May 



'905] 



NA TURE 



0/ 



a natural desire was expressed for a new edition. The 

 first part of tliis appeared in 1897, under tlie general 

 editorship of Dr. Carl R. Hennicke, of Gera, who has 

 been assisted by a company of thirtj-si.K coadjutors, 

 comprising the chief ornithologists of Central Europe, 

 and to celebrate the recent completion of this grand 

 undertaking in ten folio volumes a Naumann-Feier is 

 to be held at Cothen on Sunday, May 14, under 

 the direction of Dr. Jacobi von Wangelin, of Merse- 

 burg, and Prof. Rudolf Blasius, of Brunswick, the pre- 

 sidents respectively of the German Bird Protection 

 Union and the German Ornithological Society. The 

 business of the day is announced as of the simplest 

 character, just as one may suppose would be consonant 

 with the wishes of the men to be honoured — an inspec- 

 tion of the Naumann collections, now housed in the 

 ducal palace, a pilgrimage to the graves of the 

 Naumanns at Ziebigk, their old abode, on which 

 a laurel wreath will be laid, and a visit of 

 respect to the daughter-in-law of Johann Friedrich, 

 a return to Cothen for a festival dinner — that is 

 nil. Who will attend I know not, but assuredly 

 every German ornithologist will be present in the 

 spirit, and my chief object in writing these lines 

 is that British ornithologists should sympathise with 

 their German brethren on the occasion. Making every 

 allowance for the ordinary Englishman's linguistic de- 

 ficiencies, it is not to the credit of our predecessors in 

 this country, though there are many of whom we may 

 be justly proud, that until the year 1850 not one of them 

 seems ever to have heard of the Naumanns and their 

 incomparable works. It was Mr. G. R. Gray who, in 

 a British Museum catalogue, first cited that of Johann 

 Friedrich, and then merely on nomenclatural grounds. 

 It was there that I first met with its title, and I lost no 

 time in seeking the work in the library of Cambridge 

 Vniversity. VVords fail me to express the delight with 

 which I looked into one volume after another of this 

 huge store of information, or the admiration with 

 which I regarded its unpretentious but exquisitely exe- 

 cuted plates. That was nearly five-and-fifty years ago, 

 but much as the study has since advanced, the opinion I 

 then formed I hold now, that for fulness of treatment, 

 perspicuity, and general accuracy, the work of Johann 

 Friedrich Naumann has not been surpassed. 



Willingly would I dwell longer on the subject, but I 

 think I may have said enough, though I must add that 

 for many of the details above given I am indebted to 

 two articles bv Dr. Lindner published in " Die 

 Schwalbe " of Vienna for 1894 (Nos. 7 and 8), and still 

 more to Dr. Paul Leverkiihn's excellent biographical 

 preface to the first volume of the recent edition already 

 mentioned, which has been separately printed, " Bio- 

 graphisches iiber die Drei Naumanns " (Gera-Unterm- 

 haus : 1904). Later still that gentleman has come into 

 possession of much of Johann Friedrich 's correspon- 

 dence, which it is sincerelv to be hoped he will find 

 the means of publishing, as it can hardly fail to be 

 of great interest. Alfred Newton. 



DR. J. E. BUTTON. 



IT is with deep regret that we announce the sudden 

 death of Dr. Dutton (Walter Myers Fellow) at 

 Kosongo, in the Congo, on February 27, while actively 

 engaged in the investigation of trypanosomiasis and 

 tick fever. 



The expedition which Dr. Dutton was leading was 

 a very completely equipped one, and commenced work 

 in the Congo in September, 1903. It consisted origin- 

 ally of Drs. Dutton, Todd, and'Christy, and was sub- 

 sequently joined by Dr. Inge Heiberg. The Belgian 

 Government erected a special hospital for them, and 

 placed every possible facility at their disposal both for 

 investigation and travelling. Whilst conducting the 

 NO. 1854, VOL. 72] 



investigation and mapping the distribution of sleeping 

 sickness and tick fever, they travelled several thousand 

 miles bv river and road, and reached a station beyond 

 Stanley Falls. 



