rlug. I, I 872 J 



NATURE 



275 



thereto), urging them to ignore the re-instatenient of ftirgollcn 

 names until such time as the method of dealing with tlicm 

 shall be settled by common agreement. 



Meteorological Society, June 19. — Mr. John Tripe, presi- 

 dent, in the chair. At Ihe ordinary meeting, which preceded 

 the Anniversary Meeting, Captain Toynbee exhibited clinrls 

 showing the results already obtained in the meteorological office 

 by the discussion of the observations for a jiorlion of the Kurth 

 Atlantic, comprising ten degrees square, for the first four months 

 of the year. The district extends from the Equator to 10" N. , 

 and is bounded by the meridians of 20° and 30° W. He explained 

 the variations in the several elements from month to month 

 which had been rendered visible by the minute discussion to 

 which the materials had been subjected, and pointed out the im- 

 portance to navigators of the precipe infonnation as to winds, 

 &c., now presented to them. He staled that the meteorological 

 committee intended to distribute copies of the chart for January, 

 in order to elicit opinions as to the proposed method of publi- 

 cation. At the Anniversary Meeting which followed, the Re- 

 port of llie Council was read. In the Report the Council 

 stated that as the number of Fellows showed a diminution from 

 340 to 314, it had been deemed advisable to introduce a change 

 into the management of the society. Accordingly a room had 

 been taken at No. 30,' Great George Street, Westminster, and 

 an assistant secretary appointed to attend there daily. The 

 gentleman selected is Mr. W. Marriott, formerly engaged at 

 Greenwich Observatory, and he entered upon his duties on May 

 1st. It is hoped that by these means the business of the Society 

 will be conducted in amore satisfactory manner. — The fifth volume 

 of the Proceedings being now complete, the Council have increased 

 the size of the publication to royal 8vo, so as to allow of the bind- 

 ing up of the Registrar-General's Quarterly Returns with the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Society. The new series will be entitled the "Quar- 

 terly Joumal of Ihe Meteorological Society," and will be edited 

 by a committee of the council, Mr. Glaisher having resigned the 

 editorship. The Report concluded with the usual obituary 

 notices of deceased Fellows. — The president then delivered 

 an address, in which he said that he would allude briefly 

 to some facts connected with meteorology and its correla- 

 tions with sickness and death. The careful daily record of 

 meteorological observations made with standard instruments was 

 commenced at many stations some time before the compilation 

 of mortality returns, in the office of the Registrar-General of Biiths 

 and Deaths, so that the mortality tables of the metropolis can 

 safely be compared with the Greenwich returns, and for extra- 

 metropolitan localities with those supplied by any of our ob- 

 servers. Ilehad carefullyconipared the Greenwich observations for 

 some years with those made by himself at Hackirey, by Mr. 

 Burge at Fulham, Mr. Symons at Camden Town, and Mr. Iley- 

 wood in the City, and ascertained that Ihe mean daily tempera- 

 ture did not vary on an average more than half a degree, althougli 

 the maximum and minimum observations differed very consider- 

 ably. He had therefore used the Cireenwich tables in all his 

 comparisons between the rate of death from different diseases 

 and varying states of the weather. A number of valuable results 

 have already been obtained as regards the course of epidemics, 

 Ihe influence of high and low temperatures on the public health, 

 and, to a less extent, of different hygrometric conditions of tlie 

 air. Dr. Hoskins long since (about 1S53) wrote a valuable paper 

 on the "Correlation between Meteorological, Medical, .and 

 Agricultural Science;" and he (the president) commenceil a 

 series of essays in 1848 on the influence of variations in the tem- 

 perature, moisture, weight, and electricity of the atmosphere on 

 the death-rates of scarlet fever and other epidemic diseases. 

 The Manchester Medical Association, Dr. Ballard, and others, 

 have written on the effects of variations of temperature on the 

 heallli of the people. The whole of the writers have arrived at 

 tolerably uniform conclusions, viz., that very cold and very hot 

 weailier induce rn increase in the number of cases of disease and 

 (,f dcr.tlis, and that a temperature between 55° and 65° is most 

 bcntficial to health in this country. He stated many years since, 

 in one of his reports, that a cold wet summer always coincides 

 with a less amount of sickness and fewer deaths than a hot dry 

 summer. It is somewhat singular that, whilst very cold weather 

 causes a great increase in Ihe sickness and mortality of any given 

 jiopulation, and especially amongst Ihe very young and very old, 

 the increase should extend to almost all diseases. It is true that 

 the chief sickness and mortality are caused by affections of the 

 lungs ; but there is also a greater number of cases, allhough not 

 of deaths, even from diarrha;a. Thus the rate of death, in weeks' 



