April lo, 1902 J 



AATURE 



551 



clitions persons who had been inoculated were distinctly less 

 liable to attack than those who had not been inoculated, that 

 of the inoculated patients who were attacked by the plague a 

 much smaller percentage of cases proved fatal, that the pro- 

 phylactic was not harmful during the incubation stage of the 

 disease, and that protection began to be effective twenty-four hours 

 after injection, but was not complete until the tenth day. Profs. 

 Fraser, Greenfield and Hunter Stewart took part in the after 

 di.scussion. Prof. Fraser commenting especially on the fact that 

 the vaccine, valuable though it had been proved to be, had not 

 been shown to be able by itself to control a real epidemic of 

 plague. He believed that more effective control would 

 result from the policy of isolating patients and of enforcing 

 better sanitation. Moreover, Ilaftkine's vaccine always produced 

 a reaction which, he could not help thinking, might actually 

 convert a case which would otherwise have terminated in 

 recovery into a case which terminated in death. In reply 

 Major Bannerman said he would never decry sanitary measures, 

 but it was at present impossible to get the natives of India to 

 appreciate the blessings of sanitation and the necessity of ventil- 

 ation. The Government should be induced to introduce the 

 teaching of hygiene into the schools, and it was an extraordinary 

 fact that there was not a medical representative on the Viceroy's 

 Council. — Dr. Hugh Marshall communicaied a paper by Mr. J. 

 K. H. Inglisand himself on the action of silver salts on solution 

 of ammonium persulphate. The paper gave the results of 

 measurements of the reaction velocity and of the influence exerted 

 by other salts present in the solution. From these it would 

 appear that the first part of the reaction, giving rise to the 

 formation of peroxide of silver or similar compound, is much 

 slower than the second part, which results in the formation of 

 nitric acid. 



March 3. — Sir William Turner in the chair. — Dr. Masterman 

 read a paper on the early development of Cribrella oculata, 

 Forbes, of which the leading points may be thus summarised. 

 The segmentation is very variable, but always culminates 

 in * solid morula, which is converted into a blastula by a 

 remarkable process termed multiple egression. A normal 

 gastruia is then produced and the blastopore closes. A 

 process of cell-prolificalion then causes the formation of 

 mesenchyme and hypenchyme (the latter filling the archen- 

 teron). In the bilateral larva the anterior coeloni gives rise to 

 the preoral cii;lom and to paired lateral cceloms as well as a 

 small central cfflom ; the posterior co;lom gives rise to left and 

 right halves which fuse later. The left lateral ccelom becomes 

 the hydroccele ; the right lateral the epigastric ccelom ; the 

 central cfelom forms the pericardium or dorsal sac ; and the 

 posterior celom forms the hypogastric ciclom. The transition 

 from bilateral to radial stages throws light upon the peculiar 

 torsion found in asterids and upon the homology of the meso- 

 derm in echinoderms. A close comparison was drawn between 

 the Cribella larva and Balanoglossus. — Messrs. A. E. Shipley 

 and Edwin Wilson, in a paper on a possible stridulating organ 

 in the mosquito, drew attention to a curious apparatus at the 

 base of the wings of Anopheles mactilipennis, an apparatus 

 which had escaped the notice of both the systematist and mor- 

 phologist. The structure is very complex, but consists essen- 

 tially of a slightly movable bar provided with a series of well- 

 inarked teeth which in certain circumstances rasp across a 

 series of ridges. It seems probable that as the wings are raised 

 and depressed the movement of these two surfaces over one 

 another may account for some of the characteristic buzzing of 

 the mosquito. — Dr. Noel Paton gave an account of some 

 observations on the amount of dissolved oxygen in water 

 required by young Salmonida;. — A paper was also read by Dr. 

 James Scott on the influence of subcutaneous injections of large 

 quantities of dextrose on the metabolism in the dog. It was 

 found that dextrose injected in amounts varying from 5 to 7 

 grms. per kilo, was as far as possible acted upon by the general 

 tissues of the body and not dealt with by the liver or at once 

 secreted by the kidneys, and the result was a marked increase in 

 proteid metabolism. 



DUKLIN. 



