————————L———< 
OEE ee — —- 
< APS 
May 12, 1923] 
NATURE 
653 

Societies and Academies. 
LONDON. 
Royal Society, May 3.—lLeonard Hill and A. 
Eidinow: The influence of temperature on the 
biological action of light. The biological action of 
light is accelerated by warmth and retarded by cold. 
This is true for bacteria, infusoria and human skin. 
The temperature coefficient for infusoria, between 
1° and 20° C., is about 3:0. By adequate exposure 
to cool air over-action of the sun on the skin can 
be prevented. The proven success of heliotherapy 
applied to children with surgical tuberculosis can 
probably be secured for cases of phthisis if these are 
no longer exposed in hot sun-boxes, but suitably 
stripped and exposed in cool air—F. A. E. Crew: 
Studies in intersexuality. I—A peculiar type of 
developmental intersexuality in the male of the 
domesticated mammals. Individuals, regarded as 
females during the earlier part of their lives, later 
assume the behaviour and the secondary sexual 
characters of males. They form a series according 
to the degree of imperfection of the external genitalia 
and the relative degree of development of the 
derivatives of the Wolffian and Millerian ducts. 
In all there were paired but mal-descended testes. 
The condition appears to be the result of the absence 
during the period of differentiation of the sex 
organisation of that minimum stimulus provided by 
the sex-differentiating substance, of the sex-hormone, 
in a zygotic male. The Wolffian and Miillerian ducts 
pursue an equal and parallel development. The 
degree of intersexuality varies with the stage during 
the period of sex-differentiation at which the necessary 
minimum stimulus was exhibited. Since the assump- 
tion of the secondary sexual characters of the male 
type is normal in time, either the minimum stimulus 
is ‘ultimately exhibited, or else there is a different 
threshold of response to the action of the sex- 
differentiating stimulus on the part of various 
structures belonging to the sex-equipment.—E. J. 
Morganand J. H. Quastel: The reduction of methylene 
blue by iron compounds. The restoration of the 
power to reduce methylene blue to boiled milk by 
means of ferrous sulphate solution is due to the 
inorganic constituents of the milk. Methylene blue 
is reduced by ferrous sulphate solution in the pres- 
ence of sodium hydroxide, carbonate, bicarbonate or 
phosphate, and of the sodium salts of acids such as 
acetic, tartaric, or citric. Ferrous sulphate solution 
alone will not effect any perceptible reduction. Two 
ferrous molecules always react with one of methylene 
blue. The mechanism of the reduction appears to 
depend on, the relative affinities of the oxygen 
acceptor for the hydroxyl ion and of the hydrogen 
acceptor for the hydrogen ion.—C. F. Cooper: The 
skull and dentition of Paraceratherium bugtiense. 
A genus of aberrant rhinoceroses from the Lower 
Miocene deposits of Dera Bugti. A complete lower 
jaw, a nearly complete skull, parts of three other 
skulls, several fragments of lower jaws, numerous 
loose teeth, and parts of the milk dentition found in 
Baluchistan are discussed. The lower pair of incisors 
have the form of tusks turned downward. Even 
in the oldest specimens they show practically no 
signs of having been used. The condition of the 
premolar dentition shows the animal to be in an 
early state of evolution, but on a side line, with some 
possible connexion with the early North American 
Aceratheres. Similar teeth were found in Turkestan 
by Borrissyak and described by him as belonging 
to Indricotherium (=Baluchitherium), and a skull 
has been discovered in Mongolia by the American 
NO. 2793, VOL. 111] 

Museum expedition and attributed to Baluchitherium. 
It has the enormous length of 5 ft., as against a 
skull length of 3 ft. in the present form, which 
makes it the more probable that the two genera are 
properly separated.—W. L. Balls: The determiners 
of cellulose structure as seen in the cell walls of 
cotton hairs. The use of plane and circularly 
polarised light and of immature hairs shows that the 
reversals of the spiral fibrillar structure appear in 
full number, as soon as the secondary wall is visible, 
indicating predetermination thereof Gesine growth in 
length. On development of the pre-cellulose, the 
primary wall shows a pair of opposed spirals with 
pitches corresponding to that of the slip spirals of 
the secondary wall. These slip spirals are structurally 
connected with the quicker pit spirals and invariably 
opposed to the latter in direction; the tangents of 
their angles are in the ratio of 4:1, which suggests 
polymerisation from the pre-cellulose of the primary 
wall. The rotation of the plane of polarisation by 
a single layer of secondary cell-wall is inverted on 
opposite sides of a reversal point ; thus the molecular 
structures of the right-hand and left-hand areas 
would seem to be mirror-images. The probable 
space-lattice conformation of cotton and other 
celluloses seems to indicate a modernised restatement 
of Nageli’s micellar theory.—I. de B. Daly: The 
influence of mechanical conditions of the circulation 
on the electro-cardiogram. Exercise in man produces 
changes in the electro-cardiogram which are similar 
to those obtained in anesthetised animals by simul- 
taneous stimulation of both stellate ganglia. ~Partial 
or complete denervation of the heart was produced 
in a dog. Alterations in the mechanical conditions 
of the circulation were brought about (i.) by partial 
compression of the systemic aorta at various levels 
in the body, and (ii.) by changing the conditions of 
the artificial circulation of the heart-lung preparation. ~ 
The most marked changes in the electro-cardiogram 
occurred when the arch of the aorta was partially 
clamped. The form of the electro-cardiogram of the 
denervated mammalian heart probably remains 
unaltered when the increase in work of the heart is 
produced in a physiological manner. 
Zoological Society, April 1to.—Dr. A. Smith 
Woodward, vice-president, in the chair.—G. C. 
Robson: The snail Planorbis sufourii Graells, the 
intermediate host of Schistosoma (Bilharzia) hema- 
tobium, in Portugal.—C. F. Sonntag : On the anatomy, 
physiology and pathology of the chimpanzee.— 
<. Kostanecki: On a remnant of the omphalo- 
mesenteric arteries in the manatee. 
Royal Microscopical Society, April 18.—Prof. F. J. 
Cheshire, president, in the chair—D. W. Cutler: 
The Protozoa of the soil. Data were obtained from 
365 consecutive daily counts of the numbers of 
bacteria and protozoa in a normal field soil. Fourteen- 
day averages of the total numbers showed marked 
seasonal changes ; the organisms being most numerous 
in November and fewest during February. An 
inverse relationship exists between the numbers of 
bacteria and the active amcebe. A two-day periodicity 
obtains for the active numbers of one species of 
flagellate. Azotobacter, in the presence of Protozoa, 
can fix more atmospheric nitrogen than when alone. 
Experiments on the reproductive rate of Colpidium 
colpoda show that, according to the age of the parent 
culture, death of some of tae organisms follows 
inoculation into fresh medium; also that death 
occurs even during the period of maximum reproduc- 
tion.—A. C. Seward: The use of the microscope 
in paleobotanical research. Microscopical investiga- 
tion can be applied to plants which have been 
