'54 



NATURE 



(June 14, 1906 



CYCLES IN CHRONOLOGY.' 



r ^^^ ^^^ ''^° y^^""* understood to be expressed bv 

 the " time, times, and a half " (taking " time '"' 

 10 indicate a prophetic year of 360 days each) of Dan. 

 xn. 7, and repeated in Rev. xii. 6 and in Rev. xi. 2 

 and xiii. 5 under its equivalent term " forty and two 

 months " (taking a month as thirty days), was in. fact 

 an astronomical cycle, was first suggested bv Lovs de 

 e heseaux in a work published at Paris in iVsj 'three 

 years after the author's death. But it did not meet 

 with much attention in England until a small work 

 on the subject was published by Mr. W. Cuninghame 

 in 1834, and it was subsequently more fully e.\plained 

 by Mr H. Grattan Guinness 'in his " Approaching 

 tnd of the Age," which appeared in 1878. 



Dr. Bell Dawson however, in a pamphlet now before 

 us, goes into the matter much more elaborately, using 

 the most recent knowledge of the lengths of the solar 

 and lunar years (by lunar year he means twelve lunar 

 synodic months or lunations), and finds a remarkable 

 correspondence between multiples of these which 

 coincide with those, of the number in Daniel. .\s 

 seven is a perfect number in Scripture, and Daniel 

 mentions three and a half prophetic years (" time 

 times, and a half "), he thinks that the 1260 must be 

 doubled, which makes 2520 lunar years. Now a lunation 

 contains, according to the most modern determinations, 

 -9-530589 days; 504 of these are equal to 178,601 days 

 and 2520 to 893,005 days within about four minutes. 

 .\n echpse-cycle is also pointed out, i.e.. that 649 solar 

 years are almost exactly equal to 8028 (223x36) 

 lunations (the former amounting to 237042.1853, and 

 the latter to 2370420355 days), which is much more 

 accurate than the Metonic cycle. 



Dr. Bell Dawson carefully' notes the different values 

 which have been found (observationallv and theoreti- 

 cally) for the secular acceleration of the moon's mean 

 motion; but he seems to have forgotten that though 

 probably constant or nearly so in amount, its effect, 

 when long periods of time are taken into account, varies 

 like the accelerating force of gravity, as was pointed out 

 by Halley, its discoverer, according to the square of 

 the number of centuries. As Cheseaux had done 

 before him, he shows the astronomical significance of 

 the cycle 2300 years in Dan. viii. 14, as well as that 

 of the 1260 years before spoken of; but he treats it 

 .somewhat differently. Cheseaux (whose scheme, we 

 may mention, is explained in the second volume of 

 .Air. Chambers's " Handbook of Astronomy ") took the 

 difference between 1260 and 2300 {i.e. 1040) years, and 

 showed that 1040 solar years form a period almost 

 exactly equal to 12,863 lunations, the former amounting 

 10 37q85i.8839 and the latter to 379851.9624 days. But 

 Dr. Bell Dawson takes them as lunar years (or periods 

 of twelve lunations) and shows that '1780 (the mean 

 between 2300 and 1260) lunar years is almost pre- 

 cisely equal to 1727 solar years, each exceeding 

 63077.) days by only 0-27 and 0-37 respectively, and 

 therefore differing from each other by only o.i'o of a 

 day in that time or about 0.006 in a century. It does 

 not appear that any reference is made to the 1290 

 and 1335 days of Dan. xii. 11 and 12. No attempt 

 is made to discuss the ierminiis a quo (or therefore 

 ad qiieni) of Daniel's periods, being beyond the scope 

 of the paper before us, which treats only of the 

 numbers themselves and their accordance with astro- 

 nomical epochs. 



Dr. Bell Dawson inserts a reflection on the inferior 

 accuracy of the Roman calendar arrangements to 

 those of the Chaldeans and other Oriental nations. 

 It is probable, however, that when Julius Casar re- 



.'J' Solar and! Lun£.r Cycles implied in the Prophetic Numbers m the Bock 

 of Daniel. By Dr. W. Bell Dawson. Pp 20. i (From the Traniactions 

 of the Royal Society of Canada, vol. xi.. Section 3.) 



foimed the calendar he decreed that each fourth year 

 should be an intercalary year, not because he was 

 not aware that the actual length of the year was some- 

 what less than 365^ days (a question which had been 

 discussed by Sosigenes, who assisted him), but because 

 he thought it would be a convenient rule and sufficient 

 for all practical purposes. In this a distinguished 

 astronomer of our own day (Prof. Newcomb) agrees 

 with him; and indeed the chief object of the introduc- 

 tion of the Gregorian calendar was to bring back the 

 date of the vernal equinox to that which it had at 

 the epoch of the Council of Nicaa. W. T. L. 



NO. IQI I. VOL. 74] 



PREVENTABLE DISEASE AND MILITARY 

 STRENGTH. 



T N a letter to the Times (June 6), Mr. St. John 

 •'■ Brodrick directs attention to the serious diminu- 

 tion in the military strength of an army, not to say 

 the terrible loss of life, which ensues in campaigns 

 from diseases which are largely preventable. It is a 

 truism, well recognised by medical men, that the 

 soldier has much more to fear from the ravages of 

 disease than from the bullets of the enemy. Mr. 

 Brodrick points out that 



" In South .Africa the deaths per 1000 were 69 from 

 disease and 42 from wounds, but the admissions to hospital 

 were 746 per 1000 from disease and 34 from wounds. In 

 other words, about 450,000 were passed through the 

 hospitals for disease during the war, and 14,800 deaths 

 occurred, while the admissions for injuries in action were 

 only 22,000.'' 



Dysentery and enteric fever are the great scourges 

 of an army in the field, and, as was pointed out in an 

 article in Nature (Ixxii., p. 431), are largely pre- 

 ventable. That this is the case is proved by the 

 records of the Russo-Japanese War, in which the 

 Japanese had a total of some 221,000 killed and 

 wounded and 236,000 cases of sickness, a ratio very 

 different from that which obtained in our own army 

 in the Boer War. The Japanese have realised to the 

 full the importance of hygienic measures in the field ; 

 sanitary corps went on ahead of the main army and 

 chose the camping grounds, supervised the water 

 supplies, and exercised a rigid sanitary control in all 

 matters, with the above result. 



Mr. Brodrick suggests one simple remedy : — 



" Why should not the admirable body of Army Medical 

 officers who have made sanitary conditions a study educate 

 combatant otTicers in the elements of military hygiene? 

 Every cadet at Sandhurst or Woolwich should be examined 

 on passing out in a problem which he should grasp as 

 easily as tactics or strategy, since upon it the fighting 

 strength by which he is to win his battles depends. A 

 captain before promotion to major might be encouraged 

 to get a special certificate which would excuse him from 

 all such training at the Staff College." 



Sir Frederick Treves, in a letter to the Times, 

 cordially supports this suggestion, and goes further, 

 advocating that a like knowledge of a more elemen- 

 tary character should be possessed by the private 

 soldier. 



In addition it may be added that the formation of 

 a sanitary corps seems desirable to aid the medical 

 staff, to guard and control the water supplies, and 

 the like. At present the .Army Medical officer is 

 powerless to enforce sanitary measures; although 

 responsible, he can give no orders, and can only act 

 through a commanding officer, often junior to him- 

 self, who has no technical knowledge. Moreover, 

 through the Esher Committee, the Director-General, 

 who formerly had direct access to the Secretary of 

 .State and had a seat on the .Armv Council, has been 



