Es = NABURE 
421 


SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1923. 

CONTENTS. 
— and Medical Ree - 




National 
Jc. G. 
PAGE 
: F 421 
The Fourier-Bessel Function. By Sir G. Greenkill, 
F.R.S. . ° ‘ 422 
A Yearbook of the Leeeied World 425 
The Cactus Family. a? N. E. Brown 426 
Our Bookshelf F 427 
etters to the Editor :— 
The Nature of the Liquid State.—Prof. C. V. pemen; 
Sir W. H. Bragg, K.B.E., F.R.S. = 428 
The Wegener Hypothesis and the Great Pyramid.—- 
Dr. George P. Bidder; Prof. W. M. F. 
Petrie, F.R.S. . 428 
Science and Armaments. —Dr. Be (os Martin’ 429 
Hafnium and Titanium.—Wilson L. Fox . 429 
The Cause of Anticyclones.—A. H. R. Goldie 429 
The Phantom Island of Mentone.—Prof. G. H. 
Bryan, F.R.S 430 
Ball iilardices and Scleroscope Hardness. ‘(With 
Diagram.)—Hugh O'Neill 430 
Metallic Crystals and Polarised Light. es H. 
Shaxby 431 
Easy Method of observin the Stark Effect. — 
Prof. H. Nagaoka and y Sugiura 431 
Volcanic Dust and Climatic Change. —Prof. 'w. J 
Humphreys . 431 
_ The Character and Cathe of Earthquakes. (ih 
_ Diagram.) By R. D. Oldham, F.R.S. . 432 
Hydrogen Ion Concentration. Prof. A Vv. Hil, 
F.R.S. . P 5 : = 434 
mete 
r. J. G. Leathem. By J. ibs 437 
Dr E. A. Merck : 437 
_ Current Topics and Events 3 438 
_ Our Astronomical Column : : x 441 
Research Items . 442 
The Dyestuffs Industry in Relation te Reseageh anil 
Higher Education. By Dr. Herbert Levinstein 445 
Large Telescopes and their Work . ; 447 
‘Irish Sea Plankton. By M.V.L. . : 448 
University and Educational Intelligence . a ato 
Societies and Academies. . £ < ‘ » 450 
Official Publications Received . . ~ - + 452 
Diary of Societies . . 452 
Recent Scientific and Pechnital Books Sapa v 


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Advertisements and business letters should be 
addressed to the Publishers. 
Editorial communications to the Editor. 
Telegraphic Address: PHUSIS, LONDON. 
Telephone Number: GERRARD 8830. 
NO. 2787, VOL. 111] 
mittee of the Privy Council, 
alluded to at length. 
National Health and Medical Research. 
HE elaborately detailed report of the Medical 
“} Research Council for the past year gives much 
food for thought, whether we receive it in the spirit 
of the tax-payer, anxious to be assured that his con- 
tribution to the national health is being worthily 
expended, or in the spirit of the watchman, eager only 
for a sign, but untroubled by detail. We all have in 
us something of the tax-payer and, let us hope, some- 
thing more of the watchman, so let us see how these 
respective parts of us are catered for in the Council’s 
report. Whether we are able to appreciate its con- 
tents or not, we, as tax-payers, have always demanded 
this sort of governmental report. Does it not concern 
the disbursement of 130,000l., or something like a 
halfpenny per head of the population, on the pursuit 
of new knowledge that is to alleviate human suffering ? 
Unthinking lay and even medical critics might regard 
it as a perilous investment. Were they holders of 
cinema shares, they would probably accept without 
quéstion a similar disbursement to the parents of a 
Jackie Coogan. 
If, then, we expect to find definite assurance that 
new knowledge leading directly and immediately to 
improvement in the health of the community has been 
acquired, we shall be disappointed. The average 
néwspaper, keen only for sensation, would vote it 
dull. But a closer study of the report, including its 
admirable introductory chapter by the special Com- 
is calculated to bring to 
the more responsive of us the conviction that inability 
to appreciate springs from our own ignorance and short- 
sightedness. We gather, in fact, that the machine 
which registers advance in scientific medicine resembles 
a piece of complicated clockwork, the wheels of which 
represent movements in all the biological and physical 
sciences, not excluding mathematics. We note, for 
example, how the Hill katathermometer—an instru- 
ment of precision for measuring the cooling power of 
the atmosphere—may be made to afford a most 
valuable index of conditions affecting the efficiency 
of the worker in factory and workshop. We note also 
recent progress in our knowledge of the biological 
action of sunlight, and its remarkable influence on 
diseases such as rickets. A new field is here opened. 
The discovery of insulin by the Toronto workers is 
We gather that a method of 
preparing a potent product of consistent uniformity 
has not yet been achieved, but doubtless this difficulty 
will yield to further research. It is worth reflecting 
that this new knowledge might still be withheld from 
us, were it not for the elaboration in recent years of 
1 Report of the Medical Research Council for the year 1921-22. (Published 
by His Majesty's Stationery Office.) 3s. 6d. net. 
