598 
NATURE 
[APRIL 22, 1897 
ou d'un centimétre cube pour que l'animal supporte sa maladie 
méme sans grande élévation de température et presque sans 
aucune réaction 4 lendroit de Tlinfection.” So writes Dr. 
Smirnow ; and, indeed, the experiments which he cites with this 
antitoxin fully justify this favourable verdict. Still more recently 
it has been employed on dogs, which of all animals are perhaps 
the most susceptible to diphtheria poison ; this being proved by 
the difficulty which is experienced in immunising them for the 
production of curative serum. Dr. Smirnow states that a dog 
weighing from eighteen to twenty pounds, inoculated subcutane- 
ously with 0°5 c.c. of virulent diphtheria broth cultures, usually 
dies in two or twoand a half days after it has been infected. The 
protective treatment of a purposely infected dog was commenced 
one day after inoculation, and from 3 to 5 c.c. of the electrolytic 
antitoxin sufficed to save the animal’s life. This quantity Dr. 
Smirnow thinks might probably be lessened, and yet not inter- 
fere with its remedial action. For the technical details of the 
methods recommended by Dr. Smirnow for the production of 
this artificial antitoxin, we must refer the reader to the original 
memoir, to be found in vol. iv. No. 5, 1896, of the Petersburg 
Archives already mentioned. It would appear that in itself the 
antitoxin is quite harmless, for ordinary guinea-pigs can stand 
with impunity a dose ten times and more as strong as that 
required for remedial purposes. As regards the effective 
quantity for injection, it appears that in the initial stages of the 
disease there is no difference in the amount required of the 
serum and Smirnow-antitoxin respectively ; but as the disease 
progresses, whilst yielding to reduced doses of the artificial anti- 
toxin, it will not to similarly reduced doses of antitoxic serum. 
Its preparation is incomparably simpler, and with a good supply 
of toxic diphtheria broth in hand, the antitoxin can be produced 
in a day, whilst, involving far less expense, it can be supplied at 
a much more reasonable rate. Dr. Smirnow hasat least shown 
that the preparation of a specific remedy against diphtheria is 
not the exclusive monopoly of the animal organism, but can be 
elaborated artificially without the assistance of living mechanism. 
The author is to be congratulated upon the highly successful 
results which he has so far achieved ; and if the therapeutic value 
of this electrolytic antitoxin is shown to be as great for man 
as it has undoubtedly proved itself to be for animals, then in- 
deed Dr. Smirnow has made a distinct and important step for- 
ward in the domain of preventive medicine. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
THE following are among recent appointments :—Dr. Vélain 
to occupy the chair of physical geography recently founded in 
the Paris University; Mr. H. M. Paul and Mr. G. A. Hill to 
be professors of mathematics in the U.S. Navy. 
‘THE Spanish Universities and other educational institutions 
under State control have just been thrown open to foreigners by 
Royal decree. By the new ordinance foreigners are admitted to 
the right of matriculation, study, and examination in all educa- 
tional establishments under the Spanish Government, and are 
entitled to take degrees in the Universities. 
Ir is reported (says Sczence) that the subsidy given by the 
state to the University of California will be doubled, being here- 
after 240,000 dols. annually. Mr. Levi Strauss, of San 
Francisco, has endowed twenty-eight undergraduate scholar- 
ships in the University, and seven graduate scholarships, of the 
value of 250 dols., have been endowed by other donors. The 
number of students in the University has increased from 918 in 
1891-2 to 2250 in the present year. It is again stated that the 
University will receive gifts amounting to 5,000,000 dols. for 
buildings, of which sum 1,200,000 dols. is promised by Mrs. 
Hearst, of San Francisco. Chicago University has received a 
gift of 225,000 dols. from Mrs. Mary Esther Reynolds, in ful- 
filment of a pledge made nearly five years ago. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
Symons’s Monthly Meteorological Magazine, April.—The first 
daily weather map. In September 1895, Mr. Symons issued 
a photographic reproduction of the first daily weather map ever 
published, and promised to give its history, after making further 
inquiries. In 1849 the proprietors of the Daz/y News decided 
NO. 1434, VOL. 55 | 
upon publishing reports of wind and weather. The organisation 
was entrusted to Mr. Glaisher, who travelled over the country, 
and, with the co-operation of the railway and electric telegraph 
companies, erected instruments and instructed the clerks in their 
use. The issue of the above journal for June 14, 1849, contained 
the earliest known telegraphic weather report. During the 
Exhibition of 1851, the Secretary of the Society of Arts decided 
upon issuing the information collected by the Electric Telegraph 
Company in the form of a daily weather map, the first of which 
appeared on August 8, 1851.—Scientific kite work in the Arctic 
regions. Ina foot-note to Dr. Harvey’s article on meteorology, 
in the Zncyclopedia Metropolztana, there is a description of an 
experiment made by the Rey. G. Fisher and Captain Sir E. 
