62. 



NA TURE 



[May 17, 1906 



A COMMITTEE has been appointed to make arrangements 

 to commemorate the distinguished services rendered to 

 archaeology by Dr. Arthur Evans, F.R.S. It is proposed 

 to place a portrait of Dr. Evans in the Ashmolean Museum, 

 Oxford, of which he has long been keeper. The world- 

 famed discoveries at Knossos have made Dr. Evans well 

 known to students of archeology everywhere, and it may 

 be expected that the plan suggested will meet with wide 

 approval. Subscriptions may be paid to the hon. treasurer, 

 Mr. G. A. Macmillan, St. Martin's Street, W.C, to 

 the account of the " .\rthur Evans Portrait Fund," London 

 and County Bank, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C., 

 or to Messrs. Barclay and Co., Old Bank, Oxford. The 

 hon. secretaries of the rnovement are Messrs. D. G. Hogarth 

 and C. F. Bell, Magdalen College, Oxford. 



The German chief burgomasters, burgomasters, and 

 councillors who are paying a visit to England as the guests 

 of the British committee for the study of foreign municipal 

 institutions were entertained on Monday at a banquet 

 over which Lord Avebury presided. Mr. Haldane proposed 

 the toast of "The German Emperor and the German 

 Empress and the other Members of the German Royal 

 Family."; and in the course of his remarks he said that 

 the present Kaiser united in himself the thinker and the 

 man of action, and has organised his empire on an educa- 

 tional basis, paying great attention to technical and scien- 

 tific instruction and investigation. Such institutions as that 

 at Charlotlenburg are instances of what is being accom- 

 plished in Germany to-day. The toast was acknowledged 

 by the Ober-Burgermeister of Berlin, who said that Mr. 

 Haldane possessed a deep knowledge, not onlv of German 

 history, but also of the German heart. 



The eleventh annual congress of the South-Eastern Union 

 of Scientific Societies will be held at Eastbourne on 

 June 6-9. The president-elect. Dr. Francis Darwin, 

 F.R.S., will give his presidential address on June 6 at 

 the Town Hall. The following papers will be presented : — 

 Nature near Eastbourne, J. H. A. Jenner ; the birds of 

 Sussex compared with the list for Great Britain, W. Ruskin 

 Butterfield ; the educational value of museums. Dr. 

 Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S. ; sea erosion and coast de- 

 fence, E. A. Martin ; the geology of the Upper Ravens- 

 bourne valley with noXo.s on the flora; W. H. Griflin ; the 

 flora of the Eastbourne district, Dr. Whitney ; bird archi- 

 tecture, E. J. Bedford; nature-study, W. Mark Webb. 

 The hon. general secretary is the Rev. R. .-Vshington Bullen, 

 from whom all information can be obtained. The museum 

 secretary, Mr. E. W. S wanton, Educational Museum, 

 Haslemere, will have charge of the congress museum at 

 the town hall. The photographic surveys of Surrey, Kent, 

 and Sussex will be represented by a large series of photo- 

 graphs of scientific and antiquarian interest. 



Baron Takaki, the Director-General of the Medical De- 

 partment of the Japanese Navy, delivered last week a series 

 of three lectures on the preservation of health amongst the 

 ■personnel of the Japanese Navy and Army at St. Thomas's 

 Hospital, at which medical school he was formerly a student. 

 The subject of kak'ke or beri-beri was dealt with ex- 

 haustively. This disease was formerly very prevalent in 

 the Japanese Navy, and, as the result of observations, 

 Baron Takaki had come to the conclusion that its pre- 

 valence was largely due to a disproportion between the non- 

 nitrogenous and nitrogenous elements of the food. By 

 adding a larger proportion of nitrogenous elements to the 

 food the disease has now almost disappeared from the 

 Navy. Other diseases, such as typhoid, dysentery, and 

 cholera have also almost disappeared in consequence of 

 careful hygienic measures. 



NO. 1907, VOL 74] 



Since the discovery of a spirillar organism, the Spiro- 

 chaeta pallida, in syphilitic lesions, a great deal of work 

 has been done on the transmission and prophylaxis of this 

 malady. Whether or no this microbe be the ^etiological 

 agent of the disease, and it cannot yet be said to have been 

 proved definitely, its discovery has undoubtedly stimulated 

 research, and it is now certain from a number of experi- 

 ments, both in this country and abroad, that syphilis can 

 be inoculated on the higher apes. Recently Prof. Metchni- 

 koff, of the Pasteur Institute, demonstrated that the 

 application of an ointment composed of calomel ten parts 

 and lanolin twenty parts to the point of inoculation will 

 prevent the development of the disease. This was proved 

 by inoculating apes and also a healthy medical student 

 (who offered himself as a subject for experiment) with 

 syphilitic virus, and an hour later rubbing the inoculated 

 spot with this ointment in the case of the student and of 

 one ape. Neither man nor monkey suffered any evil 

 effect, whereas the other inoculated monkeys which were 

 untreated contracted syphilis. In the case of monkeys the 

 ointment must be applied within twenty hours after in- 

 oculation, otherwise infection follows, but if this time 

 limit be observed immunity is complete. It is noteworthy 

 that Prof. Metchnikoff will shortly be visiting this country 

 in order to deliver the Harben lectures at the Royal Insti- 

 tute of Public Health, 37 Russell Square, W.C. The 

 lectures, which are delivered at 5 p.m., are as follows ; — 

 May 25, the hygiene of the inner tissues of organisms ; 

 May 28, the hygiene of the intestinal tract; May 30, 

 syphilis. 



The proceedings on Commemoration Day at Livingstone 

 College, Leyton, E., on Thursday, May 31, will include an 

 address by Mr. James Cantlie, editor of the Journal 0/ 

 Tropical Medicine, whose opinion as to the necessity for 

 the training given at the college is of special value, owing 

 to his experience of the conditions of living in tropical 

 countries. Cards of invitation may be obtained by writing 

 to the principal of the college. 



On the morning of May 2, in the dynamite factory of 

 the Nitroglycerine Company, Ltd., of Vinterviken, near 

 Stockholm, there occurred three explosions in quick suc- 

 cession, which were heard all over the town, and resulted 

 in the total wreck of the factory and the death of many of 

 the workers ; the cause of the explosion is at present un- 

 known. 



The prize of 3000 francs offered by the International 

 Medical Congress at the Paris meeting has been awarded 

 by the Lisbon meeting to Prof. P. Ehrlich, of Frankfort- 

 on-Main, for his researches on leucocytosis. British physio- 

 logists will approve of this recognition of the work of the 

 great experimentalist and worker on the borderland of 

 physiology and chemistry. 



The opinion has been frequently expressed that Scandi- 

 navia, with its huge waterfalls, will before very long be 

 one of the most .suitable places for large chemical works ; 

 indeed, it is claimed that with the future developments of 

 electrochemical technology the greater part of the world's 

 supply of soda, chlorates, nitrates, calcium chloride, and 

 iron will be produced in the northern peninsula. Hence it 

 is easy to understand the action of the Swedish and Nor- 

 wegian Governments in protecting the falls against foreign 

 capitalists. Sweden has passed a law that the use of the 

 falls is reserved to the State, while a Bill is before the 

 Norwegian Storthing in which it is prescribed that at least 

 one-half of the capital laid out on the falls shall be Nor- 

 wegian money, and the direction of the works be in the 

 hands of Norwegians who are living in the land. 



