302 
NATURE 
[May 13, 1915 

the last eight years the fisheries authorities have 
entreated the Board to legislate, and more than once 
Mr. John Burns assured them that a Bill would be 
drafted and laid before Parliament; it was believed 
that this would be necessary. The British Science 
Guild lent its authority in aid of the agitation. The 
fishing trade and the public health bodies were equally 
desirous that something might be done to remove the 
dangers that were inherent in the unrestricted ex- 
ploitation of sewage-polluted shellfish beds and lay- 
ings. It was felt that some comprehensive scheme of 
regulations, based on the well-thought-out recom- 
mendations of the Sewage Commission (and on the 
reports of the Board’s own inspector, Dr. H. T. 
Bulstrode), was being prepared and awaited a favour- 
able opportunity for consideration by Parliament. 
In February last it was seen that the Board 
possessed power to legislate by Order in Council. 
Emergency legislation was in the air; and there were 
probably reasons traceable to the abnormal state of 
affairs in the country at present which stimulated the 
Board to action. Anyhow, the Regulations proceeded 
to establish a means of dealing with sewage-polluted 
shellfish on quite other lines than those suggested by 
the Sewage Commission or the fishery authorities. 
They set up a machinery for closing suspected layings 
which must invite criticism inasmuch as it can be put 
in motion without utilising scientific or technical skill. 
Briefly stated, the Regulations confer power on the 
local sanitary authorities to prohibit the exploitation 
of suspected shellfish beds or layings. If the medical 
officer of health of any local authority attributes 
disease of any kind in his district to the consumption 
of shellfish he may require the vendor of the food to 
State what was its place of origin. The disease need 
not be enteric fever, and it need not be traceable by 
any process of scientific investigation to the suspected 
shellfish. If the medical officer suspects (for that is 
what it comes to) that the consumption of shellfish 
from a certain place is the cause of disease he may 
ask the local sanitary authority in whose district this 
place is situated to take action. If the latter authority 
do not take action they can be compelled to do so 
by the Board. 
Even then no investigation need necessarily be made. 
The local authority need only invite the fishermen and 
others interested in the industry to show cause that the 
shellfish which they place on the public markets are 
not the means of communicating disease. If they do 
not produce evidence of this nature the local authority 
may prohibit fishing on the suspected beds. It is true 
that the local authorities are invited to make investi- 
gations, and that it is suggested that they should base 
their conclusions on topographical and epidemiological 
evidence rather than on the results of bacteriological 
analyses. But many of the shellfish beds which are 
likely to come under suspicion may be situated jn 
districts where the medical officer of health is a busy 
man with a private practice, and where the only other 
official to whom the investigation may be committed 
is perhaps an imperfectly trained sanitary inspector. 
No special technical training may be necessary for the 
consideration of ‘‘ topographical and epidemiological ”’ 
evidence, as it is for the conduct of a bacteriological 
investigation, but it is certain that evidence of the 
former nature is more easily misinterpreted, and is no 
less a matter for the expert. 
It is not at all certain that this machinery will prove 
to be effective, for we may strongly suspect that the 
local authorities of the shellfish-producing districts 
will resent suspicion being cast on their local indus- 
tries, and there is nothing to prevent them accepting 
the unanimous opinion of their local fishermen that 
the shellfish they market are to be regarded as blame- 
NO. 2376, VOL. 95] 

less. This, however, is not our main point. Expert 
assistance for the investigation of the layings by the 
local sanitary authorities is easily procurable. “here 
are the inspectors of the Local Government Board 
itself, as well as those of the Board of Agriculture and 
Fisheries, and some of the local fishery authorities 
have officers well qualified to make the necessary 
investigations. At all events, the sanitary authorities 
might well have been advised to follow the example 
of higher judicial bodies and obtain the assistance of 
assessors to help them in weighing the value of the 
opinions of the local fishermen. But one need 
scarcely say more about this; it is surely evident that 
the question as to whether an area of shellfish-produc- 
ing foreshore is to be condemned, and a local industry 
destroyed, is a matter for the application of scientific 
investigation by men possessing special knowledge. 
Then the suggestion conveyed in the covering letter 
of the Board, accompanying the issue of the Regula- 
tions, that stress is to be laid on the value of topo- 
graphical and epidemiological, rather than bacterio- 
logical evidence, may also be criticised. There is no 
doubt that the Board-were influenced by the opinion 
of the Sewage Commissioners, which rather depre- 
cated the application of bacteriological analyses, as a 
matter of routine practice. In Dr. Bulstrode’s last 
report no use was made of bacteriological methods; 
also there is, no doubt, much confusion as to 
“standards of impurity’; and there is no “norm” 
generally adopted in public health laboratories as to 
the precise methods of analyses. But much research 
upon the distribution in nature of intestinal bacteria 
is in progress, and we may be very sure that the 
extension of such investigation would soon enable us 
to utilise bacteriological methods with complete suc- 
cess—at least as an adjunct to whatever other investi- 
gations were employed. It is, in fact, unfortunate 
that the Regulations should have set up a machinery 
which can be made to work without the employment 
of scientific assistance, and with respect to a question 
upon which much research has already been made and 
much more suggested by the Royal Commission on 
Sewage Disposal. Z 

LENGTH STANDARDS AND 
MEASUREMENTS. 
2 his recent presidential address to the Philo- 
sophical Society of Washington,* Mr. L. A. 
Fischer, of the Bureau of Standards, gave an interest- 
ing historical account of standards of linear measure. 
He explained the intimate relation which existed be- 
tween the American and the British official standard 
of length up to the year 1893. At present the yard 
is defined in the United States in terms of the metre, 
but the numerical ratio adopted agrees very closely 
with that legalised in this country. In fact, the 
American yard only differs from the British standard 
by about o-ooor in. Until 1856 the United States 
official standard of the yard was for more than forty 
years a length of 36 in. on an 82-in. brass bar made 
by Troughton, which had been brought from London 
by Ferdinand Hassler, the first superintendent of the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey. Between 1856 and 1893 
a bronze yard presented to the United States by the 
British Government in 1855 was recognised by the 
Office of Weights and Measures at Washington as 
the national. standard. 
The most important part of Mr. Fischer’s address 
is that dealing with the measurement of base lines. 
During the last thirty years very radical changes have 
taken place in geodetical operations. End standards, 
1 Journal of the Wa-hington Academy of Sciences, March 4, 1915, vol. v 
No. 5, pp. 145-159 

