i/S 



NATURE 



[January 23, 1913 



fever and diarrhosa by house-flies, of plague by fleas, 

 and of relapsing fever by ticks ; lice and bugs are also 

 referred to. Many details are given of the anatomy 

 of the insects, and a full bibliography is appended. 



The January number of Bedrock (No. 4, 1913) con- 

 tains the full text of Dr. Metchnikoff's Priestley lec- 

 ture, "The Warfare against Tuberculosis," delivered 

 before the National Health Society, an abstract of 

 which was published in these columns. Dr. Eric 

 Pritchard writes on " the milk problem," dealing with 

 the question of the effect of heat as applied in pas- 

 teurisation and sterilisation of milk. He is satisfied 

 that infants may be satisfactorily reared on freshly 

 boiled milk and also on dried milk. 



A PARASITIC fungus {Empusa tnuscae) of the house- 

 fly has long been known, and its use has been sug- 

 gested as a means of destroying flies. Hitherto the 

 fungus has not been artificially cultivated, but Mr. 

 Edgar Hesse now claims to have done this, and with 

 his cultures to have infected and destroyed flies. The 

 fungus attacks the house-fly {Musca domestica), the 

 lesser house-fly (Fannia canictilaris), and the stable- 

 fiv (Stomoxys calcitrans). It was formerly believed 

 that the fungus attacks the fly from without, but 

 Mr. Hesse finds that the spores are swallowed and 

 probably germinate in the crop, and thence invade 

 the tissues of the fly. The matter has been brought 

 to the notice of the Local Government Board, by 

 which it is being considered and examined. The 

 evidence of the conveyance of disease germs by flies 

 is complete, and the fungus might, therefore, be 

 employed to destroy flies. 



Sir Ronald Ross delivered a lecture on medical 

 science and the tropics at a meeting of the Royal 

 Colonial Institute on January 14. He said that he 

 cannot but feel that the reason why tropical Africa 

 has not become civilised is due to the fact that the great 

 tropical diseases affect not only immigrant Europeans 

 but are almost equally disastrous to the natives. The 

 ravages of malaria, yellow fever, kala-azar, dysentery, 

 plague, and cholera were reviewed. The death-rate 

 fell remarkably between 1903 and 191 1, owing to 

 knowledge accumulated by a band of enthusiastic in- 

 vestigators, who, however, are most inadequately 

 remunerated. Sir Ronald Ross said that Britain gives 

 probably less than 50,000!. per annum throughout the 

 Empire for medical research, and yet medical research 

 benefits some fifty millions of white subjects of the 

 Empire. Mr. Auslen Chamberlain, who presided, 

 instanced as an example of the value of tropical medi- 

 cal research the fall in the invaliding rate of European 

 officials between 1904 and 1911 from 63 to 25 per 

 1000. He made an earnest appeal for funds on behalf 

 of the schools of tropical medicine. 



The University of California, in No. 4, vol. x., of its 

 ethnological series, publishes an elaborate monograph 

 on the tribe of Salinan Indians, which has been pre- 

 pared by Mr. J. Alden Mason. The task of inquiry 

 has been difficult owing to the lack of information 

 regarding the stock itself, and the existence of similar 

 conditions among the adjacent tribes. The Salinans 

 NO. 2256, VOL. 90] 



occupy a position between the typically central culture 

 of the northern groups and that of the Chamash to 

 the south. Their general characteristics are a depend- 

 ence primarily on vegetable food, chiefly acorns, a 

 great stability of population, absence of gentile 

 organisation, a weak development of the artSj of war, 

 and of ritualism. In spite of these drawbacks, the 

 present monograph, with its abundant details of 

 their ethnology and culture, shows a considerable 

 advance on our knowledge of the natives of Cali- 

 fornia. 



The Queensland Museum has issued the first volume 

 of a series of memoirs which promises to supply a 

 valuable addition to our knowledge of the natural 

 sciences and ethnology of Australia. The present 

 issue opens with a paper on Papuan mummification by 

 the director, Dr. R. Hamlyn-Harris, in which he 

 describes two specimens from Torres Straits. The 

 bodv was placed on a platform with a fire beside it, 

 partly for the comfort of the spirit, and partly to 

 assist in dispelling the noxious fumes arising during 

 the process of desiccation. The corpse was then 

 removed to the sea and cleaned, the interior being 

 filled with pieces of the dried sago-palm. It was hung 

 up to dry, and adorned by the insertion of pieces of 

 Nautilus shell for eyes, the body was smeared with 

 ochre and oil, and various ornaments were attached 

 to it. When dried, it was fixed to the central pole 

 of the hut, and after some years the head was made 

 over to the widow, and the mummified corpse was 

 taken to one of the gardens of the deceased and 

 allowed to decay, or in some cases it was buried inside 

 the hut. 



It is announced in the January number of The 

 Entomologist's Monthly Magazine that, in conse- 

 quence of having taken up his residence abroad, Lord 

 Walsingham has felt compelled to resign his joint 

 editorship of that journal. 



From a distributional point of view considerable 

 interest attaches to the identification by Dr. C. R. 

 Eastman (Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. viii., No. 2, 

 1912) of remains of doubly-armed fresh-water herrings 

 of the genus Diplomystus in Tertiary deposits in 

 Guinea. For the genus — in addition to several other 

 localities — also occurs in a Tertiary formation on the 

 Brazilian coast, and thus seems to indicate the pre- 

 valence of similar conditions during Tertiary times on 

 the two sides of the Atlantic. The author discusses 

 the bearing of the new fact on the theory of a former 

 land connection between western Africa and eastern 

 North America by means of an hypothetical " Helenis." 



A compact summary of the knowledge we now 

 possess concerning the structure, origin, and 

 economics of pearls and mother-of-pearl is given in 

 a paper on " Perlen " contributed by Prof. E. Korschelt 

 to Fortschritte d. naturwissenschaftlichen Forschung 

 (Band vii., 1913). In sixteen short sections Prof. 

 Korschelt gives an impartial account of the most 

 important work of the last ten years. In connection 

 with the origin of pearls, it is becoming quite clear 

 from the work of Rubbell, Dubois, and Jameson that 



