Er. 
| aia lili 
AuvcustT 3, 1899] 
Pror. Guipo Cora, of Rome, has been elected (by Royal 
decree) a member of the Upper Council of the Geodetical 
Works of Italy (Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Geodetici dello 
Stato). 
THE expedition from the Liverpool School of Tropical 
Diseases, to which reference has already been made (p. 278), 
left the Mersey on Saturday in the steamer Fantee. Freetown 
will be the centre of experiments, with special regard to Major 
Ross’s theory as to malaria being propagated by mosquitoes. 
THE medical authorities of the Owens College and of the 
Royal Infirmary, Manchester, have been asked by the Chamber 
of Commerce to consider the advisability of forming a Man- 
chester committee to co-operate with the Liverpool committee 
in the establishment and support of the Liverpool School for 
the study of tropical diseases. 
THE annual congress of the British Medical Association was 
opened at Portsmouth on Tuesday. The president, Dr. Ward 
Cousins, delivered an address in which he sketched the pro- 
gress made during the present century in medicine and surgery, 
with particular reference to recent discoveries in pathology and 
biology. 
THE detailed programme of arrangements for the reunion of 
the Institution of Electrical Engineers in Switzerland, to be held 
in Switzerland from September 1 to September 9, has now 
been issued. The Council have decided that, with the excep- 
tion of candidates for election, only members (of all classes in 
the Institution), and ladies and children accompanying them, 
can be authorised to take part. A number of visits to works and 
manufactories, and excursions to places of interest, have been 
arranged, and the programme provides opportunity for members 
f the Institution to spend a pleasant week in Switzerland. 
THE sixth International Agricultural Congress will be held 
from July 1-8, 1900, in connection with the Paris Universal 
Exhibition of next year. The work of the congress will be 
divided into seven sections, as follows: (1) rural economy 
(agricultural credit, agricultural associations, land surveying, 
agrarian questions) ; (2) agricultural education (experimental 
stations, field experiments, &c.); (3) agricultural science (appli- 
cation of science to agriculture, agricultural improvements) ; 
(4) live stock; (5) practical agriculture (industrial crops and 
agricultural industries) ; (6) special crops of the South (silk pro- 
duction, early fruits and vegetables, perfume plants and colonial 
productions) ; (7) injurious insects and parasites (international 
measures for the protection of useful animals). Copies of the 
detailed programme may be obtained on application to the 
English representative of the International Agricultural Com- 
mission, Sir Ernest Clarke, at 13 Hanover Square, London, W. 
Tue Baly Gold Medal of the Royal College of Physicians of 
London, instituted in 1866 by Dr. F. D. Dyster, of Tenby, ‘‘ in 
memoriam Gulielmi Baly, M.D.,” which is awarded every 
alternate year on the recommendation of the president and 
council to the person who shall be deemed to have most dis- 
tinguished himself in the science of physiology, especially 
during the two years immediately preceding the award, has been 
awarded to Dr. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S., Professor of Physi- 
ology in University College, Liverpool.—The report of the 
Laboratories Committee of the College states that, since March 
To last, 1400 doses of antitoxin, each containing 2000 units, and 
4425 doses, each containing 4000 units, for the treatment of 
diphtheria in the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board 
have been supplied and all the demands fully met. During this 
period 19,900,000 units have been supplied. During the same 
period five doses of 4000 units each have been supplied to the 
medical officers of health according to instructions received from 
NO. 1553, VOL. 60] 
INAV ORE 
327 
the Metropoiitan Asylums Board. Under the grant from the 
Goldsmiths’ Company 459 doses of antitoxin containing 
1,134,000 units have been supplied to the general an 
children’s hospitals in or near London.—Dr. Arthur Foxwell, 
of Birmingham, will deliver the Bradshaw Lecture of the College 
on November 2. Dr. P. Horton Smith has been appointed 
Goulstonian Lecturer, and Dr. W. B. Cheadle Lumleian 
Lecturer for 1900, and Prof. W. D, Halliburton the Croonian 
Lecturer for 1901. 
THE death is announced of Prof. Balbiani, professor of com- 
parative embryology in the College de France. 
THE expedition organised by the Peary Club, of New York, 
for the relief of Lieut. Peary in the Arctic regions started a few 
days ago. Prof. William Libbey, of Princeton University, is 
chief of the expedition, and with him are Prof. W. F. 
McClure, Dr. Arnold E. Ortman, Mr. Charles F. Silvester, 
and two representatives of the United States Coast Survey. 
The first object of the expedition is to take provisions and 
other supplies to Lieut. Peary. After the stores have been 
unloaded from the Dzaza, the return trip will be converted 
into a tour for scientific explorations. Chiefly deep sea in- 
vestigations will be carried on, and specially prepared dredg- 
ing apparatus have been provided for this purpose. It is 
expected that the party will return about October 1. 
Tue Bill having for its object the sanitary regulation of 
oyster beds has been withdrawn. When the order for the 
Committee stage of the Bill came before the House of Lords 
on Monday, Lord Harris said he had to move that the order 
be discharged. The intention of the Local Government Board 
in introducing the Bill was to protect as far as possible the 
public health from attack from diseased oysters; and the 
Board therefore selected as the local authorities by which 
the Bill was to be put into operation the councils of counties 
and boroughs which were concerned with the sanitary matters 
of their districts. But the Select Committee to whom the 
Bill was referred after the second reading decided that this 
was a matter which concerned more the health of the oyster 
than the health of the human being; and on a division they 
substituted the Local District Fisheries Committee, which 
looked after the well-being of fish for the councils of counties 
which were concerned with the public health as the authority 
in the Bill. But the Board of Trade, to whom the Bill was 
referred, decided that the change rendered the Bill impractic- 
able; and in the circumstances the President of the Local 
Government Board does not intend to proceed further with 
the measure. The Bill was therefore withdrawn. 
AT the meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 
held at Plymouth last week, a paper of much historic interest 
was read by Sir Frederick Bramwell, the subject being the 
South Devon atmospheric railway, preceded by remarks upon 
the transmission of energy bya partially rarefied atmosphere. 
Leaving out of consideration Savery’s and such like machines 
for the raising of water by means of a partial vacuum produced 
by the condensation of steam, the first suggestion for trans- 
mitting energy by the rarefaction of air appears to have been 
made by Denis Papin in 1695. The matter lay in abeyance for 
more than a century, and then Mr. G. Medhurst proposed the 
propulsion of trains within a tube by means cf air pressure. In 
1824 John Vallance took out his patent, so very well known to 
all who have interested themselves in this subject of trans- 
mission of energy by the pressure of the atmosphere. Excep 
that Vallance proposed to move his train by the rarefaction of 
the air, his scheme was a mere repetition of that of Medhurst 
already mentioned. But the man who really developed this 
