April 30, 190S] 



NATURE 



623 



other bequests to the University of Sheffield are : — (a) Such 

 of his boolcs not bequeathed to the Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society as the University shall select ; (b) optical 

 and scientific instruments and apparatus ; (c) cabinets and 

 cases of geological and mineralogical specimens and pre- 

 parations not bequeathed to the citizens of Sheffield ; 

 \d) manuscript books and notes upon geological and other 

 scientific subjects ; (e) lantern-slides similar to those be- 

 queathed to the citizens of Sheffield, and the whole of his 

 large collection of lantern-slides illustrating many scientific 

 and other subjects ; (/) microscopical objects of rocks, 

 minerals and metals, and other things of a like nature. 

 A legacy of 6500/. is bequeathed to the University, and 

 the University is desired to appropriate out of other funds 

 3500!., the amount of a gift which Dr. Sorby made to the 

 University College of Sheffield in 1903, making together 

 10,000/., as an endowment for a professorship of geology 

 or such other subject as the University may think more' 

 suitable. This legacy is charged upon the funds to be 

 appropriated to answer certain annuities given by the will 

 and payable as and when the annuities fall in. To the 

 Royal Society of London is bequeathed the sum of 15,000/., 

 the income therefrom to be devoted to the establishment of 

 a fellowship or professorship for the carrying on of original 

 scientific research. The object is to promote the discovery 

 of new facts rather than the teaching of what is known. 

 It is suggested that when possible the research shall be 

 carried out in one of the laboratories of the University 

 of Sheffield. This condition may, however, be dispensed 

 with when the nature of the investigation requires that the 

 work should be done elsewhere. So long as in the opinion 

 of the council of the Royal Society the University of 

 Sheffield is not efficiently equipped in laboratories and 

 appliances, then the income shall be administered in such 

 manner as the said council shall think best for the promo- 

 tion of original research. Other legacies are : — the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society of Sheffield, 500/., and Ihe Geo- 

 logical Societv of London, iooo(. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, February 27. — "The Influence of Tem- 

 perature on Phagocytosis." Bv J. C. G. Ledingham. 

 Communicated by Dr. C. J. Martin, F.R.S. 



(i) When serum, cocci, and leucocytes are mixed directly 

 and incubated at different temperatures, the number of 

 cocci taken up increases more or' less regularly with the 

 temperature. By this method it has been shown that the 

 phagocytic intake at iS° C. is only about one-fourth to 

 one-fifth of that at 37° C. 



(2) This fall, at least within the temperature range 

 37° C. to 18° C, is due to the diminished rate of com- 

 bination of the serum with the coccus as the temperature 

 falls. 



(3) When cocci which have previously been exposed to 

 the action of serum, either at 37° C. or at 18° C, are 

 put in contact with leucocytes, the intake is practically 

 the same, whether the phagocytosis takes place at 37° C. 

 or at 18° C. The number taken up, however, after com- 

 bination at 18° C, and more especially at 7° C, falls 

 very short of the number taken up after combination at 

 37° C. 



(4) Experimental results, detailed above, lead one to 

 assume that prolonged contact of a serum with cocci at 

 a low temperature (18° C. or 7° C.) leads to a maximum 

 absorption of opsonin by the cocci (corresponding to that 

 temperature), so that the subsequent phagocytosis is 

 identical whether it takes place at 37° C. or at 18° C. 



(s) Provided that cocci loaded with opsonin up to a 

 certain maximum are presented to the leucocyte, the phago- 

 cytic energy of the latter is independent of the temperature 

 within a wide range. 



(6) From the appearances on stained films, it would 

 seem that sensitised micro-organisms exposed to the action 

 of leucocytes at verv low temperatures tend to congregate 

 near the periphery of the leucocytes, although little or no 

 phagocytosis may take place. Hence, within a suitable 

 temperature range, it may be presumed that the inclusion 



NO. 2009, VOL. 77] 



of sensitised micro-organisms by the leucocyte is a surface- 

 tension effect taking place between the coccus and the 

 protoplasmic wall, amoeboid energy playing only a sub- 

 ordinate part in the process. 



