ii8 



NA TURE 



[May 31, 1905 



An important advance in thf development of the forestry 

 branch of Armstrong College has been made by an agree- 

 ment effected between H.M. Office of Woods and the 

 college authorities, by which the latter take over the local 

 management of Chopwell Woods, in the county of Durham. 

 These woods are within a few miles of the college, extend 

 over an area of nearly 900 acres, and carry crops of larch, 

 spruce, Scotch pine, oak, ash, and other trees, most of 

 which were planted about fifty years ago. The woods will 

 be gradually brought under a proper rotation of cropping 

 by the clearing and replanting of the more mature portions 

 from time to time, and the carrying out of this work will 

 afford favourable opportunities for demonstrating the 

 various operations relating to practical forestry. H.M. 

 Commissioner of Woods, Mr. J. F. F. Horner, has obtained 

 the consent of the Treasury to a house being provided in 

 the woods as a residence for the college lecturer in forestry, 

 Mr. A. C. Forbes, and to continue to pay as heretofore 

 the ordinary working expenses of the woods. The arrange- 

 ment will facilitate the holding of short courses for prac- 

 tical foresters and others desirous of acquiring a know- 

 ledge of the subject, while as a practical demonstration 

 area for the students attending the college forestry class 

 the woods will be invaluable, and should render Newcastle 

 one of the most favourable centres for forestry instruction 

 in the United Kingdom. 



I.N a paper on social conditions in Australia, read at a 

 meeting of the Society of Arts on May i, the Hon. J. G. 

 Jenkins, Agent-General for South Australia, dealt with 

 the educational advantages of the country. " Generally 

 speaking," he said, "the system of public education is 

 free, compulsory, and secular, the whole expense being 

 met out of the genera! revenue. The greatest care is 

 taken to provide schools in every part of the country as 

 well as in the thickly populated cities, and in some of 

 the thinly settled districts schools of from ten to fifteen 

 children are established. Fortunately, Australia's educa- 

 tional advancement has not been delayed by sectarian inter- 

 ference. There it is generally considered that a country's 

 advancement rests on the education of its people, and 

 that as national education is a national gain, the nation's 

 treasury should meet the bill. Efforts have been made 

 from time to time by zealous propounders of sectarian 

 beliefs to incorporate religious instruction with the Educa- 

 tion Acts of the different States, but the majority of the 

 people are strongly opposed to any form of .State aid to 

 religion. They feel that in the bitter strife for sectarian 

 supremacy the efficiency of the schools would become 

 impaired and the practical education of the children 

 neglected. The parents generally take advantage of the 

 public schools for their children, but for those who object, 

 either from class prejudice or religious scruples, good 

 private schools are available." 



Prof. J. F. Sellers, of Mercer University, recently sent 

 out a number of inquiries to forty-four teachers of 

 chemistry in the southern .States of the American union ; 

 the answers made by forty of the teachers form a 

 symposium on chemical requirements which was presented 

 to a meeting of the American Chemical Society. The 

 paper is printed in Science of May 11. In reply to a 

 question asking if chemistry should be taught in pre- 

 paratory schools, a majority of five thought it should. 

 Answers to a second question showed that in a small 

 majority of colleges only does chemistry follow a course 

 of physics. Prof. Sellers found that about equal time is 

 given to lectures and to laboratory work, and most teachers 

 consider that individual laboratory work should always 

 form part of a chemistry course. Similarly, there is a 

 consensus of opinion that qualitative analysis should follow 

 general chemistry. The majority of the institutions re- 

 presented offer graduate work in chemistry. The paper 

 shows that few southern chemistry teachers carry on re- 

 search themselves, and this is because they are overloaded 

 with instruction or executive duties, and are not supplied 

 with adequate library or laboratory facilities for advanced 

 students. The majority of southern colleges give technical 

 courses, and these are controlled by local demands and 

 natural supplies. The sting of the paper, so far as our 

 universities are concerned, lies in the tail, which is as 



NO. 1909 VOL. 74] 



follows : — " Once the American universities were replicas 

 of the British system, but now the German university sets 

 the standard. It is this shifting of method and manner 

 that affords us of to-day, in the matter of the practical 

 virtue of our courses in science, an assured guarantee of 

 commercial and industrial progress." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March i. — "The Specificity of the Opsonic 

 Substances in the Blood Serum." By Dr. William 

 Bulloch and G. T. Western, Communicated by Leonard 

 Hill, F.R.S. 



Conclusions. — (i) When staphylococci are brought into 

 contact with normal human serum, and are subsequently 

 removed by centrifugalisation, the serum loses its opsonic 

 power for Staphylococcus, although the opsonic power of 

 Bacterium pyocyaneuni is preserved. 



(2) Contact of normal human serum with tubercle bacilli 

 leaves the opsonic power of that serum for staphylococcus 

 almost intact, while the opsonic power for tubercle bacillus 

 is completely removed. 



(3) Contact of normal human serum with staphylococcus 

 leaves the opsonic power of that serum for tubercle bacillus 

 almost intact, while the opsonic power for staphylococcus 

 is completely removed. 



(4) Inoculation of a human being with tuberculin causes 

 quantitative increase in the tuberculo-opsonin, whereas the 

 quantity of staphylococcus opsonin is unaltered. 



(5) Inoculation of a human being with staphylococcus 

 vaccine causes a quantitative increase in the staphylococcus 

 opsonin, whereas the quantity of tuberculo-opsonin is un- 

 altered. 



March 8. — " On the Relationship between Haemolysis 

 and the Phagocytosis of Red Blood Ceils." By Dr. R. D. 

 Keith. 



The conclusion come to is that the phagocytosis of red 

 blood cells does not depend on the presence of the hsemo- 

 lytic amboceptor, since : — 



(i) The substance which induces phagocytosis is partially 

 destroyed by heat, while the hsemolytic amboceptor is 

 entirely thermostable. 



(2) The h^emolytic amboceptor may be present in con- 

 siderable amount in a hjemolytic serum without inducing 

 phagocytosis, notwithstanding prolonged contact of the 

 amboceptor with the red blood cells. 



Dean has suggested that phagocytosis may be caused by 

 a complement acting through an amboceptor, and that the 

 partial destruction, of the property in the serum inducing 

 phagocytosis, by heat may be due to the destruction of 

 the complement, while the amboceptor, even in the absence 

 of the complement, may still be capable of inducing phago- 

 cytosis. This theory, while it is dillicult to disprove directly 

 owing to the complement being destroyed at the same 

 temperature as the thermolabile part of the substance 

 inducing phagocytosis, seems to be an improbable one for 

 the following reasons : — 



(i) That it is not an action analogous to that of other 

 amboceptors, e.g. that concerned in ha2moIysis. If one 

 destroy the complement of a hemolytic serum by heat, no 

 hemolysis takes place, notwithstanding the presence of the 

 amboceptor in large amount. 



(2) The ha:molylic amboceptor may be present in large 

 amount in a diluted serum, without that serum having the 

 pow-er of inducing phagocytosis even when Dean's method 

 of testing is employed. 



(3) In the dilution experiments recorded in the paper it is 

 shown that one may dilute the complement to such an 

 extent as to abolish hemolysis, and yet such a serum has 

 a greater " opsonic " power in these dilutions than has the 

 same serum when heated and employed in corresponding 

 dilutions. 



" Upon the Properties of an Antityphoid Serum obtained 

 from the Goat." By Dr. Allan Macfadyen. Communi- 

 cated by Dr. C. J. Martin, F.R.S. 



Conclusions. — fi) The intravenous injection of the goat 

 with the toxic cell juices of the B. typhosus (obtained under 



