a 
_ May 19, 1923] 


Pror. E. W. Mortey. 
i fe the issue of Science for April 13, appears an 
appreciative notice by Prof. O. F. Tower, professor 
of chemistry in Western Reserve University, of the life 
and work of Prof. E. W. Morley, whose death was 
announced in Nature for April 28, p. 578. 
Edward Williams Morley was born in Newark, New 
Jersey, on January 29, 1838, and in 1869 went to 
Western Reserve College, then in the town of Hudson, 
as professor of natural history and chemistry. In 1882 
_ the College was moved to Cleveland, becoming Adebert 
College of Western Reserve University, and there Prof. 
Morley taught general chemistry and quantitative 
analysis until his retirement in 1906 as emeritus 
_ professor. * 
Prof. Morley’s first work of importance, undertaken 
while he was still in Hudson, was on the relative pro- 
portion of oxygen in the air (1878-81). The work for 
which he is best known to chemists, however, was on 
the densities of oxygen and hydrogen and the ratio in 
which they combine ; this was carried out at Cleveland 
and published in 1895. It is a remarkable tribute to 
his work that now, after nearly thirty years, the accepted 
values of these quantities are practically identical with 
those found by him. Prof. Morley was also eminent as 
a physicist, and his characteristic for precision of 
measurement is shown in his early papers on rulings 
on glass and on the probable error of micrometric 
measurements. While at Cleveland, he collaborated 
with Prof. A. A. Michelson in the development of the 
interferometer, and with this instrument the well-known 
Michelson-Morley experiment on the relative motion of 
the earth and the ether was carried out. The experi- 
ments, though giving negative results, were resumed 
later in conjunction with Prof. D. C. Miller. 
The accurate work on the determination of the 
_ relative atomic weights of hydrogen and oxygen won 
_ for Prof. Morley the Davy medal of the Royal Society 
_ in 1907 ; while in 1904 he had been elected an honorary 
- fellow of the Chemical Society. He was also an 
honorary member of the Royal Institution. In the 
United States he received the honour of being made 
president of the American Association and of the 
American Chemical Society in 1895 and 1899 respect- 
ively. He died on February 24, about a month after 
his eighty-fifth birthday. 

Sir SHIRLEY Murpuy. 
SwiRLEY Murpuy’s name during the last thirty 
years has been a household word in the ranks of 
public health workers ; and his work as medical officer 
of health for the county of London during a period 
of twenty-two years was marked by great improve- 
ments in the administrative control and prevention of 
disease. From this post he retired a few years before 
the War, but at its onset his services were utilised in 
taking charge of the sanitary services of the London 
area, for which work he was created K.B.E. in 1919, 
having been previously knighted in 1904. 
It is, however, rather in Sir Shirley Murphy’s 
contributions to the science of epidemiology that 
Nature is chiefly interested. The factors making for 
NO. 2794, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 

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Se. eee eee eee 
677 
- Obituary. 
or reducing the prevalence of such acute infectious 
diseases as scarlet fever, diphtheria, “measles, and 
whooping-cough are complex ; they differ from such 
diseases as typhus fever, typhoid fever, cholera, small- 
pox, and epidemic enteritis, which can be entirely 
controlled, given the adequate application of general 
and specific sanitation. Like the uncontrolled and 
only partially controllable diseases enumerated above, 
the members of this last-named group are subject to 
cyclical waves, seasonal and longer waves; but the 
vehicles of infection can be put out of action, or by 
vaccination in the case of smallpox, personal immunity 
is obtainable. Murphy made many contributions in 
his annual reports and in the Proceedings of the Epi- 
demiological Society to the study of seasonal influences 
on scarlet fever and diphtheria, showing that there have 
been in London seasonal variations in both the fatality 
(i.e. case-mortality) and age distribution of notified 
cases of these diseases. The cases of these diseases at 
ages under five forma larger proportion of the total cases 
at the beginning and end of the year than in its middle ; 
and even when the necessary corrections are made for 
variations in age and sex of the cases, the fatality from 
these diseases is subject to seasonal variations. Murphy 
advanced the view that the change in the age incidence 
of death-rates from phthisis is explicable by successive 
additions by birth of a more resistant race, a tenable 
ypothesis, though not supported by international 
facts as to the phthisis death-rate. 
The presidential address delivered by Murphy to the 
Epidemiological Society on ‘The Study of Epi- 
demiology ” is perhaps the best illustration of his wide 
knowledge and keen interest in epidemiological problems. 
At the same time it shows very clearly the complexity 
of factors making this study a formidable struggle with 
difficulties. He did much to assist in laying the 
foundations of a more accurate science of epidemiology ; 
and in the pursuit of this study his annual reports to 
the London County Council will always be a valuable 
mine of information. 
Murphy’s work was recognised by his own profession, 
for he was awarded the Jenner medal by the Royal 
Society of Medicine and the Bisset Hawkins medal for 
distinguished services to public health by the Royal 
College of Physicians. His personality was singularly 
attractive ; modest and unassuming, he was always 
ready to help his colleagues, and generous in his 
appreciation of their work. 

Mr. Josepy Wricut. 
Tue death of Joseph Wright of Belfast on April 7, 
at the age of eighty-nine, removes one of the fine old 
school of naturalists whose interests were bounded only 
by the earth itself. Though prolonged attention to 
specific details might have seemed to outsiders a sign 
of a mind cabined and confined, Wright’s enthusiasm 
over the sheer beauty of the organisms that he studied 
was an inspiration to the wide circle of his friends. 
Joseph Wright was born at Cork in 1834, and, his 
parents being members of the Society of Friends, he 
was educated at the Friends’ School in Newtown, Co. 
Waterford. His wife came also from Cork City, and, 
