626 



NA TURE 



[November i i, 1922 



enfranchisement of the universities was regarded as 

 " a great favour to the universities as to the prosecuting 

 their affairs in Parliament." This supposed benefit 

 was soon recognised as to some extent illusory, for 

 whereas under the old dispensation members who had 

 been students of the universities " would stand up as 

 occasion offered on behalf of their respective mothers," 

 this duty was relegated to and, it is said, imperfectly 

 discharged by the elected representatives of the 

 universities. Candidly, we should .find it difficult to 

 justify the special representation of universities in 

 the House of Commons if its sole object were deemed 

 to be purely institutional, however important as 

 national institutions our universities may be. 



In pre-war days Mr. Asquith's complaint against 

 university representation was that any constituency, 

 whether you call it a university or anything else, will 

 in the long run send to the House of Commons a man 

 whose political opinions are in accord with the pre- 

 dominant opinions of those who sent him ; and in 

 support of this contention he was able to quote personal 

 examples, particularly the treatment of Sir John 

 Gorst by the University of Cambridge. This argument 

 is not without weight, but it fails to demonstrate that 

 a group of men and women of similar education and 

 a common loyalty does not form as good a constituency 

 for the election of a member of parliament as a group 

 of men and women who happen to live in a selected 

 locality such as South Kensington or East Ham. As 

 Maitland points out, the ancient idea was the representa- 

 tion of communities, of organised bodies of men which, 

 whether boroughs or counties, constantly met as 

 wholes, and enjoyed common rights and duties. That 

 system has given way as regards local constituencies 

 to the representation of numbers, of unwieldy masses 

 of men and women organised only for the purpose 

 of choosing members. But this opens up a wide 

 constitutional question which cannot be treated, 

 adequately and appropriately, in these columns. 



We prefer to base the case for university representa- 

 tion on Lord Balfour's argument — that it is a method 

 of getting into the House of Commons, men of science, 

 men of scholarship, men of special and peculiar gifts 

 quite alien from the ordinary working politician. The 

 fact that university representation provides almost the 

 last survival of plural voting enforces this argument. 

 Representation of special interests in parliament may 

 not be, in the abstract, desirable. Like the weather, 

 it has to be accepted as a mysterious fact ; and so long 

 as labour, in a narrow sense, co-operation, " the trade," 

 temperance, and many other interests are able to secure 

 their representatives through the ordinary channels, 

 we shall be well advised to implement the traditional 

 method of securing the representation of science and 

 NO. 2767, VOL. I io] 



education and the election to parliament of men and 

 women whose lives have been consecrated, not to the 

 study of the eclectic arts of the politician, but to the 

 pursuit of truth and the advancement of learning. If 

 this thesis be accepted, voters should strive to express 

 in university elections the purpose and ideal which 

 are inherent in this method of election. 



Encephalitis Lethargica. 



Ministry of Health. Reports on Public Health and 

 Medical Subjects, No. 1 1 : Report on Encephalitis 

 Lethargica. By Allan C. Parsons ; with contribu- 

 tions by Dr. A. Salusbury MacNalty and J. R. 

 Perdrau. Pp. x + 344. (London: H.M. Stationery 

 Office, 1922.) 105. net. 



THE report on the subject of encephalitis lethar- 

 gica, recently issued by the Ministry of Health, 

 has a wider than medical interest, as illustrating the 

 still considerable range of disease, of which our know- 

 ledge is so partial that preventive action is almost 

 entirely impracticable. 



This " new disease " appears to have been first 

 recognised as distinct from other recognised diseases 

 by Von Economico in Vienna in the year 1917. In 

 the early part of 191 8 cases were simultaneously 

 reported in Sheffield and London, and prompt action 

 for their investigation was undertaken by the Local 

 Government l3oard, altogether some 230 cases being 

 recognised during the first six months of that year. 

 The symptoms of this disease, comprising somnolence, 

 from which the patient is roused with difficulty, 

 paralysis of ocular and other muscles, as their most 

 marked features, bore some resemblance to those 

 associated with botulism, and the first task of the 

 earlier investigation was to eliminate the food poison- 

 ing to which botulism is due as a cause of the symptoms . 

 This point the earlier official investigations definitely 

 settled. A more difficult question was to decide 

 whether — as was influentially urged — the disease was 

 not a variant of poliomyelitis, which had been recently 

 epidemic, especially among children. 



The hypothesis that the two diseases both belonged 

 to what is known as the Heine-Medin group, differing 

 merely in the locality of the nervous lesions, was 

 attractive ; but for reasons detailed in the earlier 

 governmental report and confirmed in the present 

 report, this hvpothesis, in the opinion of most observers, 

 was satisfactorily eliminated. Similar considerations 

 exclude influenza as a hydra-headed monster, with 

 poliomyelitis and encephalitis lethargica as variants 

 caused by the same virus. In Dr. Parsons' part of 

 the present report the distinctions between these 

 three diseases are judicially stated. Poliomyelitis 

 prevails chiefly in late summer and autumn, encepha- 



