January 28, 1909] 



NA TURE 



587 



ticulai's of the lectures can be obtained from the secretary 

 of University College. 



The annual prize distribution and conversazione of the 

 Northampton Polytechnic Institute, Clerkenwell, E.C., will 

 be held on Fridav and Saturday, February s and 6. The 

 Earl of Halsbury, P.C, will distribute the prizes on 

 February 5, and after the prize distribution the new build- 

 ings, which have been recently erected in the courtyard with 

 funds provided by the London County Council, will be- 

 formally declared open. After the above ceremonies the 

 whole of the laboratories, workshops, drawing offices, and 

 studios of the institute will be on view in working order. 



The second international course for legal psychology and 

 psychiatry will be held at Giessen (Grandduchy of Hesse), 

 Germany, on April 13 — 18. The course will be under the 

 direction of Prof. Sommer, with the cooperation of Profs. 

 Mittermaier and Dannemann, of Giessen, and Prof. 

 .AschalTenburg, of Cologne. All communications should be 

 addressed to Dr. Sommer, professor of psychiatry. Univer- 

 sity of Giessen. 



An article by Prof. Fleming in Engineering for 

 January 8 directs attention to the need for a revision of 

 the syllabus for the B.Sc. degree in engineering at London 

 University. It is contended that the syllabus now in force 

 enables a candidate to obtain the degree without having 

 undergone a systematic training in civil, mechanical, or 

 electrical engineering, owing to the freedom of choice 

 allowed, especially in the second or " B " group of sub- 

 jects. The experience of several years has shown that a 

 large number of candidates exercise their freedom of choice 

 by taking the path of least resistance, and they do not, 

 as a rule, select subjects which form complete and well- 

 arranged courses of study. Subjects of minor importance 

 have, to the majority of candidates, a wide popularity for 

 examination purposes, and Prof. Fleming suggests that if 

 university degrees arc to possess, or to continue to possess, 

 any imoortance in the engineering world, the courses of 

 study must be framed solely with a view to equip students 

 for their work in after life, and not for the immediate 

 purpose of passing an examination. 



We have received a copy of the second series of papers 

 published by the Department of Education of the Armstrong 

 College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The special feature of the 

 pamphlet is a very full account of an e.xperiment of a novel 

 character in training-college practice. As Prof. Mark R. 

 Wright, the head of the department, points out, in ordinary 

 school work there is a tendency for the relations between 

 teachers and taught to become formal and artificial, and 

 the motive of the experiment described in these pages 

 was to determine how far a training-college camp could 

 be made to obviate such tendency and to import human- 

 ising influences and greater cordiality into the work 

 of education. Outdoor life and the study of nature under 

 skilled guidance were among the distinguishing character- 

 istics of the fortnight's life under canvas, and the results 

 of the experiment appear to have been gratifying. The 

 experiment is, we understand, to be repeated annually, and 

 we hope it may be imitated by other training-college autho- 

 rities. There can be no doubt that intelligent, well-planned 

 experiments, followed by an impartial and correct account 

 of the results obtained, will contribute more than any 

 other expedient to the development and formulation of a 

 science of education. These "papers" may be commended 

 to the attention of students of educational problems. 



The report on the operations of the University of the 

 Punjab for the year ending September 30, 190S, emphasises 

 the contention, says the Pioneer Mail, that in Indian uni- 

 versities the arts side, which comprises exclusively literary 

 courses, is patronised to the neglect of the scientific side 

 of education. In the Punjab University there is no faculty 

 either of engineering or of commerce. There is a faculty 

 of .science, but its examinations, compared with those of 

 the faculty of arts, do not attract many candidates. 

 Referring to the examinations of the two faculties held in 

 1908, it is pointed out by our contemporary that in the 

 matriculation examination, whilst in the arts faculty there 

 were 3408 candidates, of whom 1470 were successful, in 

 the science faculty there were only 72, of whom 36 were 

 successful. In the intermediate examination, whilst 697, 



NO. 2048, VOL. 79] 



of whom 308 were successful, appeared on the arts side, 

 the number of those who appeared on the science side did 

 not exceed 39, and of these 18 were successful. Whilst 315 

 appeared for the degree of Bachelor of Arts and 116 were 

 successful, a much smaller number, of whom 5 were 

 successful, competed for the degree of Bachelor of Science. 

