348 



NA rURE 



[February 13, 1908 



before the ninth century A.D., and that, if a sinfjle 

 inscription prove untrustworthy, we shall have to fix the 

 tenth century as the earliest date attested. Another 

 point on which. there can be no doubt that he is right 

 is that the Arabic epithet hindashi, applied to the deci- 

 mal notation, certainly does not mean Indian, the 

 word for which. is hindi, and cannot be connected with 

 hindashi by any regular Arabic method of word- 

 formation ; not to mention that hindashi usually means 

 " geometrical," and was derived from a Persian word 

 bv the Arabic lexicographers themselves. There is no 

 probability in favour of Colebrooke's conjecture that 

 the Indian work translated by Alfarazi was entitled 

 " Siddh'anta "; and it is clear enough that after Brah- 

 magupta there was a decline in the study of mathe- 

 matics in India. 



.\s to Brahmagupla himself, Mr. Kaye points out 

 that in his treatise, side by side with Hero's exact 

 formula for the area of a triangle in terms of the 

 sides, he gives the absurd rule that the product of half 

 the base and half the sum of the other sides is the gross 

 area of a triangle — a survival of a rough approxi- 

 mation similar to those used in Egypt more than two 

 thousand years previously — and this without a word 

 of warning as to when this method would give no 

 approximation at all (though, of course, it should be 

 remembered that in applying this rule, the side most 

 unequal to the others would probably be taken as the 

 " base "). ."Mtogether Mr. Kaye's paper is well worth 

 reading, although he refrains from advancing any 

 definite conclusions of a positive character. 



G. B. M. 



PROF. J. B. PETTIGREW, F.K.S. 



BY the death of Prof. Pettigrew another gap has 

 occurred in the able band who, in the last three 

 or four vears of the " "fifties " of last century, studied 

 at Edinburgh University. Born in 1834 at Boxhill, 

 in I^anarkshire, young Pettigrew attended first Airdrie 

 Academy and then arts' and a few divinity classes 

 in Glasgow University. Proceeding to the University 

 of Edinburgh as a medical student in 1856, he was 

 first brought into notice in the senior anatomy class 

 of Prof. Goodsir, for by devoting himself to a research 

 on the arrangement of the muscular fibres of the 

 heart he, with 125 marvellous dissections and 120 

 ingenious dra.vuigs, carried off the gold medal. By 

 and bv he became president of the Royal Medical 

 .Society in Edinburgh, and gave the " Croonian " lec- 

 ture on the arrangement of the muscular fibres of the 

 heart (after rehearsing it to his fellows in Edinburgh) 

 to the Royal Society of London. He also won the 

 gold medal in the class of medical jurisprudence for 

 an essay on the presumption of survivorship. Next 

 he carried on a research on the cardiac nerves and 

 their connections with the cerebro-spinal and sym- 

 pathetic system, for which a gold medal was awarded 

 on graduation day, 1S61. 



.After a brief period of office as house-surgeon in 

 Prof. Svme's wards in Edinburgh Infirmary, Petti- 

 grew was appointed assistant curator (under Prof. 

 Flower) in the museum of the Royal College of 

 .Surgeons, London. There his remarkable skill in dis- 

 section, his stimulating enthusiasm, and his fine 

 preparations of the muscular coats of the stomach, 

 bladder, and other viscera — which he rendered so 

 visible bv distending them with coloured plaster of 

 Paris — made his period of office memorable. He also 

 published at this time his memoirs on the arrange- 

 ment of the muscular fibres of the heart and on the 

 muscular fibres of the stomach and bladder in the 

 Philosophical Transactions ; and another memoir on 

 the relations, structure, and functions of the valves 



NO. 1998, VOL. 7'/] 



of the vascular system in vertebrates (Trans. Roy. 

 Soc. Edin.). He further entered into another field, 

 viz. the mechanism of flight, first prominently brouglii 

 out in his lecture on the subject at the Royal Institu- 

 tion. This was followed by his elaborate and finely 

 illustrated memoir in ,the Linnean Transactions, ;uid, 

 in 1879, by his volume on animal locomotion in 

 the International Series. 



His health, however, broke down in i.S(.,S. and as 

 total blindness was feared he had to relinquish his 

 post at the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 in London and take rest. Improving in health, he, in 

 1869, accepted the post of curator of the museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. He 

 held also the offices of pathologist to the Royal In- 

 firmary, lecturer on physiology to the Royal College 

 of Surgeons in Edinburgh, &c. He published in 1874 

 a volume on the physiology of the circulation in plants, 

 in the lower animals, and in man. Unsuccessfullv 

 competing for the chairs of anatomy and physiology 

 in Edinburgh LIniversity, his niche was found in the 

 professorship of medicine and anatomy (Chandos 

 chair) at the L'niversity of .St. Andrews in 1875. H'^ 

 period of office in this chair soon became eventful, as 

 he was appointed the university's representative on 

 the General Medical Council, and in connection with 

 the union of the university with Dundee College. To 

 his labours, and those of one or two others, the uni- 

 versity owes the Berr}- fund of 100,000/., the prin- 

 cipal's residence of .Scores Park, and the fine Bute 

 Medical Buildings. 



In recent years he published various general papers, 

 gave the " Harveian " oration in Edinburgh in 1889, 

 and continued his researches on the mechanism of 

 flight in his private laboratory, where his remarkable 

 machine with its gigantic wings exhibited all his recent 

 experiences. Failing health lately much curtailed his 

 labours, yet, under great weakness, he bravelv 

 elaborated a large illustrated work embodying the 

 various researches formerly alluded to and evidences 

 of design in animals. Besides other honours, he 

 received the Godard prize of the French Academy of 

 Sciences, and was made a laureate of the Institute of 

 France. W. C. M. 



D 



IT. .4. SHENSTONE. F.R.S. 

 ISTINGUISHED for his skill as an experi- 

 menter, for his ability as a teacher, and for 

 his zeal in the introduction of improved methods ol 

 teaching physical science as a branch of general 

 education." Such was the statement of his qualifi- 

 cations for admission to the Royal Society, of which 

 -Shenstone became a Fellow in i8g8. By his friends 

 he will be remembered for his enthusiastic eagernes-; 

 in the pursuit of science, by unselfish devotion to 

 what he thought his duty, by his loyalty and good- 

 fellowship, and by the indomitable cheerfulness with 

 which he bore physical suffering. 



I made his acquaintance in October, 1S71, when, as 

 one of the Bell scholars, Shenstone entered the 

 laboratory of the Pharmaceutical Society in Bloom>- 

 bury Square, where I was then demonstrator. After 

 my removal to Clifton College, and feeling the need 

 of an assistant, I was led to think of the young 

 student I had left behind. He accepted the proposal 

 to live under my roof, and thus was laid the found- 

 ation of a friendship which persisted without a check 

 to the end. In 1875 Shenstone left me on his 

 appointment as science master at Taunton College, 

 and after about two years removed to Exeter School 

 to take up a similar appointment. Here he built and 

 fitted up a school laboratory, which he described in 

 Nature (July 25, 1878), and which proved that, con- 



