592 



NA TURE 



October 1 1, 1906 



October 22-27, will include ihc following sections : — 

 (1) biological physics; (2) biological and physiological 

 chemistry ; (3) rational food systems and dietetics ; 



(4) analytical chemistry, adulteration, and legislation : 



(5) bacteriology, toxicology, and parasitology; (6) statistics, 

 instruction, and ways and means; (7) application of 

 hygienic principles in the manufacture and preparation of 

 fund, and conveyance of food from place to place ; (K) the 

 liygiene of food and rational food systems in the home 

 and elsewhere; (q) cooperation and competition: (to) dis- 

 tribution of food gratis or at reduced prices; (11) food in 

 relation to the prevention of alcoholism and tuberculosis; 

 and (12) the diffusion of knowledge in schools and else- 

 where with respect to rational food systems and the hygiene 

 of food. The first seven of these twelve sections constitute 

 Division i of the congress, dealing with scientific methods, 

 and Prof. Bouchard and Prof. Armand Oautier will pre- 

 side. The five last sections constitute , Division 2 of the 

 i-ongress, dealing with social questions relating to food ; 

 the president will be M. Jules Siegfried. 



The annual Huxley lecture was delivered at Charing 

 Cross Hospital on October i by Prof. Ivan Pawlow, of 

 ■■^t. Petensburg, the subject being the scientific investi- 

 gation of the psychical faculties or processes in the higher 

 inimals. All the experiments were made on dogs, and 

 the excretion of saliva was made the test of the response 

 iif the animals to external impressions. As is well known, 

 I he salivary glands secrete, not only when the stimulus 

 of appropriate substances is impressed on the mouth, but 

 also when other receptive surfaces, including the eye and 

 the ear, are stimulated ; the latter actions have received the 

 name of psychical stimuli, but have unquestionably much 

 in common with ordinary reflex action, and are termed b\ 

 Prof. Pawlow " conditioned reflexes," to distinguish them 

 Irnm the ordinary or unconditioned reflexes. The greater 

 part of the lecture was devoted to the development of this 

 conception of the nature of the conditioned reflexes, which 

 would thus be removed from psychical phenomena and be 

 relegated to the domain of physiologv. 



The winter session of the I^ondon School of Tropical 

 Medicine was opened on Monday last with an address by 

 Colonel Kenneth Macleod. In the unavoidable absence of 

 the Duke of Marlborough the chair was taken by Sir 

 Francis Lovell, the dean of the school, who, in introducing 

 the lecturer, briefly described the aims and objects of the 

 school. Colonel Macleod, after paying a tribute to the 

 work of Sir Patrick Manson, briefly detailed the inception 

 of the school, and pointed out that, while the debt has 

 been paid off, a sum of at least 60,000/. is needed for 

 endowment. Prominent among the needs of the school 

 .It present is the appointment of an entomologist. The 

 trend of modern investigation and thought has forced into 

 Ihi' forefront the fascinating subject of comparative 

 pathology. In the tropics all life, and particularlv parasitic 

 life, is exuberant ; the lower life is rampant, and the 

 higher heavily handicapped. The salutarv efi'ect of 

 drainage, cultivation, and cleansing is weil illustrated 

 by the banishment of malaria from England. To develop 

 and strengthen the resistive and curative elements of the 

 animal organism is one of the chief objects of medical 

 science, and the principle which underlies the great dis- 

 covery of Jenner is, after the lapse of a century, obtain- 

 ing new and remarkable applications. Examples were also 

 given by the lecturer of problems still awaiting solution. 

 In the evening the staffs and past and present students 

 of the London Schools of Tropical and of Clinical Medicine 

 NO. 1 928, VOL. 74] 



held their annual dinner at the Hotel Cecil, Sir W. Hood 

 Treacher in the chair. .Among the guests were Prof. 

 Blanchard, of Paris, the medical director-general of the 

 Navy, .Sir John McFadyean, and others. 



Wnri regard to the series of demonstrations in practical 

 microscopy mentioned in N'.viure of .September i;, (p. 4i)b|, 

 the com.mittee of the Quekett Microscopical Club has made 

 the following arrangements : — November 16, Mr. H. E. 

 Angus, on " Axial Substage Illumination with .'\rtificial 

 Illuminant"; December 21, Mr. .Angus, on " Dark-ground 

 Illumination"; January 18, 1907, Mr. C. I.. Curties, on 

 " Polarised and Multicolour Illumination " and " Various 

 Methods of Recording Observations"; March 15, Mr. 

 Conrad Beck, on " The Illumination of Opaque and Un- 

 mounted Objects"; .April 19, Mr. Beck, on "The Com- 

 parison of Objectives"; May 17, .Mr. F. W. Watson 

 Baker. The next ordinary meeting of the club will be 

 held at 20 Hanover Square, \V., on Friday, October iq, at 

 .S p.m., when the following papers will be read : — On 

 Ti'trawastix opoliensis^ a rare rotifer, C. V. Rousselet ; 

 and on the reproduction of mosses and ferns, J. Burton. 

 Cards of admission to the demonstrations or the ordinary 

 meetings may be obtained from the hon. sec, Mr. .\. 

 Earland, jt Denmark Street, Watford, Herts. 



" I'kher die Zelle " (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, price 

 60 pf.) is the title of a fragment (45 pp.) of a work on 

 the cell begun by the late Prof. Alfred .Schaper. It contains 

 a short historical introduction wherein the chief stages in 

 the development of the cell theory are given, and also a 

 discussion of the more modern views as to the structure 

 of the cell constituents. Its chief interest will probably 

 be for those who knew its ituthor. 



Some phases of the gaslrulation of the horned toad 

 (Phrynosoma cornutum) form the subject of a paper by 

 Messrs. C. L. Edwards and C. W. Hahn published in the 

 Anwrican Journal of Anatomy (vol. v.. No. 3). The egg 

 in the genus Phrynosoma comes nearer to those of lower 

 vertebrates than does that of any other of the Amniota in 

 that its protoplasmic pole seems less encumbered with yolk, 

 while the elevation of the blastoderm renders ihe processes 

 taking place therein as independent as in amphibians. 

 Phrynosoma is, in fact, a connecting link in this respect 

 between other reptiles and the axolotl, and thus with the 

 mollusc Bithynia. 



To thi- y.ritschnft fur i.'issi-nschafilichc Zooloi<u- (vol. 

 Iwxiv., p.irl iii.) Mr. II. Schlichter communicates a paper 

 on the electrical organs of the proboscis-fish (Mormyrus 

 oxyrhynchus) of the Nile, dealing specially with their 

 histology, which has hitherto received little or no 

 attention, although the organs themselves have been long 

 known. Although situated in the tail, us in Torpedo 

 and Raia, the electric organs of Mormyrus (which have 

 but little power) have each plate composed of a whole 

 bundli- of modified muscular fibres instead of a single fibre, 

 so that they must be regarded as representing the union 

 of numerous electro-blasts. Special attention is devoted 

 by the author to the manner in which the nerves supplying 

 these organs terminate, and to the nature of such termin- 

 ations. Another and longer article in the same issue, by 

 E. Rossbach, is devoted to the anatomy and developmental 

 history of the " redia "-stages of the trematode worms 

 infesting (in the above-mentioned stage) the pond-snails 

 Paliidina vivipara, Lininaea stagnalis, and certain other 

 species of the same genus as the latter. The budding, 

 degeneration, and regeneration phenomena of certain marine 



