422 



NATURE 



[September 28, 191 1 



Dr. Pavy's first communication to the Royal Society 

 was in 1855, and was entitled "An experi- 

 mental inquiry into the nature of the meta- 

 morphosis of saccharine matter as a normal 

 ess ol the animal economy." In this he 

 i reasons for believing that the sugar formed in 

 the liver is not entirely destroyed by combustion in 

 the body, but is changed by means of fermentation. 

 This was followed in 1858 and i860 by accounts of an 

 "Experimental inquiry into the alleged sugar-forming 

 function of the liver." In these he demonstrated that 

 the large amount of sugar found in the blood return- 

 ing from the liver was not, as Bernard supposed, pre- 

 sent during life, but was really the result of a trans- 

 formation of the glycogen taking place with great 

 rapidity after death. 



In subsequent papers he showed the influence upon 

 the formation of sugar in the blood, of the injection of 

 alkalis, and of acids, into the circulation. Claude 

 Bernard had shown that a lesion of a certain part of 

 the fourth ventricle would cause glycosuria ; in 1851) 

 Paw, in a communication " On the lesions of the 

 nervous system producing diabetes," demonstrated that 

 the same change in the urine was brought about by 

 removal of the superior cervical ganglion, or the divi- 

 sion of the sympathetic trunk in the neck. He- 

 referred this appearance of sugar to an alteration in 

 the vasomotor apparatus of the liver. In 1863 he 

 was led to ask why the gastric secretions did not in 

 health digest the gastric mucous membrane itself ; and 

 from a series of ingenious experiments he drew the 

 inference that this was due to the circulation in the 

 stomach walls "I an alkaline blood which was sufficient 

 to neutralise the acid gastric juice, coming into con- 

 tact with the mucous membrane. 



In the same year, Or. Paw was elected a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society, and so far as communications to 

 this society were concerned he appears to have rested 

 on his oars for several years. Not that he was idle; 

 far from it. He was for a time demonstrator of 

 anatomy at (iuy's Hospital. Within two or three 

 years of graduation, he was appointed lecturer on 

 physiology and comparative anatomy, and he con- 

 tinued his lectures on physiology until 1878, for the 

 last five years in conjunction with Dr. Pye-Smith. 

 In 1850 he was appointed assistant physician to Guy's 

 Hospital, and in 1S71 he became full physician. In 

 1862 appeared his work entitled "Researches on the 

 Nature and Treatment of Diabetes," and he soon 

 acquired a large professional practice among sun 

 from that complaint. 



Dr. Paw did not, however, confine himself to the 

 subjeel of diabetes; he did valuable work in connec- 

 tion wilh the forms of functional albuminuria, and 

 he wrote a "Treatise on the Function of Digestion." 

 This was followed in 1S74 by a "Treatise on Food and 

 1 >i 1 lies," which was a standard book for many years. 

 In 180". nt the age ol sixty-one, he retired from hos- 

 pital work at Guy's, but he still enjoyed a large private 

 practice, held the offices of censor and Harveian 

 orator at the Royal College of Physicians, and con- 

 tinued unintermittingly and with dogged perseverance 

 his researches upon the destination of sugar and othei 

 hydrates in the animal system. In 1S75 lie read 



per I. 'lor,- the Royal Society "On the production 



of glycosuria bj the effecf of oxygenated blood on the 



liver," and in the fallowing ten years he read as many 



bearing on the carbohydrates and diabetes Hi 



manj pi ictical additions to the chemistry of the 



t, and his introduction of an ammoniated cupric 



test in tlie volumetric estimation of sugar was un- 



doubti dh oi gi 1 .11 value. 



Dr. Pavy has in other comm 



dical journals on H • ■ he published in 



NO. 2 1S7. vol.. 87] 



iN'i} a "Treatise on the Physiology of the Carbo- 

 hydrates," and in 1 908 delivered three lectures "On tin 

 patholog} and treatment of diabetes viewed b\ the light 

 of present-day knowledge." In all this later work he 

 insists on the fact that carbohydrates can he both 

 derived from, and converted into, proteid, as one of 

 great importance in relation to diabetes. 



Dr. Paw's work was well known abroad, and he 

 was the recipient of several honours, lie was a cor- 

 responding member of the Societe d 'Anatomic of 

 Paris; and in 1908 the Academy of Medicine ol Paris 

 awarded the Godard prize to his work on carbohydrate 

 metabolism on diabetes. In 1901 he was awarded the 

 Baly medal by the Royal College of Physicians of 

 London. Frederick Taylor. 



NOTES. 



Exhaustive tests have been 1 ' during the last two 



u Mi. \. VV. Sharman with instruments invented 

 by him for telephoning through water without wires. A 

 small telephom station has been erected in a room in an 

 hotel en the cliffs at Pegwell Bay, and the othei station 

 lias been fitted up on a motor-boat cruising in various 

 p.uis ol the hay. The microphone used in speaking is 

 connected in series with a battery of four or five drj 

 and an impulse coil, the coil being of special construction 

 and giving very short induced currents of high potential, 

 which are communicated to the water by two wins con- 

 nected to the terminals of the coil and terminating tl 

 selves in plates buried in the sand or submerged in the 

 water. Two similar plates, conn 



low resistance telephone receiver, enable the speech to be 

 " picked up " at distances of a mile and more. The sp 

 transmitted through the water has been very distinct, and 

 the system has shown good possibilities of its being used 

 ' mean oi verbal communication between two ship-. 

 such as a battleship and a submarine. The effect is very 

 directional ; and another advantage is that, with .a small 

 tuned buzzer, telegraphic signals can be transmitted 

 through the earth or water for a distance of sevi r.d miles : 

 the primary energy required is extremely small, four wans 

 sufficing to telephone over a distance of two miles. Experi- 

 ments are also being made in combining with the Sharman 

 instruments a sensitive telephone receh . M 



! Mini in Baker, with which it is hoped the present 

 maj be 1 ased la super cent, or mori 



The naval dirigible, an imental airship which has 



been building at Messrs. Vickers' works, Barrow, tor the 

 Admiralty, during the last two years, was wrecked on 

 Sunday, September 24, while being towed out into 

 centre of Cavendish Dock in preparation for a flight. I h 

 ' is ol the Zeppelin type, is 510 feet long, 

 4, feet in diameter, and oi cap iv of 20,000 



The rigid framework, containing sevei 



is constructed of a new ahoy known as 



"duralumin." Each of the gondolas, fore and ah, contains 



a 200 horse-powi 1 Wolseley motor, tl frontdriving 



two propellers on either side, and that in tie- rear driving 



0110 propellei placed behind the gondola fh accident 



a o soon a- the order to begin to veer the bow round 



!- the centn oi tin- dock was obeyed. The ship 



bulged and broke l>\ her seventh, eighth, and ninth gas- 



ipproximateh, in the middle. ["he outer fabric fortu- 



1 1 be secured and 



tally returned to tin- shed, without injury to the 



; ,1 oldiged to swim for sal 



The exact cause of the aci ident is unknown, nor i- it 



liki lj a. be made publii , Strm tui 



