390 
NATURE 
[ Fed. 23, 1882. 
consumption, is one of the best marked and most com- 
monly recognised. The authors have begun with this 
disease, and at present have limited themselves to it. A 
large number of rortraits of phthisical | atients were first 
taken, and were then grouped into composites, clinical 
facts being first taken as guides for grouping. Thus, 
cases of advanced disease were grouped first, but they 
gave no result beyond that of well-marked emaciation. 
Cases grouped according to the rapidity of their course 
also yielded no characteristic type, nor was anything very 
definite at first obtained from those in whom the hereditary 
taint was strong, but on further investigation this last group 
of hereditary cases was found to fall into two main divi- 
sions, not separated by any abrupt line of demarcation. 
In the first division the taces were broad, with coarse, 
blunted, and thickened features ; while in the second the 
faces were thin, narrow, ovoid, with thin, softened, and 
“narrow features. These two groups correspond to the 
two types well recognised by physicians as strumous and 
tubercular. (©n comparing the phthisical with non- 
phthisical cases, however, it was found that the percen- 
tage of narrow ovoids was almost exactly the same in the 
phthisicaland non-phthisical patients. Although the authors 
do not say so, we may perhaps be justified in regarding 
these two types of tace as possibly racial. Their results 
lend no countenance to the belief that any special type 
of face predominates among phthisical patients, nor to the 
generally entertained opinion that the narrow ovoid tuber- 
cular face is more common in phthisis than in other 
diseases. Whether it is more common than among the 
rest of the healthy population, they cannot at present say. 
In comparing composites, both of the broad faces and of 
the narrow ovoid faces in phthisical and non-phthisical 
patients, they found that in each case the phthisical | 
patients presented a more delicate form of each type, 
with finer features, a lighter lower jaw, and an altogether 
narrower face. Although their conclusions seem to indi- 
cate that there is no foundation for the belief that persons 
possessing certain physical characteristics are especially 
liable to tubercular disease, yet it may hereafter be proved 
that some explanation of the doctrine may be found in 
the course of the disease when it attacks such persons. 
Thus the delicately-organised individuals called “tuber- 
cular,” and characterised by their “narrow ovoid” faces, 
have been compared with horses and cattle who have 
~ been what is called “‘over-bred”’ ; such animals are de- 
scribed as having too much nerve and too little bone and 
muscle; they have no “staying power,’ and readily 
“knock up.’ So these delicately-formed individuals are 
less able to stand the strain of disease and are more liable 
to its attacks than their more robustly-built fellows. 
Again, if it be true, as frequently asserted, that those 
having the features called “strumous’”’ probably inherit 
a more or less diluted syphilitic taint, it is not surprising 
that they should be especially liable to inflammatory 
changes of a low type, and that disease in them should be 
readily amenable to treatment, especially by mercury, a 
result commonly seen in the so-called “strumous”’ 
diseases of children and often in those of adults.” 
This paper opens quite a new field of inquiry which is 
of great interest, and is likely to lead to important prac- 
tical results. 
FOSEPH DECAISNE 
B* the somewhat unexpected death of Prof. Decaisne, 
~ one of the most familiar names disappears from the 
scientific world of France. Although so inseparably 
associated with Paris Decaisne was by birtha Belgian, 
having been born in Brussels in 1¥09. His brother, still 
living, rose to the position of Inspector-General of the 
Army Medical Service of Belgium. When quite a young 
man Joseph Decaisne entered the service of the Jardin des 
Plantes at Paris in the position of a gardener. ‘The vener- 
able institution with which for the rest of his life he was 
associated is very different from a mere pleasure-ground, 
and it would be a mistake to suppose that the starting- 
point in Decaisne’s career implied anything more than 
rising from the lowest rank in an establishment which in 
every detail is nothing if not scientific. In 1840 he was 
attached to the Herbarium as Azde nafuraliste, finally 
returning to the Garden as Professeur de Culture and 
Director in succession to Mirbel. 
From Mirbel to the present day is, measured by the 
rate of progress in botanical science, a tolerably vast leap. 
Decaisne published his first paper in 1831, and the half 
century which has since elapsed covers our whole modern 
knowledge of the histology and morphology of plants. 
The familiar demonstrations of our biological class-rooms 
already seem a little hackneyed. Yet they deal with 
structures and phenomena which, when the distinguished 
botanist who was buried last week first began to work, 
were things undreamed of. 
Decaisne at a very early period turned his attention to 
the serious study of alga, and it is perhaps in connection 
with this group that he has Jeft his most indelible mark 
in botanical history. In 1841 he showed once for all 
that the Polyperes calciféres of Lamouroux, were not 
merely A/ga@, but that the affinities of the diverse types. 
which they comprised could be determined with some 
certainty. This was a piece of work which may be com- 
pared in its way to Mr. Moseley’s discovery of the alcyo- 
narian structure of Heliofora. The conclusion to which 
he arrived was not a happy guess, but was based on a 
laborious examination of the whole class of 4/g@, with 
the obje t of arranging their chaotic assemblage on a 
basis approaching as neirly as possible to a natural 
classification. The results are given in an elaborate 
paper published in 1842. The divisions proposed are 
not essentially very different from those which are gene- 
rally accepted at the present day. And they were really 
more natural than the subsequent but far more artificial 
classification proposed by Harvey, which has long held 
its ground in this country. In this particular line 
Decaisne himself dil little more. But in scientific 
history a man’s true position and influence is often most 
inadequately measured by the actual bulk of bis published 
papers. Decaisne really founded the French School of 
Algology, the results of which will always be the funda- 
mental memoirs in this branch of morphology. In 1839 
Thuret came to Paris, and received from Decaisne in- 
struction in the rudiments of botany. A master will 
generally infect a competent pupil with his own special 
enthusiasm, and it is easy to read the secret of Thuret’s 
own splendid scientific career. Decaisne and Thuret 
began to work together on cus, which they procured 
from the fish market of Paris. They soon found, however, 
it necessary to visit the coast to carry on their observa- 
tions, the result of which was published in 1844, in a joint 
paper, in which they first accurately described the 
antherozoids, assigning them their true function, and 
gave an account of the beautiful process of division of the 
primary oosphere in some of the species. After Decaisne’s 
appointment to the direction of the Jardin des Plantes, 
Thuret carried on his algological work for a time alone, 
ultimately associating himself with Dr. Bornet, who is 
happily still living, and occupied with the gradual publi- 
cation of their joint and classical work. 
From the time of Decaisne’s appointment to the 
direction of the Jardin des Plantes he in fact de- 
voted himself heart and soul with scrupulous con- 
scientiousness to the field of work assigned to him. 
The Jardin des Plantes deals not merely with plants in 
their feral, but also in their cultivated state. The mere 
routine duties of his: post were onerous beyond belief. 
The occupants of French administrative scientific posts 
have no sinecure. They are at the beck and call of the 
State in all that relates to their subject, and no small 
