718 
NATURE 
[May 26, 1923 


Research Items. 
INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND CoaL MininGc.—In 
the Journal of the National Institute of Industrial 
Psychology (vol. 1, No. 6), a colliery director 
discusses the application of industrial psychology to 
coal mining. He points out that hitherto it has been 
taken for granted that in some wonderful way the 
art of coal mining is handed on from old collier to 
young collier and from father to son. Again, the 
very vital importance of the industry to the country 
has made it the battle-ground of conflicting interests, 
so that employers and trade union officials make 
many statements about the needs and desires of the 
workers, statements which are not infrequently 
mutually incompatible. Seeing that there is so much 
bias, the writer suggests that the proper person to 
obtain actual facts is the man of science. He there- 
fore advocates a considerable development of the 
small-scale investigation done already by the Institute 
for one firm, so that methods of training and instruc- 
tion, general conditions of work, and allied problems 
should be studied and the best methods discovered. 
Just as it has been found necessary to study methods 
and training for sport, so a similar study would, in 
the writer’s opinion, be found helpful in coal mining. 
If industrial psychology can show how to increase 
output and with it wages, and yet leave the coal- 
getter less fatigued, it will do more for the general 
trade of the country than has been dreamt of. 
CHEMISTRY IN MEDIEVAL IsLtAm.—-In the issue of 
Chemistry and Industry for April 20, Mr. E. J. Holm- 
yard contributes an interesting article on this sub- 
ject. He points out that no serious attempt has 
hitherto been made to study adequately the large 
number of Arabic chemical treatises which have come 
down to us—and he might have added that, in spite 
of this, the most dogmatic assertions about some 
aspects of the problem are still put forward with 
surprising confidence by recent writers on the history 
of chemistry. Chemistry was taken over by the 
savants of Islam from the Greek school at Alexandria 
about the 7th century A.p., and for five or six hundred 
years—namely, to the 12th century—it was almost a 
monopoly with them. The most famous of its votaries 
was Geber, or Jabir ibn Hayyan, probably born at 
Harran in Mesopotamia, who attained a position of 
eminence under the Caliph Harun al-Raschid (A.D. 
786-808). The identity of Jabir with the Geber of 
the Latin works, which became known to Europe 
about A.D. 1300, although it is now denied by most 
writers, is, according to Mr. Holmyard, very probable, 
and he has important new material in this field. The 
leanings to mysticism which Geber and other chemists 
show is probably to be attributed to Neo-Platonic 
influences, which also tinged their chemical views. 
A belief in astrology, and in the connexion between 
planets and metals, was shared by all thinking men 
of the time, but played a relatively unimportant part 
in the chemistry of Islam. Scepticism as to the 
possibilities of transmutation also appeared at an 
early date. Mr. Holmyard gives many further 
details, and his paper is one which throws much light 
on this interesting period in the history of chemistry. 
DIFFICULT AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN.—In Psyche 
(vol. ii, No. 4) Dr. R. G. Gordon discusses the 
problems concerned with the difficult and delinquent 
child. Every teacher and doctor has come across 
the child who does not fit in with the others, who, 
in spite of all efforts on the part of those responsible, 
persists in various forms of misbehaviour, frequently 
‘of a futile and useless character, and finally becomes 
NO. 2795, VOL. 111 | 

ungovernable. The problem should be faced by trying © 
to find out why such a child is difficult, and for this 
purpose it should be possible for every suspected 
child to be examined, in the first place, physically, 
as it is known how such factors as abnormalities In 
the secretions of the endocrine glands, eye strain, 
etc., affect mental development; then his intelligence 
should be tested, and thirdly, his reaction to life 
should be investigated. It must be borne in mind 
that lack of intelligence is by no means an invariable 
concomitant of delinquent behaviour. The writer 
hopes that eventually the State will provide the 
means for such work, but he realises that the time 
is not yet. In conclusion, he puts ina timely warning 
that the proper selection of workers for such in- 
vestigation is of vital importance. 
TREATMENT OF ELrcrric SHock.—Sir Bernard 
Spilsbury and other writers discuss the condition of 
individuals who have been subjected to electric shock, 
in Archives of Radiology and Electrotherapy, No. 272, 
March 1923, p. 316. The pathological changes in 
the tissues in fatal cases are generally very slight— 
burning at the point of entrance and exit of the current 
and hemorrhages beneath or in the skin and into the 
muscles. Although some cases may die from paralysis 
of the heart, many are cases of “‘ suspended animation ”’ 
due to sensory stimulation causing paralysis of 
respiration. In many of the last-named class the 
immediate application of artificial respiration will 
resuscitate the unconscious and apparently dead with 
complete recovery. 
NERVES OF THE FincEers.—In the Journal a 
Anatomy (vol. lvii., Part III., April 1923) Prof. 
J. S. B. Stopford, of the University of Manchester, has 
published a short note on the distribution and 
function of the nerves to the fingers. The paper is 
of exceptional interest and importance, because it 
gives a new orientation to the results of the last 
twenty years’ researches on sensation and the inter- 
pretation of the effects of nerve injuries. With the 
object of settling this difficult problem once for all, 
Dr. Henry Head submitted himself to experiment 
in 1903, and had two nerves in his forearm cut across, 
so as to study the process of recovery of sensation. 
The nerves selected for this test were supposed to be 
distributed only to the skin, and Dr. Head assumed 
that when they were cut the nerves concerned with 
deep sensibility would remain intact. Prof. Stopford 
now finds that the nerves in question are not purely 
cutaneous, but also supply joints and some of the 
subcutaneous tissues. Hence the interpretation of 
Dr. Head's classical experiment and the far-reaching 
generalisations based upon it need to be re-examined 
in the light of these anatomical facts, which are 
doubly important because their reality has been 
established by an investigator of rare insight, who has 
a sympathetic understanding of Dr. Head’s methods 
and results. 
LinKED CHARACTERS IN THE, MiLtions FisH.—In 
a continuation of his investigations on the millions fish 
(Lebistes rveticulatus), Dr. O. Winge (Comptes rendus 
tvav. Lab. Carlsberg, vol. 14, No. 20) obtained a fish 
with a new factor for elongated caudal fin. This 
factor shows ordinary sex-linked inheritance, and is ~ 
therefore located in the X-chromosome. In crossing 
experiments there is evidence that the factor may 
become transferred from the X- to the Y-chromosome 
by crossing over. It then shows male-to-male 
inheritance, as is the case with several spot characters 
in Lebistes. Later it may cross over again to the X, 