Royal Dublin Society, March 19. — Prof. Grenville 

 A. J. Cole in the chair. — On the progressive dynamo- 

 metamorphism of a porphyritic andesite from Co. Wicklow, by 

 Henry J. Seymour. The author described the gradual alteration 

 of a coarsely porphyritic andesite into a finely banded crystalline 

 schist, as the result of earth movements connected with the 



NO. 1693, ^'OL. 65] 



intrusion of the Leinsler granite. The light-coloured binds in 

 the schist consisted of the very much elongated felspar pheno- 

 crysts, which are drawn out partly by granulation and partly by 

 recrystallisation into flat lenticles seven or eight times the length 

 of the original crystal from which they were derived. The 

 dark bands are composed of the altered matrix containing 

 abundant secondary biotite. — Prof. E. J. McWeeney, on a 

 method of air-examination by bacteriological procedure. The 

 problem to be solved was whether the air on a certain part of 

 the premises of a Dublin manufacturer was liable to contamina- 

 tion by micro-organisms carried by air currents from a refuse- 

 heap on the premises of a neighbour, the intervening distance 

 being 800 feet. The method consisted in liberating on the 

 refuse-heap a readily recognisable form of micro-organism that 

 does not normally occur in Dublin air, and exposing large Petri 

 dishes (diameter 20 cm.) at various heights at the place where 

 contamination was suspected. The organism used was one that 

 formed red pigment, and was intermediate in character between 

 B. prodigiosiis and B. Jxilimsis. A thick suspension of this in 

 normal saline was thrown into the air at the refuse-heap by 

 means of a spray apparatus, at the rate of a litre per hour. 

 This was kept up for three hours on a day when the wind was 

 blowing in the required direction. Meanwhile six culture dishes 

 were exposed in the perpendicular position, and at heights 

 varying from about 12 to 60 feet above the ground. Afterwards 

 they were closed and the colonies allowed to develop. On four 

 of the six plates red colonies appeared, viz. on those exposed at 

 the heights of 30, 40, 50 and 60 feet, and subculture showed the 

 organisms composing them to be identical with those that had 

 been sprayed. The success of the experiment was rendered the 

 more remarkable by the fact that rain was falling in torrents 

 throughout the three hours' exposure. The author proposed to 

 develop the method and apply it to other problems of the like 

 kind. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, April i. — M. Bouquet de la Grye 

 in the chair. — The new organisation of the study of astronomy 

 and the physics of the globe at the National Observatory of 

 Athens ; the presentation of the third volume of the Annaks of 

 this establishment, by M. Lcewy. The first branch of work 

 developed by M. Eginitis was that of meteorology ; at the 

 present time there is one station of the first order at Athens and 

 twenty-one stations of the second order in various parts of 

 Greece. At the same time a .systematic study of the geo- 

 dynamical phenomena of Greece was organised, a network of 

 550 stations uniformly distributed throughout the whole 

 country dealing with seismic phenomena. The observations 

 from these stations up lo the present time have been analysed 

 by M. Eginitis, the results being of great scientific interest. It 

 is clearly shown that there is no conilection between the 567 

 seismic disturbances noted in Greece during the year 1899 and 

 the positions of the moon. Owing to the unavoidable delay in 

 fitting up the astronomical instruments, this branch of work is 

 not so well developed as the others, but aided by the fine 

 climate, valuable observations on meteoric showers have already 

 been recorded. — On the action of human serum on the Trypano- 

 some of the Nagana ( TV. Bnicei), by M. A. Laveran. It would 

 be supposed that the injection of the serum of an animal 

 naturally immune, such as man, from the attack of the tsetse 

 fly would be without effect in the treatment of animals suffering 

 from the effects of the bites ; contrary to expectation, however, 

 human serum has proved to be active. Infected rats and mice, 

 injected with human serum, lost the characteristic organism in 

 from twenty-four to thirty-six hours after the injection. On 

 account of the close analogy between the monkey and man, it 

 appeared to be of interest to compare the action of serum from 

 man and the monkey ; the latter serum was found to be quite 

 inactive. The effect of human serum as a preventive against 

 the disease was next tried, but the immunity produced was 

 feeble. — On surfaces of constant negative curvature, by M. 

 Erik Holmgren. — On the heat of solidification of solid 

 ammonia, by MM. de Forcrand and Massol. — A self-recording 

 atmospheric electroscope, by M. G. Le Cadet. An image of 

 the aluminium leaves of the electroscope was projected through 

 a very fine slit on to a revolving sensitised plate. The chief 

 difficulty was due to the extreme fineness of the leaves, this 

 being got over by tilting the box of the electroscope with 

 respect to the optic axis of the apparatus.— On the band spectra 



