320 



NA TURE 



[August 2, 1906 



do with the Roj'al Society's Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers or the International Catalogue of Scientific 

 Literature. 



Now two channels for the publication of scientific 

 papers must be accepted without cavil. 



In each country (for international publications, how- 

 ever desirable, present almost insurmountable mech- 

 anical difficulties) it is well that there should be a 

 periodical devoted to each " branch " of science, and 

 as time goes on each " branch " will naturally be- 

 come more and more subdivided. This may be re- 

 garded as the natural, and, putting on one side 

 historical considerations, the first channel. 



But the publications of established academies and 

 of the older special societies must be accepted also. 

 Tlie newer special societies would do well to make 

 use of the special journals, in some such way as the 

 Physiological Society makes use of the Journal of 

 Physiology, and perhaps even some of the older ones 

 might adopt the same methods. 



In any case, there is no reason for special comment 

 on these two channels. But things are different when 

 we come to consider the kind of publication of which 

 I have given examples above. 



Let me take, for instance, the Journal of the Marine 

 Biological Association, and the Thompson-Yates and 

 Johnston Laboratories Reports. The number of the 

 former is almost wholly occupied bv a memoir of 

 systematic zoologv, the number of the latter by papers 

 on trypanosomiasis. Why should the student in 

 systematic zoology, who has possibly at some expense 

 taken steps to secure ready access to the publications 

 of the Zoological and Linnean Societies, have also to 

 run after the Journal of the Marine Biological 

 Association ? 



Whv should the student in tropical diseases have to 

 run hither and thither, seeking in this and that re- 

 port what he ought to find ready at hand either in 

 the Journal of Comparative Pathology or Journal of 

 Hygiene, or some still more special periodical? 



Now there can be no doubt that the causa causans 

 of the two periodicals in question is advertisement. One 

 cannot but svmpathise with the efforts of the Marine 

 Biological .'\ssociation to make its worth known ; one 

 has also svmpathv with the University of Liverpool, 

 but less acute since its great merits are in everyone's 

 mouth. But I venture to put the question. Is it 

 desirable that, for the mere sake of advertisement, 

 the progress of science should be hindered? For any- 

 thing which puts obstacles in the way of the student 

 getting ready access to a knowledge of what has been 

 done is a distinct hindrance to progress. Why should 

 not the Marine Biological .Association spend the money 

 which it has spent in printing the Hon. C. Eliot's 

 valuable memoir on British nudibranchs in sub- 

 sidising some acknowledged channel of zoological 

 publication. It is well that the association should 

 have a journal, but that journal ought to be occupied 

 exclusively by business matters; all scientific papers 

 of permanent value produced by help of the associa- 

 tion ought to be published elsewhere. 



In the same way, why should not the Liverpool 

 LIniversity spend some of the ample funds at its dis- 

 posal in subsidising periodicals, many at least of 

 which are in urgent need of support? This would in 

 the end be even a better advertisement. 



The Lister Institute sets in this respect a very good 

 example. It too has need of advertisement, but 

 the results of the varied work carried on there are 

 published each in an appropriate acknowledged 

 channel. It limits its direct advertisement to issuing 

 in a collected form reprints of the various papers 

 scattered over many periodicals. 



NO. I918, VOL. 74] 



The scientific papers in Government publications 

 stand on a somewhat different footing from those 

 just spoken of. The Annual Report of the medical 

 officer of the Local Government Board referred 

 to above contains, besides several papers of 

 direct administrative value, under the term " re- 

 port " a number of valuable papers of a purely 

 scientific character, papers to which every inquirer in 

 pathology ought to have ready access. But why 

 should a scientific library, and why especially should 

 the limited library of a pathological institute or labor- 

 atory, for the sake of a mouthful of pure science, 

 burden its shelves with an intolerable mass of adminis- 

 trative details? The publications of the medical 

 oiucer of the Local Government Board do not stand 

 alone in this respect. In the enormous mass of 

 printed matter which H.M. Government puts out 

 every year there are hidden, buried, lost to view, 

 records of scientific research of varying but not un- 

 frequently of great value, records to which the scien- 

 tific inquirer ought to have ready access. This 

 official burial of scientific work does a double harm ; 

 it harms him who did the work, it harms all those 

 who, through the burial, miss knowing what has 

 been done. 



Of course it must be recognised that H.M. Govern- 

 ment, having ordered and supplied the funds for a 

 scientific inquiry, has a right of possession in the 

 records of that inquiry, so that by the official publi- 

 cation of that record it may justify before Parliament 

 and the public the order for the inquiry. The 

 matter is further complicated by the fact that when 

 the order for inquirv is part of the work of a Royal 

 Commission, the results of such an inquiry cannot 

 be made known until the report of the commission 

 on its work as a whole is laid before Parliament and 

 published. 



But these difficulties are not such as cannot be 

 overcome. A small Commission of the nature of what 

 is known as a Departmental Committee, appointed 

 some little time back to investigate plague in India, 

 has, with the approval of the authorities, adopted the 

 following plan. While making the usual arrange- 

 ments for the reports on administrative matters, it 

 proposes to publish from time to time the scientific 

 results of the work of the commission in an appro- 

 priate scientific journal, securing, bv the purchase of 

 extra copies of the records thus published, the means 

 for the complete publication of the whole work of the 

 commission at some future period. 



Such a plan might be extended to all scientific 

 inquiries carried out by order of H.M. Government; 

 it needs nothin.g more than frank negotiations 

 between persons responsible to H.M. Government and 

 editors of scientific periodicals. Such a plan would 

 bring many blessings. It would enable the man of 

 science who is putting his best into the work which 

 he is doing for Government to feel that the record 

 of his work will not be hopelessly lost sight of. It 

 would save other men of science the labour of hunt- 

 ing for scientific needles in Government bottles of 

 hay, or the chagrin of finding out, when too late, 

 that by shrinking from such uncongenial labour they 

 had missed something of great price. It would save 

 the nation a not inconsiderable sum of money, and 

 yet furnish the editors of scientific journals with 

 money, which many of them need for the conduct 

 of their journals, and which most of them at least 

 would use in helping the poor author to a more com- 

 plete publication of the records of his work. Lastly, 

 it would relieve the bibliographer from much weari- 

 some labour. In every way, in fact, it would tend 

 to advance natural knowledge. -K. 



