3 86 



NATURE 



[June 12, 191; 



Stewardson Brown, conservator of the botanical sec- 

 tion of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 said that more than 1450 separate collections of plants 

 have been made from all parts of the archipelago, with 

 the exception of a few of the smaller islands which 

 are only rocks with but little vegetation. The native 

 species of flowering- plants and ferns, exclusive of the 

 endemic forms, number 155, all of which are identical 

 with those existing- on the American mainland or the 

 West Indian islands. The fourteen endemic species, 

 four of which have been added through these studies, 

 are all more or less nearly related to those of the 

 south-eastern United States, West Indies, or tropical 

 continental America, and are probably derived from 

 such ancestors by modification during long periods of 

 isolation. It would appear that the greater portion of 

 the native flora has come to Bermuda from the south- 

 west through the agency of ocean currents, hurricane 

 winds, and migratory birds, of which a considerable 

 number of species visit the islands regularly each 

 year. 



Prof. George E. Coghill, professor of zoology, 

 Denison University, Granville, Ohio, read a paper on 

 the correlation of structural development and function 

 in the growth of the vertebrate nervous system. 

 Recent studies in comparative neurology have resolved 

 the central nervous system of vertebrates into four 

 longitudinal divisions which are severally functional 

 units. Among lower vertebrates the relative develop- 

 ment of these divisions, the somatic sensory, the 

 visceral sensory, the somatic motor, and the visceral 

 rnotor, has been in a significant manner correlated 

 with the behaviour of the species. Such correlations 

 by the comparative method formed the point of de- 

 parture for this study on the correlation of the be- 

 haviour of embryos with the developing structures in 

 the growth of the nervous system. Some of the more 

 general results of this method of study are 0) the 

 demonstration of the nature of the primarv reflex arc 

 of the vertebrate nervous system ; (2) the discovery 

 of the adaptive nature of the earlv reflexes when 

 considered from the phylogenetic point of view ; (3) 

 proof that the final common path of the most primi- 

 tive reflexes is elaborated into the nervous mechanism 

 of locomotion ; (4) the explanation of the typical be- 

 haviour of a vertebrate upon the basis of demonstrable 

 reflex arcs ; (5) a distinctive contribution towards a 

 biological neurologv. 



Prof. Victor C. Vaughan, professor of hvpiene and 

 physiological chemistry in the University of Michigan, 

 dealt with the nature and significance of fever. It 

 has been shown experimentally that fever is due to 

 the digestion of proteins in the blood and in the 

 tissues. Barteria are living proteins. They fet into 

 the bodv and prow, converting the proteins of man's 

 bodv into bacterial proteins. After a period of incu- 

 bation the cells of the body pour out a ferment which 

 digests and destrovs the bacteria. In this process 

 fever originates. In itself fever is beneficial: it is a 

 manifestation of the attempt on the part of nature 

 to destrov the invading organism. However, nature 

 mav overdo the matter, and fever per se become 

 daneerous when it sroes much above io?°. Any kind 

 of fever, acute fatal, intermittent, remittent, or con- 

 tinued, mav be induced in animals bv repeated in- 

 jections of nroner'v graduated doses of foreign protein. 



Prof. Mazvck P. Ravenel, professor of bacteriolopv 

 in the Universitv of Wisconsin, ^escribed the control 

 of tvphoid fever by vaccination. In the United States 

 vaccination aeainst tvphoid fever was recommended in 

 iqoo. The results were so favourable that it was 

 made comoulsorv for all officers and enlisted men 

 under fortv-five vears of ape in iqit. The most 

 striking results were obtained during the mobilisation 

 NO. 2276, VOL. 91] 



of troops in Texas in 191 1. There were 12,801 troops 

 in Texas, all vaccinated. There was only one case of 

 typhoid fever, occurring in a private of the hospital 

 corps, who had not completed his immunisation. The 

 case was mild and resulted in recovery. In 1898 

 10,759 troops were stationed in Jacksonville, Florida, 

 under very much the same conditions as regards 

 climate, &c. Vaccination was not practised at that 

 time. There were 2693 cases known or believed to 

 be typhoid fever, with 248 deaths. The French troops 

 in Morocco, under most unhygienic surroundings, have 

 entirely escaped typhoid fever where vaccination was 

 practised. In Wisconsin the State Laboratory of 

 Hygiene sends out the vaccine free of charge to all 

 physicians in the State. In more than 3000 vaccina- 

 tions only two cases of typhoid fever have come to 

 notice ; both these cases mild and atypical. 



A paper on Guatemala and the highest native 

 American civilisation was read by Prof. Ellsworth 

 Huntington, of Yale University. Among the native 

 civilisations of the western hemisphere that of the 

 Mayas was decidedly the highest. Not only did they 

 develop the arts of architecture and sculpture to a 

 surprisingly high point, but they were the only 

 American race to evolve the art of genuine hiero- 

 glvphic writing. To-day the magnificent ruins of the 

 later, decadent Maya period, dating about 1000 A.D. , 

 are relatively accessible, as they lie in the dry and 

 well-populated strip which borders the peninsula of 

 Yucatan on the north. The oldest ruins, however, 

 those representing the period of highest development 

 a few centuries after the time of Christ, are located 

 in one of the most inaccessible regions of America. 

 In the last 1500 years, more or less, there must have 

 taken place a change of great magnitude. Three 

 possibilities present themselves. First, the Mayas 

 may have possessed a degree of energy, initiative, 

 and of resistance to fevers much in excess of that 

 of any other known people. Secondly, in their day 

 tropical fevers of the more destructive types may have 

 been unknown in Central America. And thirdly, the 

 climate mav have changed. Alluvial terraces and 

 their relation to such ruins as Copan furnish strong 

 independent evidence of climatic pulsations during the 

 past 2000 years. 



Prof. W. M. Davis, of Harvard University, dis- 

 cussed Dana's contribution to Darwin's theory of 

 coral reefs, and an account of his paper has already 

 appeared in these columns (February 6, 1913, p. 632.) 



Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, gave illustrations of a remarkable 

 and ancient fossil fauna discovered by him in the 

 mountains of British Columbia, 2000 ft. above Field, 

 on the Canadian Pacific Railway. The fossils are 

 most beautifullv preserved, and include such delicate 

 forms as Medusa?, holothurians. finelv preserved 

 marine shells of various kinds, and a variety of crus- 

 taceans. Some of the latter are so perfectly preserved 

 that the branchia, legs, and alimentary canal are 

 shown, and even in several forms the liver V so per- 

 fect that the ramifications of the tubes through it are 

 reproduced by photography. Altogether more than 

 eighty genera of invertebrate fossils have been found 

 from a bed not more than 5 ft. in thickness. They 

 are all of marine origin, and lived at a period when 

 there were no vertebrates in existence. 



The Alleghenian divide and its influence upon fresh- 

 water faunas was described by Dr. Arnold E. Ort- 

 mann, curator of invertebrate zoology in the Carnegie 

 Museum of Pittsburc. Although it is known that 

 the Allegheny Mountains form a boundary between 

 the aquatic forms inhabiting their western and eastern 

 slopes, particulars about the relations of the two 

 faunas were missing. Dr. Ortmann furnished facts 



