232 



NA TURE 



[August 12, 1922 



doctrine. The new law of gravitation quite as fully 

 as Newton's law referred to a nature common to 

 and independent of all individual minds. This was 

 a necessity if there was to be physical science at all 

 in any intelligible meaning of the term. The chair- 

 man, Prof. Wildon Carr, said that the idealistii 

 interpretation of Einstein's theory did not imply 

 that Einstein was an idealist or that any philo- 

 sophical purpose was involved in his principle. 

 The value of the new principle in philosophy depended 

 on the fact that it was purely scientific and brought 

 forward in the interest of mathematical physics. 

 What it had done for philosophy was to show con- 

 clusively that the realist assumption of independent 

 objective existence was not only unnecessary as a 

 condition of the possibility of science but was a 

 positive methodological hindrance. 



Concurrently with the philosophical discussions the 

 psychologists held a meeting in the psychological 

 laboratory for the reading of papers and demonstra- 

 tions. 



On Saturday the British Psychological Society 

 held separate meetings in the Medical School of the 

 University. In the morning, with Prof. T. H. Pear 

 in the chair, Dr. C. S. Myers described a number 

 of experiments upon the various factors involved in 



the appreciation of music. He showed how closely 

 the processes of listening to music may follow those 

 involved in the response to pure tones, and con- 

 sidered especially the parts played in the aesthetic 

 enjoyment of music by association, by a process of 

 " distancing," and by " mystical feeling." Mr. F. C. 

 Bartlett gave an account of some experiments 

 leading up to a psychological study of the processes 

 of conventionalisation ; and Mr. R. H. Thouless 

 discussed the phenomena of contrast in a smoothly 

 graded disc. It was suggested that McDougall's 

 drainage theory could scarcely be accepted as an 

 adequate explanation of the contrast effects, a view 

 that obtained support in the ensuing discussion. 

 In the afternoon the Industrial Section of the Society 

 held a meeting. Dr. Leslie Mackenzie presided. 

 Mr. E. Farmer presented a new method of dealing 

 with curves of output in factory work, and discussed 

 the psychological significance of certain curves 

 representing work in chocolate-packing and glass- 

 blow mil;. Prof. A. V. Hill demonstrated his ergo- 

 meter, and spoke to a large audience on characteristics 

 of muscular work in the intact organism. Mr. 

 Jackson read a paper prepared by Mr. S. Wyatt 

 and himself on the effect of rest pauses upon output 



The Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute. 



"THE thirty-third Annual Congress of the Royal 

 *■ Sanitary Institute at Bournemouth, which was 

 held during the last week in July, displayed the 

 multifarious character of the work embraced in sani- 

 tary science or public health. Special sections were 

 devoted to sanitary science and preventive medicine, 

 to engineering and architecture, to maternity and 

 child welfare including school hygiene, to personal 

 and domestic hygiene ; and there were conferences 

 of veterinary inspectors, health visitors, sanitary in- 

 spectors, representatives of sanitary authorities, and 

 medical officers of health. 



Major-General J. E. B. Seely's presidential address 

 was an able summary of urgent public needs, an 

 appeal for clean milk and for judicious expenditure 

 on public health needs including housing, and a 

 reiteration of the fundamental importance of education 

 in advancing public health progress. 



Sir Arthur Newsholme's presidential address to 

 section i dealt with the relative roles of compulsion 

 and education in public health work. He laid down 

 the following general principles as justifying com- 

 pulsion in public health or social work : (i) that the 

 end aimed at by compulsion must be very important 

 for the public welfare ; (2) that it cannot be achieved 

 to an equal extent or within a reasonable time by 

 educational measures, not including the education 

 provided by edu< ation : (3) that the compulsion can 

 be enforced ; and (4) that it is continuously endorsed 

 by a majority of the community. He gave examples 

 of the fact that the social history of the 19th century 

 consists largely in a steady extension of the enforce- 

 ment of compulsory duties and restrictions in various 

 aspects of communal life, each of which had been 

 introduced to secure the larger liberty of the oppressed 

 and handicapped- members of the community ; and 

 then proceeded to apply these general principles to 

 the case of two chronic communicable diseases like 

 tuberculosis and syphilis, and to alcoholic indulgence. 

 His general conclusion was that compulsion in these 

 directions would be effective inversely to the extent 

 to which it was needed ; and that in the ultimate 

 issue the two ideals of compulsion and of education 

 of character are not irreconcilable in public health 

 work. 



In his address in the maternity and child welfare 

 section, Sir George Newman stressed the continuing 

 but avoidable loss of maternal and infant life, oc- 

 curring through ignorance and still more through 

 lack of care, and the still larger suffering and disable- 

 ment of mothers and infants which might have been 

 avoided. The fact that 35 per cent, of the children 

 first admitted to the elementary day schools in 

 England are so physically impaired as to need medical 

 treatment, emphasises the importance of hygienic and 

 medical care of the mother and of the infant before 

 school age is reached. At the present time about 

 8rf. per head is being spent on official services of 

 maternity and child welfare, while the financial value 

 of the lives saved by these services exceeds this sum 

 many times over. 



There was a useful discussion on " Fuel in relation 

 to health " introduced by Prof. J. W. Cobb of Leeds 

 University. In his paper Prof. Cobb traced the 

 history of the stages through which the manufacture 

 of gas for domestic purposes had passed. The New 

 Gas Regulation Act had accepted the fact that the 

 test of intrinsic luminosity was absolute, had per- 

 mitted the distribution of gas of a lower calorific 

 value than formerly, and had not laid down any 

 limitation of the amount of carbon monoxide in gas. 

 E\ idently Prof. Cobb did not regard increase of carbon 

 monoxide as necessarily increasing danger to the con- 

 sumer, and he pointed out that although recently 

 more cases of poisoning by this gas had been recorded, 

 they could not be due to increase of its proportion, 

 inasmuch as action in this direction so far had not 

 been great. 



In a paper on smokeless methods in Glasgow housing 

 schemes Councillor W. B. Smith emphasised the too 

 little recognised fact that soot from domestic fires is 

 worse than that from boilers of manufacturing plants, 

 on account of the excess of tar products, and advo- 

 cated central provision of hot-water supplies in towns. 



I irut. -Colonel Clemesha described methods of col- 

 lection and disposal of excreta suitable for small 

 tropical villages, where, as a rule, there is a total 

 absence of all sanitary arrangements. This leads 

 not only to excessive cholera and enteric fever, but 

 to the widespread dissemination of ankylostomiasis. 



NO. 2754, VOL. I IO] 