Parry, at the island of Igloolik, in lat. 69° 21’ N. and long. 
81° 42’ W. during the winter 1822-23. The height observed was 
379 feet, and. the temperature recorded was — 24°, there being 
no variation in the temperature between that altitude and the 
surface of the earth, although the thermometer was capable of 
indicating the smallest change. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Linnean Society, April 1.—Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., 
President, in the chair.—Mr. Miller Christy exhibited three 
royal state cloaks formerly worn by the kings of the Hawaiian 
Islands, and made of the feathers of four species of birds, of 
which the exhibitor gave an account, referring to the coloured 
figures of them given in Mr. Scott Wilson’s ‘* Birds of Hawaii,” 
namely, Vestéarta coccinea (red), Pstttactrostra pstttacea (green), 
Acrulocercus nobilis, and Drepanis pacifica (black and yellow). 
The last-named, of which no specimen is to be found in the 
National Collection, was believed to be now extinct. —Mr, W. 
T. Thiselton-Dyer exhibited: (1) A series of drawings (on 
the screen) to illustrate the ‘‘ Cultural Evolution of Cyclamen 
Jatifolium, Sibth.” The species is a native of Greece and the 
Levant, and is believed to have been first introduced into 
European cultivation in 1731. In 1768 Miller described a form 
modified by cultivation, under the name of Cyclamen persicum. 
This was erroneous, as, according to Boissier, neither the wild 
nor the garden form occur in Persia. The latter persisted in 
cultivation for about 150 years, and about 1860 became the 
starting-point of the modern races which were illustrated. 
Cyclamen lattfolium has never been hybridised, and it was 
shown that the striking forms now in cultivation were the 
result of the patient accumulation of gradual variations. Draw- 
ings of the remarkable forms, ‘‘ Papilio,” obtained by de Langhe- 
Vervaene, and of the ‘‘ Bush-Hill Pioneer,” by Messrs. Hugh 
Low and Co., were shown. It was pointed out that the ten- 
dency of the species under cultivation was to lose its distinctive 
generic characters, and to approximate to a more generalised 
type. The reflexion of the corolla-segments was often lost, as 
in Lystmachia ; the segments were sometimes multiplied, as in 
Trientalis ; and the margins were fringed, as in So/danella and 
cultivated forms of Primula sinensis. The ‘‘ Bush-Hill 
Pioneer” possessed, in the cresting of the petals, a remarkable 
character, without parallel in any primulaceous plant occurring 
in a wild state. (2) A series of plants was exhibited to illus’ rate 
the origin of the garden ‘‘ Cineraria.” It was generally agreed 
that this had sprung from one or more species native o! the 
Canaries. An extreme cultivated form was shown, and com- 
pared with Sevecto cruentus, which all internal evidence in- 
dicated as the sole original stock. .S. Herz¢zerz, another reputed 
parent, was exhibited. But it was pointed out that this has a 
shrubby habit and stems markedly zigzag between the inter- 
nodes, while the leaves are clothed beneath with a dense white 
tomentum. These characters it transmits, more or less, to its 
hybrid offspring. In illustration of this point, Mr. Poé’s hybrid 
(S. super-Heritiert x cruentus) was exhibited (a similar one has 
occurred at Edinburgh); also the Cambridge hybrid (S. szefer- 
cruentus x Heritteri. S. cruentus crosses very freely with the 
garden Cineraria, and as the latter never exhibits any trace of 
the characters of S. Herz¢zerz, it was concluded that that species 
had no part inits origin, and that, as in the case of the Cyclamen, 
the striking development of .S. crwentizs in cultivation was due 
to the continued accumulation of gradual variations.—Mr. A. 
W. Bennett exhibited a series of drawings, by Mr. E. B. Green, 
of root-hairs of plants with various parasitic growths, and showed 
