September 22, 1904] 



NA TURE 



509 



a laugh or of flattering the modern sense of superiority. 

 The only way to understand these old writers is to try 

 to put ourselves as far as possible in their place, and 

 conroive how nature and science presented themselves 

 to the eyes of the early teachers and learners in the 

 tenth and eleventh centuries." 



.A full account is given of the mythical " mandrake," 

 with several instructive drawings from Anglo-Saxon 

 manuscripts (see Fig. i), and others of plants which 

 can be recognised as characteristic, while some are 

 gracefully conventional. Many drawings of foreign 

 plants are copied from more original sketches, until 

 thev have become mere ornamental designs. These 

 figures may be compared with the beautiful drawings 

 published by Prof. Haeckel of animal structures adapted 

 to suggest the decorative use of countless organic 

 forms to carrv on the conventional lines of Greek 

 architects and Italian decorators. 



.An interesting section of Dr. Payne's volume is 

 devoted to the old English names of plants. "Way- 

 broad " has been ill exchanged for the so-called plan- 

 tain, and " mavthe " for camomile. On the whole, he 

 agrees with Prof. Earle that there was a great de- 

 cadence in botanical knowledge in England between 

 the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. 



The practice of surgery by the .Anglo-Saxon leeches 

 was for the most part confined to the external appli- 

 cation of divers vegetable or animal concoctions which 

 can have been only negatively useful. Some of them 

 remind us of Alexis of Piedmont, who, after describing 

 an unfailing remedy, adds, " If this will not do it, take 

 this other." Here and there we come across curious 

 anticipations of modern pathology and surgery, e.g. 

 when we are told that if the insensible hardening of 

 the liver is of too long duration, then it forms a dropsy 

 which cannot be cured ; or when the plastic operation 

 for hare-lip is described. Amputation for gangrene of 

 a limb is also recommended. 



The last sixty pages are devoted to superstitious 

 treatment by amulets and charms, some derived from 

 Greek treatises, as they in their turn reproduced the 

 magical lore of Egypt and of Babylon. One extract, 

 however, from a sermon of St. Eligius, who furnished 

 the gentle abbess of the " Canterbury Tales " with her 

 only oath, might still be preached from English pulpits 

 against the quackery and miscalled Christian science 

 of the present day. If space permitted, it would be 

 interesting to refer to Dr. Payne's comparison between 

 the " Practica " of the famous school of Salernum and 

 the old English " Leech-book," and to his account of 

 the final decay of the native art of medicine and its 

 replacement by the less vigorous and less original 

 doctrines of Continental Europe in the later Middle 

 Ages. 



The w-ork is of great value and interest not only to 

 physicians, but to scholars, antiquarians, and philo- 

 logists. It is admirably printed and illustrated, and 

 will, we hope, be succeeded by the publication of future 

 lectures by the same accomplished physician. 



NOTES. 



The Atti dci Lincei announces the death on -August 19 of 

 Prof. Eniilio Villari, recently president of the Reale 

 .Accademia dei Lincei. 



Mr. C. Fox-Strangw.ws, who joined the staff of the 

 Geological Survey in 1867, has retired from the public 

 service. 



-An earthquake shock was felt in the Cowall district of 

 .Argyllshire shortly after 4 a.m. on September 18. In 

 Dunoon the shock was most distinctly felt. Dishes rattled, 

 doors were opened, bells were set ringing, and ornaments 

 were broken. 



NO. I 82 I, VOL. 70] 



Reuter reports that two distinct shocks of earthquake 

 were felt at Ottawa at 7.53 p.m. on September 14. The 

 first lasted five seconds, and after an intermission of three 

 seconds came the second shock, which was of si.x seconds' 

 duration. The direction was from south-west to north- 

 east. 



.\ congress of free thought was opened at Rome on- 

 Tuesday in the Grand Court of the Roman College. Prof. 

 Sergi, president of the committee, welcomed the members- 

 of the congress, and the following were elected honorary 

 presidents : — Prof. Haeckel (Germany), M. Berthelot 

 (France), Dr. Maudsley (Great Britain), Senor Salmeron 

 (Spain), M. Novimoff (Russia), Herr Bjoersen (Norway), 

 and Prof. Lombroso (Italy). 



At the St. Louis Exhibition a steel tower 300 feet high 

 has been erected for wireless telegraphy by Dr. De Forest 

 and his coadjutors, and communication has been established 

 between St. Louis and Chicago. We learn from the Times 

 that the United States Government is also exhibiting a work- 

 ing De Forest station, and there are seven working exhibits 

 in the exhibition. The United States Government has con- 

 tracted with the De Forest Company for five long-distance 

 stations at Key West, Pensacola, Puertorico, South Cuba, 

 and Panama. The longest distance between these stations 

 will be 1000 miles, which will far e.xceed the distance 

 attempted for wireless telegraphy by any Government before. 



It is announced that the high-level observatory on Ben 

 Nevis will be closed next month. The annual cost of the 

 double observatory, high- and low-level, is close on 1000/. ; 

 of this sum about three-fourths is spent on the high-level 

 and about one-fourth on the low-level station. The Treasury 

 has offered to pay direct to the Scottish Meteorological 

 Society on behalf of the Ben Nevis Observatory the 350/. 

 recommended by the committee of inquiry into the adminis- 

 tration of the Parliamentary grant for meteorology, instead 

 of making this sum a charge on the meteorological grant. 

 The continuance of the observatories could, however, only 

 be undertaken on a guaranteed income of looo!. a year. 

 The directors have therefore decided to close the observ- 

 atories. 



The New York correspondent of the Daily Chronicle 

 announces that Commander Peary will lead another expedi- 

 tion to the North Pole next year. The expedition will start 

 in the summer, and will be gone probably not longer than 

 two years. Its expenses are estimated at 30,000/., which is- 

 lo.oooi. more than the last Peary Expedition cost. American 

 capitalists are supplying the funds. A vessel is now being 

 built which, it is said, will be stronger and more suitable to 

 the conditions prevailing in the Polar regons than any pre- 

 vious ship. One part of her equipment will be an ice-breaker 

 bow, which is e.xpected to enable the ship to break through 

 to a point farther north than has hitherto been reached. 

 The features of the expedition will be the fixing of a base 

 within 500 miles of the Pole, the use of very light sledges- 

 and fast Esquimaux dogs to make a final dash for the Pole, 

 and the adoption of conditions of living corresponding as 

 nearly as possible to those of the Esquimaux themselves. 



The expedition, on board the steamer Frithjof, which took 

 out a supply of coal for the Ziegler North Polar Expedition, 

 whose ship, the America, left for the -Arctic regions nearly 

 fifteen months ago, has returned to Norway without having 

 communicated with the America. This is the second 

 attempt which has been made this year by the relief ex- 

 pedition to reach Franz Josef Land, but on each occasion 

 the severity of the weather, together with fog and ice, ha~ 



