274 
NATURE 
[DECEMBER 7, 1916 
THe annual meeting of the Hakluyt Society was 
held last year on November 23 at the house ‘of the 
Royal Geographical Society, This year marks the ter- 
centenary of Hakluyt’s death, and the president of 
the society, Mr. Albert Gray, in the course of a com- 
memorative address, remarked that investigations are 
being made for the purpose of discovering Hakluyt’s 
birthplace. Nothing seems to be known of his father 
or mother, but there is a monument to his wife in 
Ludlow Church. The society hopes to find the original 
manuscript of a treatise by Hakluyt that was printed 
in America from a copy. 
Tue Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research 
in Pathology and Medicine has been established in 
Melbourne in connection with the Melbourne Hos- 
pital, through the generosity of the trustees of the 
Walter and Eliza Hall Fund. The institute: is con- 
trolled by a board representing the trustees, the Uni- 
versity of Melbourne, and the Melbourne: Hospital. A 
spacious building, including a basement and _ three 
stories, has been erected at a cost of more than 
10,0001, in immediate connection with the pathological 
department of the hospital. The hospital itself~ has 
recently been entirely rebuilt, and’ now contains 325 
beds. Applications for the office of director of the 
institute are being invited through the Agent-General 
for Victoria, from whom full information may be 
obtained, 
Dr. Euctne L. Doyen, the well-known | Parisian 
surgeon, died on November 21, aged fifty-seven. He 
was the author of a number of surgical: treatises, the 
better known being ‘Traitement’ Chirurgical des 
Affections de 1’Estomac et du Duodenum’”’- (1895), 
“Technique Chirurgicale’’ (1897), and ‘‘Atlas de 
Microbiologie’’ (with _ M, G. Roussel, 1897). 
His best-known work, however, is ‘‘ Etiologie et Traite- 
ment du Cancer” (1904). In 1901 he discovered a 
‘micro-organism in cancerous growths which ‘he re- 
garded as the cause of such formations, and named it 
Micrococcus neoformans. He introduced . serum 
treatment for cancer, and clAimed he had discovered 
both the cause and cure of this terrible .disease—a 
claim which other medical men, with the best will in 
“the world, have never been able to confirm. At an 
‘early date (1898) he utilised the kinematograph as a 
means of demonstrating his technique and his per- 
sonality to medical students. He was an enthusiastic 
worker, but never succeeded in gaining scientific sup- 
port for his many claims and theories. 
Capr, H, Farrtey Marris describes a new test for 
typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, based upon the effect 
of atropine on the rate of the heart-beat. In a well 
person, or in one suffering from a number of diseases 
other than those named, atropine causes an increase 
of the pulse-rate by about twenty beats or more per 
minute. Should the pulse-rate increase only ten beats 
or less, infection by one of these diseases is sug- 
gested; if the-increase is more than ten and less than 
twenty beats per minute the interpretation is uncer- 
tain. The method of applying the test is as follows. 
At least one hour after a meal should elapse. - The 
patient should be horizontal and remain perfectly 
quiet. The pulse-rate is then taken and recorded 
minute by minute for about ten minutes. Then 
1/32 grain of atropine sulphate is injected hypo- 
dermically, and after an interval of twenty-five minutes 
the pulse-rate is again taken minute by minute until it 
is obvious that any rise which may have followed the 
injection of atropine has occurred and that the pulse- 
rate is falling again to the lower level—fifteen to twenty 
minutes may be necessary (British Medical Journal, 
November 25, p. 717). 
NO. 2458, vor. 98] 
‘Tue ninety-first illustrated Christmas course | 
juvenile lectures, founded at the Royal Institution 
1826 by Michael Faraday, will™be delivered this year 
by Prof, Arthur Keith, his title being “The Hu 
Machine which All Must Work.’’ The following are 
among the lecture arrangements before Easter ;— eg 
the 
C.S. Sherrington, six lectures on the old brain and 
new brain and their meaning, and pain and its neryous 
basis; Prof. W. E. Dalby, two lectures on the struc- 
ture of metals; Prof. J. W. Gregory, three lectures on 
geological war problems; Prof. F, G. Donnan, three 
lectures on the mechanism of chemical change; two 
lectures by Prof. E. S. Prior; Prof. A, Dendy, two 
lectures on sponges: a study in evolutionary biology; 
Prof. J. A, Fleming, two lectures on modern improve- 
ments in telegraphy and telephony; Mr, A. R. Hinks, © 
two lectures onthe. lakes’ and mountains of Central 
Africa; Mr. Daniel Jones, two lectures on the science 
of speech; Dr..C. W. Saleeby, two lectures on Impe- 
rial eugenics; Mr, Stephen Graham, two lectures on 
Russian idealism.. The Friday evening meetings will 
commence.on January 19, when Sir James Dewar will 
deliver a discourse on soap-bubbles of long duration. 
Sir. Ratpw PayNe-GaLttwey, who died on November 
24, at. sixty-eight years of age, was a very famous 
wildfowler, and it was on his knowledge of the habits 
and haunts of wildfowl, gained during many winters 
spent in their pursuit, that his claim to the title of - 
an ornithologist chiefly rests. -In his knowledge of the 
habits of these birds as observed by a fowler (who 
has the best possible chances of observation) he was 
perhaps unrivalled. The various kinds of fowl have 
many little peculiarities, all of which have to be 
humoured, so to say, if the fowler is to get within 
striking distance of them. Hence the necessity of a 
knowledge of the general appearance in the distance, 
distinguishing calls, and different flight of fowl, and 
the endless ther: characteristics of which no one 
but those who in winter’ have hied them to the coast 
with its myriads of wild, wary birds can have any 
idea, Sir Ralph’s most important book, ‘‘The Wild- 
fowler in Ireland," is full of out-of-the-way informa- 
tion of the kind to delight. the naturalist, and as it 
was begun at sea with a heavy gale blowing there is 
a certain freshness about it. ‘The Book of Duck 
Decoys,’’ an exhaustive worl, and the only one on the 
subject, also contains a good deal about the natural 
history of ducks and the ways of the birds. For in 
this kind of fowling the birds are led rather than 
pursued: His other best-known work is the ‘ Letters 
to Young Shooters,’’ the third series of which con- 
tains a useful description of all the wildfowl met with 
in the British Islands. Sir Ralph earned the gratitude — 
of those interested in the former state of our avifauna 
by having the ancient sign of the ‘Dotterel Inn” 
(which stands on the Yorkshire wolds) restored, after 
it had been sadly ill-used by a local artist who had 
repaired it. ; 
WE regret to announce the death of M. Emile F. 
Maupas, librarian of the National Library in Algiers, 
in his seventy-fourth year. M. Maupas devoted his 
spare time to zoological researches, the results of 
which appeared in eighteen papers issued between 
the years 1876 and 1901. His memoirs on the multi- 
plication and conjugation of ciliate protozoa (1883, 
1888, 1889) made his name well Ixnown to all students 
of zoology. By careful and laborious experiments he 
determined the rates of fission of about twenty species 
of ciliates under varying conditions of food and tem- 
perature. He found that in his cultures—each of 
which was begun with a single ciliate—there occurred, 
after a certain number of fissions had taken place, a 
gradual reduction’ of the ciliary apparatus and a de- 
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