loS 



NATURE 



[December 5, 1907 



with brilliant success. Most delicate and fundamental 

 operations on the human body have been made possible 

 bv the knowledjje obtained from the treatment of animals. 



The president and council of the Royal Society claim 

 that since the continued advancement of science in every 

 department depends so largely upon the use of the experi- 

 mental method, the utmost caution should be observed in 

 any proposals for legislation whereby the prosecution of 

 the method might be unduly limited. So much has already 

 been gained from the application of experiments on 

 animals, both for the progress of physiology and for the 

 alleviation of human suffering, and so much more may be 

 confidently expected in the future, that the president and 

 council trust that nothing will be done that would hamper 

 the legitimate employment of the method. 



\A'hile precautions' should undoubtedly be taken against 

 improper use of experiment on living animals, it is not 

 the province of the society to suggest what safeguards 

 should be adopted. It is, however, the bounden duty of 

 the president and council to urge that those safeguards 

 should be so framed as not unnecessarily to interfere with 

 that advancement of knowledge to promote whicli the 

 society exists. 



Such restriction would not only cripple or arrest the 

 growth in this country of an important branch of bio- 

 logical science, but in so doing would reduce the efficiency 

 of both physician and surgeon to mitigate or cure disease. 

 It might then become no longer possible to maintain the 

 high position which this country has gained in researches 

 necessary for the advancement of knowledge and for the 

 guidance of medical practice, and the investigators to 

 whose devotion and skill the progress of medical science 

 owes so much might be compelled to seek in foreign 

 universities and scientific organisations the opportunities 

 for research which they could no longer find at home. 



This statement is not founded on general knowledge 

 alone. The cooperation of the Royal Society has often 

 been sought by the Government of this country in taking 

 measures to arrest the spread of deadly disease, and to 

 improve the conditions of health in distant parts of the 

 British Empire. Without the ungrudging services of 

 physiologists and pathologists, many of whom the society 

 is 'proud to count among its fellows, the services thus 

 solicited could not have been given. The president and 

 council gladly avail themselves of this opportunity of 

 testifying to the laborious and unselfish devotion, often in 

 most dangerous conditions, with which the necessary ex- 

 periinental researches have been carried on, and to the 

 value of these researches, not only in enlarging our bio- 

 logical conceptions, but in alleviating the sufferings of 

 mankind. 



A further sum of 350/. has been voted by the 

 council from the Government tjrant towards a fund 

 of 2000L which Sir David Gill is endeavouring to 

 raise for the purpose of extending the work of 

 measuring the great African geodetic arc. The grant 

 was voted conditionally upon the 2000/. referred to 

 being obtained. 



The main part of Lord Rayleigh's presidential 

 address is reprinted below. 



An important feature in the work of the Royal Society 

 consists of various inquiries, undertaken for different de- 

 partments of Government, in regard to diseases which 

 affect the tropical portions of our foreign possessions and 

 dependencies. .Among these diseases the attention of the 

 civilised world has been for some years directed to the 

 maladv known as sleeping sickness. The first concerted 

 action' for the study and combating of this appalling 

 scourge arose out of a representation made by the Royal 

 Society to the Foreign Office in the spring of 1902, in 

 consequence of which, at the request of the Treasury, the 

 society's Malaria Committee organised and dispatched a 

 small' scientific commission to Uganda. In the course of 

 a short time the source of the disease was traced by this 

 Commission to the presence of a trypanosome in the blood 

 and cerebro-spinal fluid of the victims, and the further 

 discovery was also made by the same Commission that the 

 trypanosomes are carried by a species of biting tsetse-fly. 

 These important revelations' were followed up by detailed 



NO. 1988, VOL. TJ^ 



studies of the character and distribution both of the disease 

 and of the fly. Besides sending out a succession of 

 observers to prosecute the investigations of its Commission 

 at Entebbe, the Royal Society urged upon the Colonial 

 Office the necessity of organising, and under an increased 

 medical staff, a more comprehensive inquiry into the local 

 conditions under which the disease is propagated. This 

 recommendation was carried out, and some valuable in- 

 formation on the subject has been obtained. Meanwhile, 

 though various drugs had been tried with at best only 

 temporary success, no lasting remedy had been found for 

 the malady, which has continued to be fatal and to spread 

 steadily over Central and East Africa. 



The various European Governments which have 

 possessions in those regions have at last determined to 

 make a united effort to cope with sleeping sickness through 

 the instrumentality of an International Conference having 

 a separate bureau in each country concerned and a central 

 bureau in London. The object of this cooperation will be 

 to collect information bearing on the disease, to devise 

 and carry out such scientific researches as may seem to be 

 necessary, and to concert measures for dealing with the 

 disease and the populations affected or likely to be affected 

 by it. The Royal Society, having led the way in this 

 subject, has been invited to give the proposed combined 

 international action its support. The society welcomes the 

 proposal, and will be prepared to render every assistance 

 in its power. In the meantime, our Tropical Diseases 

 Committee is continuously and actively engaged in the 

 endeavour to discover a drug that may prove effective in 

 the treatment of the disease. Their investigations have 

 been directed to the study of trypanosomiasis in rats, and 

 the latest results obtained are such as to encourage the 

 hope that at least in this direction their labours have been 

 successful. 



During the present year three parts of the reports of 

 the society's Mediterranean Fever Commission have been 

 published, embodying the final observations and conclusions 

 in this important inquiry, which was undertaken at the 

 joint request of the Admiralty, War Ofifice, and Colonial 

 Office. The members of the Commission have shown how 

 the scourge of fever, which has been so long rife in Malta, 

 and has so seriously reduced the strength of our garrison 

 there, may be eventually banished from the island. 

 Already their recommendations, so far as they have been 

 followed, have reduced the amount of fever to trifling pro- 

 portions. It now remains for the authorities to adopt the 

 further precautions pointed out to them, which will prob- 

 ably banish the disease altogether. 



Progress has been made with the National Physical 

 Laboratory's buildings at Eskdale Muir, some of which 

 are now ready for occupation. It was hoped that the 

 work might have begun this summer, and the Treasury 

 has provided a sum of 750/. for the expenses during three- 

 quarters of the current financial year. Owing to the bad 

 weather in the early summer this anticipation has not been 

 realised, but a start will be made very shortly. The build- 

 ings are admirably adapted for their purpose, and will 

 render possible the study of terrestrial magnetism under 

 the undisturbed conditions which used to exist at Kew. 



The completion of the work on the electrical units will 

 be satisfactory to those who have been interested in this 

 question. At the time of my own researches, about 

 twenty-five years ago, the ohm and the ampere were un- 

 certain to 2 per cent, or 3 per cent., and I then scarcely 

 hoped to get nearer than one part in a thousand. The 

 recent work carried on at Bushey would seem to indicate 

 that an accuracy of one part in ten thousand may have 

 been attained. The possibility of such a refinement de- 

 pends largely upon the use in the instruments of coils 

 composed of a single layer of wire, the position of every 

 turn of which is open to exact determination. The 

 importance of this feature was insisted upon by the late 

 Prof. Jones. 



Accuracy of measurement appeals less to the lay and 

 scientific public than discoveries promising to open up new- 

 fields ; but though its importance at any particular stage 

 may be overrated, it promotes a much needed consolida- 

 tion and security in the scientific edifice. .\ remarkable 

 example of enhanced accuracy is afforded by modern 

 measurements of luminous wave-lengths, for which we are 



