NA TURE 



333 



CONTENTS. 



Animal Mechanism 333 



The United States Chemical Foundation . . . 334 



Galton's Centenary 335 



Modern Dietetics 336 



Germany and English Chemical Industry . . -337 



Railway Electric Traction 33^ 



Our Bookshelf • 339 



Letters to the Editor : — 



The British Association.— Prof. Henry E. Arm- 

 strong-, F.R.S 34' 



Bohr and Langmuir Atoms.— Sir Oliver Lodge, 



F.R.S 34i 



The Acoustics of Enclosed Spaces. — Sir Arthur 



Schuster, F.R.S .341 



The Annelids of Iceland and the Faroes. — The Rev. 



Hilderic Friend . 34- 



On the Reality of Nerve- Energy.— Prof. D. Fraser 



Harris 34- 



Noctiluca as an Enemy of the Oyster. — R. W. 



Dodgson 343 



Defoliation of Oaks. — Right Hon. Sir Herbert 



Maxwell, Bart., F.R.S. . . . 344 



Black Coral. — Dr. F. A Ba her, F.R.S. . 344 

 Metallic Coloration of Chrysalids. — A. Mallock, 



F.R.S. . . 344 



The British Association at Hull. By T. S. . . 345 

 Some Aspects of Animal Mechanism. By Sir C. S. 

 Sherrington, G.B.E., Sc.D., D.Sc, LL.D., Pres. 



R.S 346 



Scientific. Problems and Progress. Addresses ok 

 Presidents of Sections of the British Associa- 

 te IN 352 



The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (Illustrated.) . 356 

 Colour Vision and Syntony. [With Diagram.) By 



Prof. E. H. Barton, F.R.S 357 



Obituary :— 



Prof. J. A. Pollock, F.R.S 359 



Prof. Tadeusz Godlewski. By R. W. L. . 361 



M. L. Fave 361 



Current Topics and Events 362 



Our Astronomical Column 364 



Research Items 365 



The First Messel Memorial Lecture .... 367 



Stellar Radiation in the Infra-red .... 367 



University and Educational Intelligence . . . 368 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers 368 



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Animal Mechanism. 



THE presidential address of Sir Charles Sherrington 

 to the British Association at Hull directs our 

 thoughts to problems of the mechanism of vital pro r 

 cesses, especially to those of the nervous system. It 

 is evident that the obstacles which we meet with in 

 our progress to better understanding of what happens 

 in those complex systems which we call " living " have 

 greatly occupied the attention of the learned president, 

 and those of us who are struggling on our way will be 

 grateful for his helpful and stimulating outlook. We 

 shall do well to take careful note of his remarks. 



The great difficulty which continually presents itself 

 to us is the conception of any physiological process as 

 a whole. We find out, often at the expense of much 

 labour, some isolated facts, but the integration of these 

 facts to explain the complete mechanism remains 

 beyond our powers. Take the case of muscle. We 

 discover that muscular contraction and relaxation are 

 associated with a change from glycogen to lactic acid 

 and back again. But how is the energy of the chemical 

 reaction converted to that of tension, which is the 

 really important matter ? It is easy to say that it is 

 through changes in surface tension on longitudinally 

 arranged elements, but we soon meet with further 

 difficulties. It may be remarked that more work is 

 needed on the electrical properties of surfaces and 

 especially as to the effect of electric charge on the rate 

 of passage of ions through membranes which are 

 themselves charged. The problem in the nervous 

 system shows itself in the form of finding out what 

 happens in the centres between the receipt of an 

 afferent " sensory " impulse and the motor reaction 

 to it. How is the impulse directed into some par- 

 ticular channel and prevented from passing into 

 another ? Why does it go sometimes one way, and at 

 other times in another way ? What is it that stops 

 it after it has been set going ? The president is careful 

 to point out that when the physiologist says " why " 

 he means " how," and we must not forget this. 



It will be realised that one of the most important and 

 difficult problems, especially suggested in the last of 

 the questions put above, is that of inhibition. Is it 

 possible to account for all the phenomena on the basis 

 of difference in rate, refractory period and decrement 

 as affecting the transmission of a nervous impulse ? 

 The article on " Spinal Reflexes " by Prof. Alex. 

 Forbes in Physiological Reviews gives us a very valuable 

 account of what can be done in this way. On the 

 other hand, is there evidence for the existence of some- 

 thing essentially different between excitation and 

 inhibition ? When a nervous impulse arrives at a 

 muscle cell or a neurone in activity, is there some 



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