many, indeed, who doubt the possibility or success- 

 fully combating this disease, which has e.\isted for thousands 

 of years, and has spread all over the world. This is by no 

 means my opinion. This is a conflict into which we may enter 

 with a surely founded prospect of success, and I will tell you 

 the reasons on which I base this conviction. 



Only a few decades ago the real nature of tuberculosis was 

 unknown to us ; it was regarded as a consequence, as the ex- 

 pression, so to speak, of social misery, and, as this supposed 

 cause could not be got rid of by simple means, people relied on 

 the probable gradual improvement of social conditions, and did 

 nothing. All this is altered now. We know that social misery 

 does indeed go far to foster tuberculosis, but the real cause of 

 the disease is a parasite — that is, a visible and palpable enemy, 

 which we can pursue and annihilate, just as we can pursue and 

 annihilate other parasitic enemies of mankind. 



Strictly speaking, the fact that tuberculosis is a preventible 

 disease ought to have become clear as soon as the tubercle- 

 bacillus was discovered, and the properties of this parasite and 

 the manner of its transmission became known. I may add that 

 I, for my part, was aware of the full significance of this discovery 

 from the first, and so will everybody have been who had con- 

 vinced himself of the causal relation between tuberculosis and 

 the tubercle-bacillus. But the strength of a small number of 

 medical men was inadequate to the conflict with a disease so 

 deeply rooted in our habits and customs. Such a conflict re- 

 quires the cooperation of many, if possible of all, medical men, 

 shoulder to shoulder with the State and the whole population ; 



1 Paper on "The Combating of Tuberculosis in the Light of the Ex- 

 perience that has been gained in the Successful Comb.iting of other In- 

 fections Diseases,'" by Prof. Robert Koch, read at the British Congress on 

 Tuberculosis, July 23. 



NO. 1656, VOL. 64] 



but now the moment when such cooperation is possible seems 

 to have come. I suppose there is hardly any medical man now 

 who denies the parasitic nature of tuberculosis, and among the 

 non-medical public, too, the knowledge of the nature of the 

 disease has been widely propagated. 



Another favour.rble circumstance is that success has recently 

 been achieved in the combating of several , parasitic diseases, 

 and that we have learned from these examples how the conflict 

 with pestilences is to be carried on. 



The most important lesson we have learned from the said ex- 

 perience is that it is a great blunder to treat pestilences 

 uniformly. This was done in former times ; no matter whether 

 the pestilence in question was cholera, plague, or leprosy : iso- 

 lation, quarantine, useless disinfection were always resorted to. 

 But now we know that every disease must be treated according 

 to its own special individuality, and that the measures to be 

 taken against it must be most accurately adapted to its special 

 nature, to its etiology. We are entitled to hope for success in 

 combating tuberculosis only if we keep this lesson constantly in 

 view. .■\s so extremely much depends just on this point, I shall 

 take the liberty to illustrate it by several examples. 



The pestilence which is at this moment in the foreground of 

 interest, the bubonic plague, may be instructive to us in several ' 

 respects. 



People used to act upon the conviction that a plague patient 

 was in the highest degree a centre of infection, and that the 

 disease was transmitted only by plague patients and their be- 

 longings. Even the most recent international agreements are 

 based on this conviction. Although, as compared with formerly, 

 we now have the great .advantage that we can, with the aid of 

 the microscope and of experiments on animals, recognise every 

 case of plague with absolute certainty, and although the pre- 

 scribed inspection of ships, quarantine, the isolation of patients, 

 the disinfection of infected dwellings and ships are carried out 

 with the utmost care, the plague has, nevertheless, been trans- 

 mitted everywhere, and has in not a few places assumed grave 

 dimensions. Why this has happened we know very ivell, owing 

 to the experience quite recently gained as to the manner in 

 which the plague is transmitted. It has been discovered that 

 only those plague patients that suffer from plague-pneumonia — 

 a condition which is fortunately infrequent — are centres of ii>- 

 fection, and that the real transmitters of the plague are the rats. 

 There is no longer any doubt that, in by far the majority of the 

 cases in which the plague has been transmitted by ocean traffic, 

 the transmission took place by means of plague among the ship 

 rats. It has also been found that, wherever the rats were in- 

 tentionally or unintentionally exterminated, the plague rapidly 

 disappeared ; whereas at other places, where too little attention 

 had been paid to the rat plague, the pestilence continued. This 

 connection between the human plague and the tat plague was 

 totally unknown before, so that no blame attaches to those who 

 devised the measures now in force against the plague if the said 

 measures have proved unavailing. It is high time, however, 

 that this enlarged knowledge of the etiology of the plague be 

 utilised in international as well as in other traffic. As the 

 human plague is so dependent on the rat plague, it is intelligible 

 that protective inoculation and the application of antitoxic 

 serum have had so little effect. A certain number of human 

 beings may have been saved from the disease by that, but the 

 general spread of the pestilence has not been hindered in the 

 least. 



With cholera the case is essentially different ; it may, under 

 certain circumstances, be transmitted directly from human 

 beings to other human beings, but its main and most dangerous 

 propagator is water, and therefore, in the combating of cholera, 

 water is the first thingUo be considered. In Germany, where 

 this principle has been acted on, we have succeeded for four 

 years in regularly exterminating the pestilence (which was intro- 

 duced again and .again from the infected neighbouring countries) 

 without any obstruction of traffic. 



Hydrophobia, too, is not void of instruction for us. Against 

 this disease the so-called protective inoculation proper has 

 proved eminently effective as a means of preventing the outbreak 

 of the disease in persons already infected, but, of course, such a 

 measure can do nothing to prevent infection itself. The only 

 real way of combating this pestilence is by compulsory muzzling. 

 In this matter also we have had the most satisfactory experience 

 in Germany, but have at the same time seen that the total ex- 

 termination of the pestilence can be achieved only by inter- 

 national measures, because hydrophobia, which can be very 



