October 27, 1910J 



NATURE 



541 



The Royal Society informs us that the studentship on 

 the foundation of the late Prof. Tyndall for scientific re- 

 search on subjects tending to improve the conditions to 

 which miners are subject has been awarded for the 

 ensuing year to Dr. T. L. Llewellyn, of Bargofd, Wales, 

 for research regarding the cause and cure of the disease 

 in miners known as nystagmus. 



Dr. BAtiiori, writing from Nagybecskerek, Hungary, 

 informs us that the Hungarian Academy of Science has 

 this year awarded the B6Iyai prize, of the value of 10,000 

 crowns, to Prof. David Hilbert, university professor of 

 mathematics at Heidelberg. The jury consisted of two 

 foreign mathematicians — Poincar6 (to whom the prize was 

 awarded in 1905) and G. Mittag-Leffler — and two 

 Hungarians, Y. Konig and G. Rados, both from Buda- 

 pest. 



News has been received from Italy of considerable 

 damage wrought in the island of Ischia, accompanied by 

 loss of life, due, in the first instance, to what is described 

 as a cloud-burst. A hurricane has been referred to in the 

 meagre accounts which have as yet . reached this country, 

 and from the local character of the phenomenon it seems 

 likely that it was of the nature of a tornado, with torrential 

 rain. The disaster occurred during Sunday night and 

 Monday morning, October 23-24. The Paris Bulletin 

 International for Monday, October 24, makes no mention 

 of the disturbance, and contains nothing apparently 

 associated with the occurrence except that at Naples the 

 rainfall, measured at 7 a.m. for the preceding twenty-four 

 hours, was 130 inches, and at Rome 087 inch. .At Naples 

 a further rainfall of 1-28 inches for the twenty-four hours 

 ending October 25 is recorded in the Paris Bulletin, making 

 the aggregate fall in forty-eight hours 2-58 inches. .\t 

 Cette, in the south of France, 3-11 inches of rain fell in 

 the twenty-four hours ending 7 a.m. October 25. 



Early in November the University of Leyden proposes 

 to celebrate the eightieth birthday of Prof. J. D. van 

 Bemmelen. Prof, van Bemmelen was born on November 

 3, 1830, and has been engaged in scientific w'orlc since 

 1S56. He has contributed greatly to the foundation of the 

 Dutch school of physical chemistry. Prof. H. A. Lorentz, 

 of Leyden, is the chairman of the committee organising 

 the celebration, and Dr. W. P. Jorisseh the secretary. It 

 is proposed to publish as a memorial of the celebration a 

 collection of memoirs by fellow-workers on the subjects 

 with which Prof, van Bemmelen 's name is associated, and 

 already some sixty have been received. The memoirs will 

 be published in one volume by M. C. de Boer Junior, 

 Helder, Holland. 



The annual general meeting of the Institute of Metals 

 will be held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 

 Storey's Gate, Westminster, S.W., on Tuesday and 

 Wednesday, January 17 and 18, iqii. At this meeting a 

 number of papers will be presented, including some of an 

 essentially practical character, together with the pre- 

 liminary report to the corrosion committee. It will be 

 remembered that this committee was appointed some 

 months ago to investigate cases of corrosion of the non- 

 ferrous metals. The preliminary report will show the 

 present state of our knowledge of the corrosion of non- 

 ferrous metals and alloys, and will, contain suggestions for 

 a research into the causes of the corrosion by sea water 

 of brass condenser tubes. The institute has now been 

 founded just two years, and has celebrated its birthday 

 by becoming an incorporated institution. 

 NO. 2139, VOL. 84] 



SpiiAKiNo at the inaugural meeting of the Oxford branch 

 of the Research Defence Society on Monday, Lord Cromer 

 gave a number of instances of the value of research in 

 medicine. In the course of his remarks he said : — Step by 

 step the micro-organism of all the principal diseases — re- 

 lapsing fever, leprosy, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, 

 diphtheria, tetanus, influenza, plague, and dysentery — has 

 been tracked to its lair. There is so great a wealth of 

 evidence to show the results already achieved that it is 

 difficult to decide which subject to mention particularly. 

 The case of plague may, however, be taken as an example. 

 When this terrible disease broke out in India some fourteen 

 years ago a panic ensued. Vast sums of money , were 

 spent on disinfectants and other perfectly useless remedies.' 

 .■\1I was in vain. The epideniic continued to ravage whole 

 districts. Then science took the matter up. The connec- 

 tion between the plague and the prevalence of rats was 

 noticed. The fact that the rat flea, and not the rat itself, 

 was the propagator of the disease was established. The 

 anti-plague vaccine w'as discovered by Mr. Haffkine — but 

 it took some years of observation before all these results 

 could be obtained. When they were obtained science at 

 last reaped its proud and well-merited reward. ■ Colonel 

 Bannerman, a distinguished Indian bacteriologist, said- that 

 in a number of cases in the Punjab, the aggregate popula- 

 tion of which is about 827,000, some 187,000 were inocu- 

 lated four months before the plague appeared, and that 

 some 64Q,ooo were not inoculated. Only 314 deaths 

 occurred amongst the inoculated, while no few'er than 

 29,723 occurred amongst those who had not been inocu- 

 lated. In other words, it may be said that experimental 

 science saved the lives of about 8000 human beings, and 

 those lives would not have been saved had it not been for 

 the series of experiments conducted on living animals. 



In the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal 

 College of Physicians of London on October 18, Dr. 

 H. B. Donkin discussed " Some .Aspects of Heredity in 

 Relation to Mind." He pointed out that the hypothesis 

 of hereditary criminality lacks substantiation, though " a 

 considerably larger minority of persons with clearly 

 appreciable mental defect, apparently of congenital nature, 

 is found among convicted criminals than in tlie popula- 

 tion at large." It cannot be assumed that the criminal 

 is a racial "degenerate." In inquiring into the causa- 

 tion of " congenital " mental defect. Dr. Donkin retained 

 a severely sceptical position. In some cases a lineal 

 sequence of defectives is sufliciently frequent to render it 

 highly probable that this condition is truly innate, and 

 thus transmissible ; in other eases it may be an indirect 

 result of malnutrition and the like in the parent ; and 

 there are other possibilities. Dr. Donkin laid emphasis 

 on the difficulty of making sure whether mental and moral 

 characters are inborn or " acquired," but it may be 

 pointed out that his view of the distinction is not exactly 

 that held by most biologists. In regard to the inherit- 

 ance of mental qualities, he followed Sir Ray Lankester 

 in attaching great importance to " educability." " The 

 innate and transmissible factor of the mind of man is the 

 organic potentiality for making mental acquirements." 

 He did not, however, enter into a discussion of the 

 hereditary reappearance of distinctive mental traits, and 

 we venture to point out that his identification of mental 

 acquirements and modifications will not commend itself 

 to biologists who care for precision. A very interesting 

 feature in the oration was the collection of some of 

 Harvey's observations on heredity, in which Dr. Donkin 

 was inclined to detect an " inkling of the great questioa- 

 regarding 'inherited' and 'acquired' characters." 



