370 



NATURE 



[Augusi 1 8, 1881 



What then is the total result? It is this — that every important 

 line in the spots, every important line in the storms, has been 

 picked up by this method, and in fact the map 0/ basic lines along 

 this region is praetically a map of the lines widened in spots and 

 present in storms, and nothing else. Now it may be said that 

 result is interesting, and perhaps important, but that it deals 

 only with a very limited part of the inquiry. That is perfectly 

 true. 



The spectrum of iron, and the spectra of other substances 

 have however been attacked in other regions. It is unnecessary 

 to go into many details, but the general result is the same ; in 

 other regions we have as in the old region an almost perfect 

 coincidence between the lines most widened in spots, and the 

 lines regarded as basic by previous observers. 



So much then for the result in the case of iron, to which, 

 although we have not absolutely limited our attention, we have 

 to a very large extent confined it. This result may be ex- 

 pressed in rather a different way, and it will then be easy to 

 see the extraordinary parallelism which goes on between two 

 perfectly distinct sets of facts, first, the statement of the spectro- 

 scope that such and such a line is seen in the spectra of two or 

 more substances, and then the statement of the telescope with the 

 attached spectroscope that such and such a line is seen widened 

 in spots or brightened in flames. Here we have the numbers 

 for the two regions which I have already discussed the region 

 from F to b, and from b towards D. 



Iron 



The total number of iron lines in the first case is 96. Of those 

 96 lines only 38, or le>s than half, are found in the spots and 

 flames. When we go into the lower regions of the solar atmo- 

 sphere, we leave in fact more than half of the iron lines on one 

 side. Of these 96 lines 15 are found by other observers as well 

 as myself to be common to two or more substances. Now 

 comes the question, what is the behaviour of these common lines 

 with reference to spots and storms? The table shows that 

 among the lines seen in spots and storms fourteen of these basic 

 lines are seen. It must be remembered that our records only 

 give us day by day the results of the 12 most widened lines, 

 and not of all the Imes widened. In the next region the number 

 of iron lines is somewhat less — 67 ; 41 of these, or more than 

 half, are picked out by spots and storms ; Seventeen are basic ; 

 of the 17 basic ones 15 are seen in the spots and storms, and 

 only two are lines that are not seen. 



Now, we will turn to another substance, nickel, and there we 

 see very much the same kind of thing at work. In nickel for 

 the region F to iJ we have 20 lines recorded by Thalen. 



Nickel. 



Total number of lines 

 Number in spots and flames 

 Basic 



,, Seen 



„ Not seen 



Of these 20, 17 are dropped, abolished, when we come to 

 observe the bright lines and the widened lines of nickel in the 

 spots and storms — the 20 comes down to 3. Among the 20 lines 5 

 are found to be common to two substances. Of those 3 are 

 seen in the flames, that is to say, every line of nickel seen in a 

 spot or flame is common to two substances, and only 2 are 

 visible in the 20 lines not affected by spots and storms. This is 

 all the work of this nature w hich we need now consider, bnt it 

 is not all the work that has been done. Neither my assistants 

 nor myself, I am sure, have spared our attempts, nor ourselves, 

 for the matter of that, in trying to get at the bottom of this 

 matter, and the facts which have been here brought forward are 

 typical of a much larger number of facts which have been 

 observed. In the case of every part of the spectrum, in the cae 

 of every substance, the verdict is the same. We have the fact, 

 that two things are going on exactly parallel to each other — first 

 that some lines are common to two substances ; next that the lines 

 common to two substances are seen almost exclusively alone, both 

 in the sun's spots and in the sun's flames. So that in addition to the 



fact that the hottest regions of the sun seem to simplify the spectra 

 of the substances enormously, ^^■e have this result that the 

 simpler the spectrum becomes, the more complex becomes the 

 origin of the lines ; by which I mean that in the ordinary solar 

 spectrum there are a great many lines due to iron, and to 

 nothing else ; but the moment we co'iie to the simpler spectrum 

 yielded to us in the spots or the flames, then we have no more 

 right to say that those lines belong to iron than that they belong 

 to titanium, cerium, nickel, and other substances with which 

 those lines are generally observed to be basic. 



This, then, is a help towards the demon^tration of the view 

 which was first announced in the year 1874, that the line-spectra 

 of bodies (we are dealing almost exclusively with line-spectra) 

 are not produced by the vibration of similar molecules, but they 

 probably represent to us the vibrations of a great number of 

 simplifications brought absut by the temperature employed to 

 produce the incandescence of the vapours. 



Can we go further than this? Here we must confess both our 

 imperfect instrumental and mental means. We cannot talk of 

 absolute coincidence because the next application of greater in- 

 strumental appliances may show a want of coincidence. On the 

 other hand there may be reasons about which we know at present 

 absolutely nothing which should make absolute coincidence im- 

 possible under the circumstances stated. The lines of the finer 

 constituents of matter maybe liable to the same process of shift- 

 ing as that at work in compound bodies when the associated 

 molecules are changed ; but hovi ever this may be the fact remains, 

 whatever the explanation may be, that the lines of the elementary 

 bodies mass themselves in those parts of the spectrum occupied 

 by the prominent lines in solar spots and storms. 



J. Norman Lockyer 

 (To be ccntinued.) 



STATE MEDICINE' 

 "plRST: a few words on what may be called the general 

 theory of our subject-matter. The term " State Medicine" 

 corresponds to the su]ip 'sition that, in certain cases, the Body- 

 Politic will concern it-elf with the health-interests of the people 

 — will act, or command, or deliberate, or inquire, with a view to 

 the cure or the prevention of disease. Before any such supposi- 

 tion can be effectively realised, the science of medicine — that is 

 to say, the exact knowledge of means by wliich disease may be 

 prevented or cured — must have reached a certain stage of deve- 

 lopment ; and unless the science be supposed common to all 

 persons in the State, the existence of State medicine supposes a 

 special class of persons whom the unskilled general public can 

 identify as presumably possessing the required knowdedge. Thus, 

 given the class of experts to supply the required exact know- 

 ledge, the Body-Politic undertakes that, within the limits of its 

 own constitutional analogies, it will make the knowledge useful 

 to the community. 



I have intimated that in State Medicine (just as in private 

 medicine) the medical function may be exercised either in curing 

 or in preventing disease ; but practically these two departments 

 of State Medicine are not of equal magnitude, noraredealt with 

 in quite the same spirit. 



As regards curative medicine, modern Governments have in 

 general found it needless to interfere in much detail in favour of 

 persons who require medical treatment. 



Larger and far more various than the action taken by the 

 State with reference to the cure of disease is that which it takes 

 in regard of prevention ; and it is particularly of preventive 

 medicine that I propose to speak. In its legal aspect it is repre- 

 sented V)y a considerable mass of statutes (nearly all of them 

 enacted within the last thirty-five years), and by an army of 

 administrative authorities .and officers appointed to give effect to 

 those enactments. I need not describe in detail the laws and 

 administrative machinery to which ■" refer, but I may remind you 

 of the largeness and vai-iety of the j scope, even by quoting only 

 the terms in which I was able, t . Ive years ago, to speak of the 

 public health law of England: "It would, I think, be diflicult 

 to over-estimate, in one most important point of view, the pro- 

 gress which, during the last few years, has been made in sani- 

 tary legislation. The principles [now affirmed in our statute- 

 book are such a-, if carried into full effect, would soon reduce to 

 quite an insignificant amount our present very large proportions 



' An Address delivered at the opening of the Section of Public Medicine, 

 in the International Medical Association, by John Simon, C.B., F.K.S., 

 D.C.L., LL.D. 