In the death of Dr. Dutton, not only have the 

 Tropical School and the University of Liverpool lost a 

 brilliant graduate, but medicine has lost one of its 

 most promising men, a man who, although only 

 twenty-nine years of age, had already won a recognised 

 position throughout the scientific world. Educated at 

 the King's School, Chester, Dr. Dutton proceeded to 

 the University of Liverpool, where he rapidly made his 

 wav to the front. In 1897 he was appointed to the 

 George Holt fellowship in pathology, a post which has 

 had a marked effect in stimulating men to devote 

 time to research and in supplying able investigators in 

 tropical medicine. In 1900 lie commenced the .study 

 of tropical medicine under the leadership of Dr. Annett, 

 and together with Dr. Elliott, of Toronto University, 

 he proceeded to Nigeria in order to study the habits of 

 the .\nopheles and the most effective measures of pre- 

 vention of malaria. In 1901 he proceeded alone to the 

 Gambia, and drew a comprehensive and useful anti- 

 malarial report which has proved of the greatest ser- 

 vice to the colony. It was during this expedition that 

 he identified in the blood of the patient shown to him 

 by Dr. Forde, of Bathurst, the trypanosome which he 

 described and named as Trypanosoma gamhicnse. 



Having established the presence of the trypanosome 

 in man," Dr. Dutton immediately set off on another 

 expedition to ascertain how far it was distributed in 

 the native population. This expedition formed the 

 basis of his first trypanosomiasis report (Senegambia, 

 1902). 



The first progress report of the Congo expedition 

 was published in 1904 ; this has been followed by others, 

 including the description of the " Congo Floor Mag- 

 got," by Drs. Dutton, Todd, and Christy, and the 

 '• Cerebro-spinal Fluid in Trypanosomiasis," by Dr. 

 Christv; " .\ Comparison of the Animal Reactions of 

 the Trypanosomes of Uganda and Congo Free State 

 Sleeping Sickness with that of Trypanosoma gam- 

 hicnse," by Drs. Thomas and Linton ; " Two Cases of 

 Trvpanosomiasis in Europeans," by Drs. Dutton, 

 Todd, and Christy; and " Supplementary Notes on the 

 Tsetse-flies," by Mr. E. E. Austen. More recently Dr. 

 Dutton wrote an interesting paper on the " Interme- 

 diary Host of the Filaria cypseli " (the filaria of the 

 .African swift), in which he described the intermediate 

 host as a louse (subfamily Leiothinse) in the 

 abdominal cavity of which he observed the various 

 stages of tlie development of the filaria. He_ showed 

 that the infection was probably spread by the birds eat- 

 ing the infected lice. 



Toward the end of 1904 the investigators had 

 reached Stanlev Falls, and quite independently Drs. 

 Dutton and Todd verified the discovery of the cause of 

 lick spirillum fever in man made a few weeks pre- 

 viouslv by Milne and Ross in the Uganda Protectorate ; 

 but, furthermore, thev were able to transmit the disease 

 to monkevs and rabbits by means of the bite of the in- 

 fected tick. They were able to make post mortem exami- 

 nations on cases of the fever, in the course of which 

 Dr. Dutton contracted the disease by a post mortem 

 wound and Dr. Todd an abortive attack apparently 

 directlv through a tick bite. From this fever they re- 

 covered, in Dr. Dutton 's case after four typical relapses. 

 Their researches into the relationship between the In- 

 fection in man and the tick were so far advanced that 

 they were able to prepare a report which is due by the 

 next mail. In the meantime, they have given an 

 account of an experiment in which tick spirillum fever 

 has been conveved to a monkey by the bites of young 

 ticks during the first feed after hatching from the ova 

 of naturally infected adults. 



