434 
Convention at London in 1885 of a-million-sterling 
to be devoted to irrigation was the first step 
towards the regeneration of Egypt,- which- has 
since ‘gone on with scarcely a check on the lines 
which he then laid down. Those first six or seven 
years were years of rigid economy, when all” 
expenditure had to be strictly'curtailed and every 
source of revenue carefully husbanded, but by 
1890 the race against bankruptcy was won, and it 
became possible to deal more generously with 
various branches of the Administration. 
Lord Cromer was always keenly sympathetic to- 
wards education, and year by year as means be- 
came more ample the grants for it were increased. 
Schools for elementary vernacular education and 
secondary and technical schools were established 
in constantly increasing numbers throughout the 
country, while the training of teachers to staff 
them was likewise taken -in hand. In a 
Mohammedan country the education of the female 
population always presents especial difficulties, but 
an ever-increasing number of girls’ schools have 
gradually been established throughout Egypt. 
Efficient irrigation of the cultivable land being 
the prime necessity of Egypt’s existence, the first 
grant which made the restoration of the Delta 
Barrage practicable was followed by many others, 
and Lord Cromer supported unceasingly the 
demands of the irrigation engineers until the 
present system of dams, barrages, and distributing 
canals had been, if not completed, at least largely 
achieved. Closely related to irrigation is the 
agriculture of the country, and the investigations 
necessary to improve the principal crops had 
always his warm support. 
“The principal function of Government,” said 
Lord Cromer in his report for the year 1903, 
“is the prevention of epidemic diseases,” and 
to provide adequately for the sanitation of the 
country was increasingly his care as resources 
became greater. Recent visitations of cholera 
and bubonic plague have shown how much 
success has been obtained in this direction; while 
the hospitals and medical schools which now 
exist have made many forget the appalling con- 
ditions which prevailed in that country forty 
years ago. 
The geological survey and the cadastral sur- 
vey of Egypt, from which developed the recent 
geodetic work in the Nile Valley, are further 
instances of the way in which Lord Cromer 
encouraged the more scientific aspects of work of 
practical importance. 
In Egypt archeology has a vast and important 
field of activity, and while his own interests were 
most closely connected with the classical period, 
Lord Cromer supported all projects for the better 
conservation of ancient buildings and the investi- 
gation of the past history and the ancient civilisa- 
tion of the country. To his advocacy we owe the 
systematic study of the Nile Valley in Nubia, 
which, besides the archeological results, has 
yielded in the hands of Prof. Elliot Smith such 
important evidence relating to the Egyptian race. 
NO. 2466, vor. 98] 
NATURE 
[FEBRUARY I, 1917 
After his- retirement from Egypt his interest in. 
science led him, by becoming president of the 
Research Defence Society, t6 aid the opposition — 
to the ignorant outcry against vivisection, since \ 
he recognised its importance in furthering the 
advancement of medicine and surgery. In 1911 
he was elected a fellow-of the Royal Society as ° 
one who had rendered service to science. 4 
Laden with heavy responsibilities of adminis: 
tration, and fully occupied by the many problems ~ 
which Egypt presented, he still found time to 
take interest in all new investigations which were ’ 
being undertaken; his kindly advice and powerful 
aid were always available to those who. were’ 
playing their part in the reconstruction of Egypt, 
and to them he was one on whose support they 
could always confidently depend. H. GL. & 
NOTES. 
Amonc the list of honours conferred by the King on’ 
officers of the Army, the Royal Army Medical Service 
has reason to be gratified by the number bestowed’ 
upon its members. Sir Alfred Keogh, the Director- 
General, is promoted to be G.C.B., shaning this dis- 
tinction. with Sir William Robertson. Sir Alfred 
Keogh was a former Director-General of the Army 
Medical Service, and subsequent to his retirement. 
became rector of the Imperial College of Science — 
and Technology, but soon after the outbreak of 
war was recalled to his former post. He found the 
Royal Army Medical Service confronted with a 
task of the first magnitude, and its staff numeric- 
ally wholly inadequate to cope with the work 
before it. Within a few months he made a’ 
new force of it; mumbers of the younger medical’ 
practitioners were enrolled in its ranks, and senior 
members of the medical profession—physicians,’ 
surgeons, hygienists, and specialists in all branches—. 
were attached to it in a consultative capacity. For two 
years this virtually new force has worked harmoniously 
and efficiently. Never before have the wounded been. 
so promptly and so adequately cared for, while the 
prevention of the numerous diseases which are so- 
liable to follow on war and the train of an army has 
never been more successfully accomplished. 
Tue Kinc has been pleased to confer the Com-. 
panionship of the Order of the Bath, for services. 
rendered in connection with the war, upon ~ 
Lieut.-Col. G.H. Barling, vice-chancellor of the. 
University of Birmingham, who is now serving 
as a consulting surgeon to the British Army in: 
France. The honour of Companionship of the Order 
of St. Michael and St. George has also been conferred 
for war services upon Major Bertram Hopkinson, 
F.R.S., professor of mechanism and applied mechanics, 
Cambridge University. 
- 
WE regret to see in the Morning Post of January 30 
the announcement of the death, at eighty-two years. 
of age, of Mr. John Tebbutt, of Windsor, New South. 
Wales, where he had an observatory and carried on. ~ 
very valuable astronomical work for many years. 
SuRGEON-GENL. Sir G. H. Makins will deliver the 
Hunterian oration before the Royal College of. 
Surgeons of England on Wednesday, February 14. 
The subject will be the influence exerted by the. 
military experience of John Hunter on himself and 
on the military surgeon of to-day, 
: 
