*3° 



NATURE 



[November 21, 1918 



restoration is already in progress : the Science 

 Museum was reopened some weeks ago; the British 

 .Museum has arranged a war-lime exhibition, really 

 all the more pleasant for being not quite so overwhelm- 

 ing. Let us progress steadily, bul let us progress 

 surely and strongly. It is not to pre-war conditions 

 that we hope to see a return. We must go further 

 forward. Above all things, increased stalls are 

 demanded if our museums are to fill that place in 

 national reconstruction which they are in other 

 respects both lilted and anxious to fill. 



Proe. David E. Lam/, assistant biologist on the 

 Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

 died of pneumonia on October - at Washington, !).('. 

 He was chief!} engaged in investigations of the 

 economic relations of mammals. 



Mr. Wm. B. Brierlky, of the Pathological Labora- 

 tory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and formerly lec- 

 turer in economic botany to Manchester University, 

 has accepted the appointment of mycologist to the 

 new Institute of Pbvtopathological Research, Rotham- 

 sted Experimental Station, Harpenden. 



The Times correspondent at Stockholm announces 

 that the Swedish Academy decided on November n 

 to award the Nobel prize for physics for the year iqi~, 

 in reserve from last year, to Prof. C. G. Barkla, pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, for his work on X-rays and secondary rays. 

 The prize in physics for 1918 and that in chemistry 

 for 1917 and 1918 have been reserved. 



We are informed that new and unexpected claims 

 of his profession have made it impossible for Mr. 

 H. M. Langton to undertake the office of secretary 

 of the National Union of Scientific Workers. The 

 executive committee has therefore decided to leave the 

 office vacant for the time being, and has appointed 

 Dr. Norman R. Campbell chairman of the executive, 

 and Mr. Eric Sinkinson assistant secretary. All 

 correspondence should be addressed to the assistant 

 secretary at 14A Albert Bridge Road, S.W.n. 



In view of the alarming and contradictory reports 

 of the present epidemic of influenza that have ap- 

 peared in the public Press, the Royal College of 

 Physicians of London has issued an authoritative 

 memorandum in the public interest. It is considered 

 that the present epidemic is essentially identical with 

 previous epidemics. It is suggested that the causa- 

 tive virus may be a micro-organism beyond the range 

 ■of microscopic vision, but the present epidemic has no 

 relation to plague, as some have suggested. Valu- 

 able bints are given with regard to prevention and 

 to general treatment if infection occurs, and it is stated 

 that no drug has vet been proved to have a definite 

 preventive or curative action. 



Influenza continued to maintain it-- virulence over 

 England, according to the Registrar-General's return 

 for the week ending November 9, but the general 

 deaths seemed t<i warrant the assumption that the 

 epidemic bad reached its climax, and there appears a 

 good prospect that it is on the wane. For London 

 the deaths from influenza were 2433, which is 25 fewer 

 than for the week ending November 2. The deaths 

 for the respective ages were from o to 5 years, 13 per 

 cent.; 5 to 20 years, 17 per cent.; 20 to 45 years, 

 50 per cent. ; 45 to 65 years, 14 per cent. ; 65 to 

 75 years, 4 per cent. ; and *abow 715 years, 2 per cent. 

 In the five weeks ending November q the total deaths 

 in London from influenza were 6j;q8, of which 6147 

 occurred in the last three weeks. In the whole five 

 weeks of the epidemic the influenza deaths compared 

 with the total deaths from all causes were for ages 

 NO. 2560, VOL. I02] 



o 10 5 years, 36 per cent. ; 5 to 20 years, 65 per cent. ; 

 jo to 45 years, 67 per cent. ; 45 to 65 years, 37 per 

 cent. ; 65 to 75 years, 21 per cent.; and above 75 years, 

 10 per cent. The influenza deaths for the five weeks 

 were 48 per cent, of the total deaths from all cause-., 

 pneumonia 12 per cent., and bronchitis 5 per cent. 

 In Paris, with about three-fourths of the population 

 of London, the deaths from influenza in the week 

 ending October 26 were [263, whilst in London, for. 

 the corresponding period, the deaths were 1256. The 

 drier and much colder weather during the past week 

 may tend to the disappearance of the epidemic. 



Dr. Augustus V. K. Hoernle, CLE., the eminent 

 Oriental scholar, died at Oxford on November 12, aged 

 seventy-seven years. lie was attached to the Church 

 Missionary Society at Meerut from 1865 to 1870, when 

 he was appointed principal of the Cathedral Mission 

 College, Calcutta, and afterwards principal of the 

 Calcutta Madrasah. He acquired a wide knowledge 

 of Sanskrit and Hindi, and his "Comparative 

 Grammar of the North Indian Languages" and his 

 " Comparative Dictionary of the Bihari Language " 

 are works of authority, used to much advantage by 

 Sir G. Grierson in his linguistic survey of India. Dr. 

 Hoernle paid much attention to the medicine of 

 ancient India, and his most important works were his 

 translation of the birch-bark codex discovered bv Col. 

 Bower at Kucha, in Khotan, in 1890, and his report 

 on the MSS. collected by Sir Aurel Stein and other 

 explorers in Chinese Turkestan. The death of this 

 eminent philologist is a serious loss to Oriental' 

 learning. 



We derive from the Meteorological Office Circular 

 No. 29 the following particulars of the work of Dr. 

 Walter de Watteville, who died on October 3 at sixty 

 years of age : — Dr.de Watteville was a native of Berne, 

 Switzerland, and had been manv years in practice at 

 Kingussie. He was one of the earliest supporters of 

 the open-air treatment for the cure of tuberculosis, 

 and was the director of a sanatorium where much 

 valuable work has been done. Keenly interested in 

 various departments of science, Dr. de Watteville 

 had since 1895 maintained a second-order station at 

 Kingussie, more than Soo ft. above sea-level. \Ye owe 

 entirely to his enthusiasm a satisfactory set of climato- 

 logical normals for L^pper Spevside, and a demon- 

 stration of the fact that this region, which has long 

 been popular as a summer resort, affords, even amidst 

 the rigours of a Highland winter, an atmosphere 

 eminently favourable for the treatment of tubercular 

 complaints. 



We learn from Science that Mr. Henry Suter, 

 author of "A Manual of the New Zealand Mollusca," 

 who died in Christchurch, N.Z., on August 1, was 

 born at Zurich in 1841, and went to New Zealand in 

 [886 to engage in farming, but soon relinquished the 

 idea, and devoted most of his time to studying the 

 indigenous mollusca of the antipodean country. In 

 1 « > 1 ; be produced bis "Manual," which was published 

 for him by the New Zealand Government. It con- 

 tains tbe diagnoses of T079 species, 108 sub-species, 

 and ton varieties of New Zealand molluscs. Two 

 years later the Government published his atlas to the 

 " Manual." This has seventy-two plates, containing 

 many figures of molluscs from Mr. Suter's own 

 drawings. In later years he gave special attention to 

 Tertiary molluscs of New Zealand, and in 1016 the 

 Geological Survey Departnn nt published as a bulletin 

 a work by him on "The Tertiary Mollusca of New 

 Zealand." His death leaves New Zealand without a 

 recognised conchologist. 



In view of the success which has attended the fort- 

 nightly conferences and discussions now being held 



