October 27, 1910] 



NATURE 



539 



Dr. Sambon visited the provinces of Bergamo, 

 Milan, Brescia, Padova, Rome, and Perugia, and 

 wlierever he came in contact with the disease he found 

 that the consumption of maize, whether diseased or 

 not, had nothing to do with the prevalence of pellagra. 

 Endemic centres of the disease have existed in Italy 

 persistently for at least a century. The disease is not 

 met with in towns, but onlv in certain parts of the 

 country, namelv, in the districts where a sandfly of 

 the class Simuliidae, and belonging to the genus 

 Simulium, is met with. No actual parasite has as yet 

 been discovered in the blood; but the geographical 

 distribution of the disease, its epidemiology, and its 

 close resemblance in behaviour to other diseases in 

 which a parasite has been discovered, confirms Dr. 

 Sambon in the belief that it is a protozoal infection 

 carried by a sandfly that is the etiological factor in 

 pellagra. 



As a parallel we have the case of yellow fever. In 

 yellow fever we know the agent of transmission to 

 be a mosquito. No parasite has been discovered in 

 the blood in yellow fever, but the experiments carried 

 out are so conclusive that the disease is of the nature 

 of a protozoal infection that yellow fever is classed as 

 one of the protozoal infection with a parasite that is 

 ultra-microscopic. Pellagra is in the same category. 

 There are certain factors in infections of this kind 

 which enable us to conclude that a disease is of a 

 certain class, although the microscope is at fault. 



Dr. Sambon proved : — (i) That the endemic centres 

 of pellagra in Italy have remained the same since the 

 ■disease was first described. (2) That the season of 

 recurrence of pellagra coincides with the season of the 

 appearance of the fully-fledged sandfly to the e.xtent 

 that even if the spring is early or late so the sandfly 

 IS early or late in appearing, and synchronously 

 pellagra cases correspond in their appearance. (3) 

 Tn centres of pellagra infection whole families are 

 attacked at times simultaneously. (4) In non-pella- 

 grous districts when a pellagrin is met with the disease 

 never spreads to others, and the patient acquired in- 

 fection during a sojourn in a pellagrous district. (5) 

 In the case of a family that has moved from a pella- 

 grous district to a non-pellagrous district the children 

 born in the former are pellagrins, whilst those of the 

 children born subsequent to removal to a non-pelln- 

 frous district do not develop the disease. (6) The 

 disease is not hereditary, although infants a few 

 months' old mav become infected, especially if taken 

 out to the fields in pellagrous districts, where their 

 mothers work during the season, when the sandflies 

 are in evidence. (7) Pellagra is not contagious, but is 

 transmitted to each individual by an infected sandfly. 



Dr. Sambon, from the epidemiological and topo- 

 graphical aspects of pellagra alone, has been able to 

 show by well-nigh conclusive proof that pellagra is an 

 insect-borne disease. It is hoped that monev will be 

 forthcoming whereby a study so well began and so 

 fruitful in results shall be further investigated, so that 

 not only Italy but the many countries in which pellagra 

 is a scourge and a calamity may be freed of one of the 

 most frequent causes of insanity. 



DR. MELCHIOR TREUB. 

 'T'HE death of this distinguished botanist, which 

 J- occurred at Saint Raphael, Var, on October 3, 

 closes a career of remarkable brilliancy. Born at 

 Voorschoten, near Leyden, on December 26, 1851, 

 Melchior Treub entered the University of Leyden "in 

 i86q, and shortly after the completion of his under- 

 graduate career was appointed assistant in the 

 Botanical Institute there. This position he occupied 

 from 1874 until 1880. when he was appointed, in his 

 NO. 2139, VOL. 84] 



twenty-ninth year, to the directorship of the Botanic 

 Garden at Buitenzorg, in Java, which had become 

 vacant owing to the untimely death of the talented 

 Scheffer. 



The striking quality of Treub's early work, pub- 

 lished before and during the tenure of his assistant- 

 ship at Leyden, more than justified the selection, by 

 the Netherlands Government of so young a man to 

 fill so important a post, and afforded the happiest 

 auguries for his success in this new and wider field. 

 But high as were the expectations which Treub's 

 friends were entitled to entertain, their most sanguine 

 hopes fell far short of what Treub was able to accom- 

 plish during the twenty-nine years of his sojourn in 

 Java. 



Succeeding as he did a man of high aims, whose 

 unwearied exertions in giving effect to them were 

 largely responsible for his early death, Treub, with 

 rare administrative skill, brought the renowned insti- 

 tution of which he had been given charge to a pitch 

 of material perfection and a position of scientific 

 importance far surpassing his predecessor's fondest 

 aspiration. While developing and extending the 

 economic activities whose foundations had been 

 laid by Scheffer, Treub was able in the midst of his 

 multifarious and engrossing administrative duties to 

 undertake and complete the investigation of manv 

 important scientific jjroblems, the details of which 

 enrich the pages of the famous " Annales du Jardin 

 Botanique de Buitenzorg," founded by Scheffer, and 

 edited from the second volume onwards by Treub. 



To the herbarium which has been associated with 

 the Buitenzorg Garden since its foundation, and to 

 the museum organised by his predecessor, Treub was 

 able, almost from the outset of his directorship, to add 

 a series of well-equipped and fully-staffed laboratories 

 for the prosecution of technical and scientific research. 

 One of his earliest acts was to persuade his Govern- 

 ment to provide a special laboratory reserved for the 

 use of foreign workers, who might care to visit Java 

 and undertake, in the midst of its rich vegetation, 

 orip-inal botanical study. 



Treub's own contributions to the advancement of 

 natural knowledge have been so numerous and are 

 so well known to all students of general botany that 

 they need not be recapitulated here. One of the out- 

 standing features of his work is its reflection of the 

 catholicity of his interests, which prevented him 

 from ever becoming a specialist. His excep- 

 tional capacity for observation and his thorough 

 mastery of method enabled him to enter with equal 

 success many fields of study. Everything he had 

 occasion to say on morphological, embryological, 

 physiological, or phytoeeographical subjects was 

 worth saying, while his faculty for exposition 

 enabled him so to present his results as always to 

 arrest attention. The one field of botanical activity 

 which he never entered was that of systematic study, 

 with the needs of which, however, partly from the 

 width of his sympathies, partly owing to his absorb- 

 ing economic interests, he was fully conversant ; 

 perhaps none have benefited more immediately or 

 more greatly bv his kind and ungrudging assistance 

 than systematic students. 



Equally unnecessary here is any r^siwtd of the re- 

 sults of Treub's oractical activities or any recapitula- 

 tion of the benefits thereby accruing to tropical agri- 

 culture, forestry, and pharmacology. The great value 

 of the assistance given bv him to the industries con- 

 cerned has, however, lain in the fact that the prac- 

 tical results attained have always depended on scien- 

 tific research. So ably did he teach the lesson that 

 successful practice must depend on science, that he 

 was enabled, towards the close of his career in Java, to 