 .^s regards the master's degree in the two faculties, whilst 

 42 competed on the arts side, there were only 4 on the 

 science side. The results on the science side were, how- 

 ever, better than those on the arts side. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, RfC:ived November 3, 190S. — '' Reciprocal 

 Innervation of Antagonistic Muscles. Thirteenth Note. 

 The Antagonism between Reflex Inhibition and Reflex 

 Excitation." By Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S. 



In this paper the question is raised as to how reflex 

 excitation and reflex inhibition are related one to another 

 in their action on a reflex centre common to both of 

 them. In the case of such antagonisms as the action 

 of the vagus and accelerans on the heart and that of the 

 vasodilatator and vasoconstrictor nerves on a vascular 

 area, and that of depressor and excitatory asphyxial in- 

 fluences on the vasomotor centre, several observers have 

 shown that the antagonism is a pseudo-antagonism rather 

 than a real antagonism — that is, the one action interferes 

 with the other by delaying it, but does not directly annul 

 it or really abolish or counterbalance it. 



The present paper brings experimental evidence that in 

 reflex inhibition and reflex excitation playing upon a 

 common centre we have two influences which are really 

 in the strict sense antagonistic in that they behave one 

 to another as two forces which act in opposite direction 

 at the same point of application. The result is an 

 algebraic summation of the effects obtainable from^ the 

 two nerves — the excitatory afferent and the inhibitory 

 afferent — singly. The individual effects of the two nerves 

 fuse to a resultant. The two opposed nerves must 

 have in the reflex centre a common locus of operation. 

 There the antagonistic influences collide. This point of 

 collision may lie at a synapse, in which case the opposed 

 influences may be thought of as altering oppositely the 

 permeability of the synaptic membrane. Or it may lie 

 in the substance of a neurone, if so, probably in the 

 motoneurone itself, and in that part of it which lies within 

 the reflex centre. In either case the net change which 

 results when the inhibitory and excitatory afferents are 

 concurrently stimulated is an algebraic sum of the plus and 

 minus effects producible by the two antagonistic nerves 

 singly. Tracings illustrate the experimental results. 



November 19, 1908. — " Measurement of Rotatory Dis- 

 persive Power in the Visible and Ultra-violet Regions of 

 the Spectrum." By Dr. T. Martin Lowry. 



In order to measure rotatory dispersive power in the 

 visible region of the spectrum, the light from an arc formed 

 between a pair of rotating metallic electrodes is concen- 

 trated by a lens on the widely opened slit of a constant- 

 deviation spectroscope. An achromatic lens of 22-inch 

 focus (displacing the telescope of the instrument) casts a 

 magnified image of the slit on the polarising prisms of a 

 triple-field polarimeter. The colour of the image can be 

 varied by rotating the prism of the spectroscope ; its maxi- 

 mum width for monochromatic illumination is determmed 

 by the openness of the spectrum and the efficiency of the 

 dispersive system. Of the twenty-six wave-lengths 

 employed, those shown in heavy type can be read with 

 the full width of the aperture, the remainder as bands 

 occupying one-third of its width ; the yellow mercury 

 doublet can be read as a single band or as two narrow 

 separate lines : — 



Li 6708... Na ...5893... Tl ... 5351 (flame spectra) 



Hg r790 ■■• ^-769 ■■■ 5461 ... 4359 ... (enclosed arc) 

 Cd .. 6438 ... '5086 ... 4800 ... 4678 

 Cu ... 5782 ... 5700 ... 5219 ... 5154 ... 5105 



47o<; ... 4651 •■■ 4587 .■■ 4378 

 Zn ... 6364 .. 481 1 ■■. 4722 ... 4680 

 Ag ... 5469 ... 5209 



