336 

WATURE 
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[Marca 10, 1923 
Current Topics and Events. 
Mucu excitement was recently created all over the 
world by the sensational headline, “‘ Cause of influenza 
discovered at Rockefeller Institute, says Dr. Flexner.”’ 
The announcement was given a prominent position in 
the daily papers and everywhere was lauded as one 
of the greatest medical discoveries known. Almost 
alone among our contemporaries we stated the actual 
facts of the work of Olitsky and Gates, the reputed 
discoverers of the long-sought-for microbe of influenza, 
and we recommended the adoption of a cautious 
reserve until further data were revealed. Some of 
the inner history of this latest American press boom 
are now published in an editorial in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association (February 10), which 
has the greatest circulation of the medical papers of 
the United States and is a journal of the highest 
repute. It seems that after the sensational announce- 
ment above, the Journal telegraphed to Dr. Simon 
Flexner, who replied that his announcement was 
merely a summary of papers already published by 
Olitsky and Gates in the ordinary way in the Journal 
of Experimental Medicine. The summary was pre- 
pared for the New York State Department of Health. 
Dr. Flexner states that some one in the State publicity 
department had headlined the summary without his 
knowledge. Now that the actual statement of Dr. 
Flexner has appeared in the Health News Service, it 
is seen to be nothing that has not been known for the 
last three years, and as the Journal of the American 
Medical Association points out, the “ organism can- 
not be said to have been conclusively shown to be 
the cause of the condition known as epidemic in- 
fluenza,’’ a view which we ourselves independently 
printed. In justice to the Press it is stated that in 
this instance it was not to blame, but it is not stated 
who was. The Journal deprecates this method of 
publication, leading as it does to false hopes for 
thousands of sufferers, and to the ultimate discredit 
of real advances in medical science. 
TELEGRAMS from New York appeared in several 
newspapers of February 28, announcing the dis- 
covery of a fossilised human skull in the province of 
Santa Cruz, Patagonia. The Times of March 1 pub- 
lished particulars relating to the skull, which were 
obtained by its correspondent at Buenos Ayres from 
the discoverer, Dr. Wolf, formerly of the Canadian 
Geological Survey. The skull, it appears, was found 
not by Dr. Wolf but by a settler seven years ago in 
sand-hills in the pampas lying some twenty miles to 
the west of the port of Santa Cruz. The discoverer 
reports it to be “ petrified’ and “ probably of tertiary 
origin.”” As regards its characters, all that is to be 
learned is that it is ‘‘long in proportion to its width,”’ 
that its ‘“‘ frontal eminences are well marked,’’ and 
that it may be a woman’s skull. It is true that there 
exist in Patagonia deposits of the right age to yield 
fossil remains of Pliocene man, and on numerous 
occasions, during the past twenty-five years, claims 
of his discovery have been made. None has stood 
the test of inquiry ; when the remains proved to be 
NO. 2784, VOL. 111 | 

human, it was found that a mistake had been made 
concerning their geological antiquity ; when their 
antiquity was upheld, the remains proved not to be 
human. Whether the discovery now announced 
will prove an exception remains to be seen. 
Ir is reported that excavations now being carried 
on at Ur of the Chaldees on behalf of the British 
Musetim_and the University of Pennsylvania have 
brow gig a temple of the Moon God. As Ur 
was the seat of the worship of deified kings and one of 
the greatest centres of ancient theology, its further 
investigation is likely to add considerably to our 
knowledge of the religious and social life of early 
Mesopotamia. The site and the purpose of the 
temple were first identified through the interpretation 
by Rawlinson of four cylinder seals discovered in 1854 
by J. E. Taylor, who located the temple tower and 
excavated an adjacent building and burial mound. 
Further excavations were carried out by Mr. R. 
Campbell Thompson in 1918 and by Dr. H. R. Hall, 
on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum, in 
1919. Dr. Hall also investigated a neighbouring site 
at Tell el-Obeid, where he found much copper, in- 
cluding several lion heads and a large relief, in a 
pre-Sargonic building (civc. 2900 B.c.) beneath a plat- 
form of unburnt brick, probably of Dunghi of Ur 
(civc. 2450 B.c.), The site of Ur itself was occupied 
from neolithic down to quite late times, the temple — 
having been restored by Nabonidus in the sixth 
century B.c. As regards its early inhabitants, Mr. 
Campbell Thompson, in the Times of March 1, points 
out that the present excavations may be expected to 
throw light upon his suggestion that the people of 
this area differed in race from the Sumerians. This 
view is based upon the character of the fragments of 
hand-made, painted pottery found by himself and 
Dr. Hall at Ur, Eridu and Tell el-Obeid, which is 
identical with that discovered by de Morgan at Susa 
in Elam. This latter, in turn, is referred to a similar, 
but rougher, type found at Anau in Turkestan. 
A WELL-PRESERVED dolmen has been discovered 
by workmen while excavating at the back of a house 
at St. Ouens, Jersey. Associated with the dolmen 
was a kitchen midden full of limpet shells and con- 
taining an ancient human skull and a round stone 
for grinding corn. The skull is very much flattened 
in the frontal region, and it is no doubt on this 
ground that a very high antiquity, exceeding that 
of Pithecanthropus erectus, has been attributed to it 
locally, as is stated in a highly coloured report which 
appeared in the Daily Mail of February 26. It is 
also suggested that the kitchen midden is of meso- 
lithic age. Although the find is of considerable 
interest, neither supposition appears to be well 
founded. Shell-fish must always have been, as 
they are still, an important element in the diet of 
the islanders, and therefore does not necessarily 
indicate a mesolithic culture, while the association 
with the dolmen and a stone for grinding corn would 
suggest that a very early date in the neolithic period 