M.\NXHESTER. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, March 24. — 

 Prof. H. B. Dixon, F.R.S., preside:-'t, in the 

 chair. — An annotated list of the alien plants of the 

 Warrington district : G. A. Dunlop. One hundred and 

 seventy-five species, comprising with others several of 

 Papaver, Senecio, and Sisymbrium, were enumerated in the 

 paper. Thirty of these are now extinct. — Field notes on 

 the birds of the Ravenglass gullery, 1906 : C. Oldham. 

 The author describes in his paper the habits, during the 

 breeding season, of the black-headed gull, common, lesser, 

 and Sandwich terns, as observed by him at Ravenglass, on 

 the Cumberland coast. The term " gullery " he applies 

 to that portion of the sandhills which is occupied by 

 colonies of these birds. He also mentions other species — 

 such as the oyster-catcher and sheld-duck — which nest in 

 or in the immediate vicinity of the " gullery." 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, April 21. — M. H. Becquerel in the 

 chair. — An addition to the demonstration of the mechanism 

 of monocular stereoscopy ; A. Chauveau. — Concerning 

 Trypanosoma congolense : A. Laveran. A goat, inocu- 

 lated with T. congolense on November 15, 1906, was cured 

 in July, 1907, from the infection produced by this trypano- 

 some. Re-inoculated with the same organism on 

 August 22, it was infected again, but the second infection 

 was slight, and the animal was cured at the beginning of 

 the following November. Two fresh inoculations, made 

 December 20, 1907, and February 6, igo8, produced no 

 re-infection ; the goat had acquired immunity for T. congo- 

 lense. Further inoculation of the same animal with 

 T. dimorphon, made on April i, 1908, produced a well- 

 characterised infection, tending to prove that T. congolense 

 constitutes a distinct species from T. dimorphon. — A new 

 French observatory : Robert Jonckheere. This is the 

 Hem Observatory, situated S200 metres north-east of the 

 fortifications of Lille. Astronomical observations will be 

 commenced before the end of the year. — The influence of 

 the silent discharge on the isolation resistance of in- 

 sulators : F. Negre. The resistance of the insulators 

 studied was found to be constant up to a certain critical 

 tension. The latter depends on the dimensions, form, and 

 condition of the surface of the insulator, the resistance 

 falling rapidly as soon as the silent discharge appears over 

 the surface. — The flame spectra of iron : G. A. Hem- 

 salech and C. de Watteville. The metal is obtained in 

 a fine state of division by passing one of the gases supply- 

 ing the burner over two electrodes of the metal, either an 

 arc or sparks passing between the latter. The spectra 

 obtained depended on tiie nature of the flame ; thus with 

 coal-gas and air in the region between X 2250 and \ 5000 

 750 lines were obtained, with coal-gas. and oxygen 250, 

 and with hydrogen and oxygen 210. — The reducing power 

 of the ferropyrophosphates : P. Pascal. Clear solutions 

 of ferropyropliosphate of soda in water, together with a 

 small amount of sodium pyrophosphate, reduce gold and 

 silver, but not platinum 'salts. Salts of mercury and 

 copper are also reduced, and there is a strong tendency to 

 the production of highly coloured stable colloidal solutions 

 of the metals. — Combustion without flame, and its appli- 

 cation to lighting with incandescent mantles : Jean 

 Meunier. The author holds that the temperature of the 

 mantle is much higher than that of the flame surrounding 

 it, and attributes this to the fact that each particle of oxide 

 becomes the focus of an intense local combustion. The 

 combustion by incandescence lowers considerably the 

 inferior limit of inflammability of a gas mixture. — .A 

 demonstration of Gibb's phase rule : J. A. Muller. — Re- 

 marks on a wire-drawing machine of the seventeenth 

 century : Ch. Fremont. — The progress of modern surgery 

 judged by the statistics of operations on the knee (re- 

 sections) : M. Lucaa-Championnifere. For this par- 

 ticular operation the mortality has been lowered from 

 36 per cent, or higher to less than 1 per cent, by the 



