626 

similar publications, it is time to inquire more closely 
into the causes. For one thing, we note that the 
editorial and recording work is no longer done for the 
love of the science. For many years, indeed, the 
editor and recorders have been paid, but of late the 
appropriation for this purpose has grown enormously. 
Times, no doubt, have suffered an economic change ; 
there are fewer people with money and leisure enabling 
them to work for nothing. But more of our younger 
workers should be inspired by the thought of service 
to their science, and should realise the experience and 
knowledge they themselves could gain by compiling a 
good Record. The work, too, is lightened for them. 
The International Catalogue introduced the system of 
furnishing the recorders with slips ready written, and 
to a certain extent this system is continued by the 
payment of searchers. We ought, therefore, to be 
getting an even better Record than we are, and we 
were hoping that it would have been possible before 
long to restore some details eliminated by the need for 
economy. Clearly, the greater the value the better is 
the prospect of selling. 
So we pass from the producers to the purchasers. 
Here there are two points to be made. First, every 
worker should consider seriously whether he is prepared 
to devote a large proportion of his time to ransacking 
literature, at least that part of it which alone is access- 
ible to him, or in default to work in a state of hap- 
hazard half-knowledge, or whether he is prepared to 
save his time by paying some one else a trifling wage 
(about a shilling a week) to furnish him with a complete 
analytical index to the yearly harvest of his science. 
Put thus, can he remain in doubt ? If he is not stirred 
by conscience to pay himself, he can at least insist that 
the institution for which he works shall find the money 
and provide the book. But there is a second point. 
Admitting that there exist a few workers so exceedingly 
distinguished that they are furnished with compli- 
mentary copies of every paper on their subject that 
appears from China to Peru, this can scarcely affect the 
fact that most workers in pure or applied zoology are 
not in that easy position. The trouble with them is 
that, for the most part, they have never heard of the 
Record. We believe this statement to be no exaggera- 
tion, and we would urge the advisability of some real 
advertising. The occasion is favourable, for such 
competitors as there have been are nearly all now out 
of the running. One good way would be to induce 
university professors to instruct their pupils in the craft 
of bibliographic research. 
What, then, is the conclusion? For thirty-six years 
the Zoological Society has earned the thanks and praise 
of zoologists for its support of this indispensable aid. 
But zoologists at large must now do their share if they 
NC. 2793, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 
[May 12, 1923 
wish this support to continue. On their side, as well 
as on that of the recorders, there must be a little more — 
enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. The vessel is stranded, 
but with good will from all hands she can be kept afloat 
till the high tide returns. If thé workers will give some 
real earnest of this good will, we cannot believe that 
the Society which has so long served as pilot will leave 
her to be broken up. 
Hygiene of the Great War. 
History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents. 
Medical Services: Hygiene of the War. Edited by 
Major-Gen. Sir W. G. Macpherson, Colonel Sir W. H. 
Horrocks, and Major-Gen. W. W. O. Beveridge. 
Vol. 1, pp. xiit+ 400. Vol. 2, pp. vit506. (London : 
H.M. Stationery Office, 1923.) 21s. net each. 
HE two volumes dealing with that part of the 
Medical Services of the War which was con- 
cerned with preventive medicine possess great historical 
interest and high current value; they form an admir- 
able example of the excellent results achievable when 
science is applied to practical life. 
The first volume deals with general. administrative 
problems, and comprises chapters on sanitary ad- 
ministration in the field, on the schools of sanitation 
and instruction organised to secure sanitary practice, 
on methods of water purification and of disposal of 
waste products in different countries, and on the housing 
and the clothing of the soldier. The second volume 
is concerned with food rations, with the physical 
test stations, the base hygienic laboratories, and with 
prisoners of war; these chapters being followed by 
special discussions on the prevention of malaria, of 
trench foot, of bilharziasis, of trachoma, of smallpox, 
and of plague, which present more vividly than the 
other chapters the successful conquest of science over 
disease. 
The prevention of typhoid and paratyphoid, of 
typhus and of trench fever, are not included in the 
discussions in these volumes; but as the prevention 
and cure of pediculosis forms the essential element in 
the elimination of the last two of these diseases, the 
very full discussion given to the methods of disinfesta- 
tion found most useful in the War fulfils the main need 
from the point of view of health, the clinical accounts 
of these diseases being given in other volumes of the 
history of the War. Similar remarks apply as regards 
scurvy and beri-beri, but on p. 73 of the second volume 
is an interesting statement as to the means taken to 
supply British and Indian troops with fresh fruit juice 
in Mesopotamia. In the prevention of beri-beri the 
addition of oatmeal and dhall to the British ration, 
the addition of marmite, and later, the issue of bread 