having a mean temperature of less than 35", was nearly 45 per 

 cent, greater than in weeks having a temperature of 60° to 65° ; 

 and in weeks having a mean temperature above 65" the average 

 rate of death was about 30 per cent, more than in weeks having 

 a mean r.anging between 60° and 65°. The range of temperature 

 in this country which is the best for health is 50 small that eveiy 

 one should use reasonable care when the mean is above or below 

 thest.andard ; at the same time we must not forget that extremes 

 arc always injurious, whatever the average may be. This is 

 especially the case as regards diairhoea, for the mortality from 

 this cause, with a continuance of the mean above 65", is at least 

 twenty times as great as at 40° to 45°. The comparison between 

 temperature and epidemic diseases has led to the important facts 

 that, as regards small-pox, it produces the smallest number of 

 deaths as soon as the daily mean reaches 62°, and has continued 

 a short time at that degree of heat, which is usually about the 

 end of July or early in August, and does not become so fatal 

 again until the mean temperature has sunk for a short time below 

 54°, which is generally about the end of September. This is not 

 quite invariable, as it varies somewhat in epidemic and non- 

 epidemic years. The fatality from small-pox increases as the 

 temperature sinks below 54°, until the middle of January, when 

 the lowest average temperature is ordinarily reached, viz., about 

 35 '5° Scarlet fever, on the other hand, is at its lowest point 

 from the middle of March to the end of the third week in April, 

 when the daily mean varies between 41 "5° and 47 '5°, from which 

 it gradually increases in fatality as the weather gets warmer, but 

 not quite at an equal ratio, until the end of October or early in 

 November, when the impetus apparently given to it by the waim 

 weather has ceased, and the mortality declines. lie had very 

 carefully examined the influence of other meteorological elements 

 on the disease, and find all of them to be almost inert as com- 

 pared with that of temperature. How far the temperature, 

 moisture, and electricity of the atmosphere are concerned in 

 exciting diseases to become epidemic, we are unable at present to 

 state ; but the periodicity which epidemics exhibit is opposed to 

 these being the chief causes. Thus small-pox, scarlet fever, and 

 measles, h.ave a very decided tendency to become epidemic in the 

 metropolis every fourth year, whilst there is no single meteorolo- 

 gical element or combination of elements which has so decided a 

 periodical excess or minus of its average amount. A record of 

 correct observations extending over many more years than we now 

 possess, and a close comparison of these with correct returns of 

 sickness and death in any sufficiently large area will, he does not 

 doubt, enable statisticians to determine the precise relations which 

 exist between the state of the public health and meteorology. 

 There is at present, however, so little known of the varying 

 electrical conditions of the air (at least so as to measure the 

 changes) that it is perhaps somewhat premature to express 

 this opinion. 



]!0ST0N 



Lyceum of Natural History, November 13, iSyi. — Dr. II. 

 Endemannread a paper " On Meat and the Methods of Preserving 

 it," in \\hich he described the extract of meat made according to 

 Liebig's process, and st.ated that its value is overestimated, as 

 experiments have shown that the ashes of the extract are as 

 nutriticjus as Ihe extract itself. No organic substance has been 

 found that will produce the effects of extract. He then de- 

 scribed the process of salting meat, and showed that the salts 

 used, as well as any water employed subsequently to freshen Ihe 

 meat, remove a large part of Ihe extractive salts, leaving it diffi- 

 cult of digestion. Smoking depends on the carbolic or cresylic 

 acid contained in the smoke, by which Ihe albumen and fibrin 

 are coagulated, hence the meat is not readily digested. One of 

 the best processes for preserving meat is enclosing it in air-tight 

 cans, but this often fails on account of mechanical difficulties. 

 He proposed to preserve meat by cutting it into slices and dry- 

 ingitin a hot-air chamber, at a temperature below 140° F., 

 which may be done within two hours. This dried meat is then 

 ground in a mill. The fibrin and albumen are not coagulated, 

 and will take up water. The appar.atus used in the preparation 

 of the dried meat, and its applications for soup, solid dishes, and 

 for invalids, was also described. 



November 20. — Prof. B. N. Martin, vice-president, in 

 the chair. Prof. T. Egleston exhibited five crystals of Diamond 

 and one of red spinel, from South Africa. Twoof the diamond 

 crystals showed the cleavage parallel to the octahedron, two were 

 curved he xoctahedra. T he fifth was a cube one quarter of an 

 inch squaie, weighing o 906 gnis. The cube is a twin by inter- 

 penetration, and shows the faces of the rhombic dodecahedron 



