372 



\NATURE 



[August 8. 1907 



At thp first meuting of llie medical section of the Royal 

 Society of Medicine, which is to tal<e place on October 22, 

 Dr. Hector Mackenzie will open a discussion on the com- 

 plications and sequehc of pneumonia and the treatment of 

 pneumococcal infections by serum or vaccine. The section 

 is now fully constituted, and is open to receive papers 

 for reading and discussion during the winter session. 



The fourteenth International Congress of Hygiene and 

 Demography will meet in Berlin from September 23 to 

 September 2q. A strong international committee has been 

 constituted for the organisation of the meeting, which 

 promises to be a very successful and interesting one. Of 

 the British section, Sir Shirley Murphy is the chairman, 

 Prof. Nutlall, F.R.S., and Mr. Paul Moline are the 

 secretaries, and Mr. Cutler is the treasurer. The congress 

 is divided into eight sections, and a number of interesting 

 subjects have been selected for discussion. Anyone 

 engaged scientifically or practically in hygiene or demo- 

 graphy is eligible as a member, the subscription being 

 il., which entitles him to a copy of the transactions. 

 Those not eligible for membership (e.g. the relatives of 

 members) will be admitted to the sectional meetings, 

 &:c., on payment of a subscription of los. Some of the 

 subjects selected for discussion are the aDtiology of 

 tuberculosis, pathogenic protozoa, alcoholism, care of 

 infants, overwork in schools, caisson disease, uniform 

 methods of testing disinfectants, preventive inoculation, 

 housing of the working classes, artificial ventilation, sleep- 

 ing sickness, and control of milk. 



The eighth session of the .Australasian Medical Congress 

 is to take place in Melbourne in October of next year. 

 The president will be Prof. H. B. Allen, of the University 

 of Melbourne. The eleven sections into which the congress 

 is to be divided will be presided over respectively by Dr. 

 f'l. E. Rennie, medicine; Dr. B. Poulton, surgery; Mr. 

 E. T. Thring, obstetrics and gynaecology; Dr. J. T. 

 Wilson, anatoniv and physiology : Dr. F. Tidswell, 

 pathology ; Dr. J. M. Mason, public health and State 

 medicine; Dr. J. Lockhart Gibson, diseases of the eye, 

 ear, and throat ; Dr. F. Truby King, neurology and 

 psychiatry; Dr. A. Jefferis Turner, diseases of children; 

 Surgeon-General \V. D. C. Williams, naval and military 

 surgery and medicine ; Dr. W. McMurrav, skin diseases, 

 &c. 



An electrical exhibition lasting a fortnight is to be held 

 in Montreal, commencing on September 2, and from 

 September 11 to 13 the Canadian Electrical Association 

 is also to meet in the same city, when the following 

 papers, among others, will be read : — How to increase the 

 load factor; some of the difficulties encountered in 

 operating alternating curi'ent systems ; new and old type 

 incandescent lamps ; the Nernst lamp ; and electric heating 

 and cooking appliances. 



In the Scottish National Exhibition to be held in Edin- 

 burgh in 1908 there will be sections devoted to fine arts, 

 education and history, arts and crafts, mining, engineering 

 and metallurgy, transportation and motive power, ship- 

 building and waterways construction, chemistry and scien- 

 tific appliances, lighting, heating and ventilation, agri- 

 culture, horticulture and sylviculture, domestic economy, 

 sports and pastimes, botany and zoology, artisans' work, 

 women's section, urban and rural improvements. 



A RECENTLY issued report from the British Consul at 

 Copenhagen states that the Danish Government has 

 allocated the sum of 4276?., to be used during the next 

 NO. IQ7I, VOL. 76] 



three years, for the purpose of the extermination of rats, 

 on the understanding, however, that the sum of 1666/. 

 be expended over a like period by an organisation which 

 is in existence for the destruction of rats. It is stated 

 that a Danish patent rat destroyer has been invented, 

 which, when eaten by rats, causes disease of the bladder, 

 which kills them ; whereas it may be swallowed by human 

 beings, dogs, and poultry without danger. 



Is connection with the international investigations of 

 the upper air, conducted from July 22 to 27. several kite 

 ascents have been made under the auspices of the Meteor- 

 ological Office. A number of registering balloons {)3a\\ons 

 sondes) have also been sent up, six at Manchester and 

 three at Ross (Herefordshire), for the joint committee of 

 the Royal Meteorological Society and the British .Associ- 

 ation ; six at Petersfield by Mr. C. J. P. Cave ; five at 

 Crinan and four at Pyrton Hill, Oxon, for the Meteor- 

 ological Office. The recording instruments for nearly all 

 the ascents have been supplied by the Meteorological Office. 

 Up to Monday, July 29, nine had been recovered, and one 

 has been reported since. One balloon sent up at Ross, 

 Herefordshire, on July 23, is reported to have reached 

 the height of probably 60,000 feet, or about eleven miles. 

 It is too early yet for any detailed results to be given. 



As the annual presidential address to the Philosophical 

 .Society of Washington on December 8, 1906, Prof. C. 

 Abbe read a most interesting and instructive paper on the 

 progress of science as illustrated by the development of 

 meteorology. The author pointed out that while some 

 portions of this subject are already as exact as our know- 

 ledge of other sciences can make them, the path of pro- 

 gress is strewn with the wrecks of popular errors. Since 

 the establishment of the Meteorological Society of the 

 Palatinate at Mannheim in 1780, the advance made has 

 been entirely in the direction of the line of work that it 

 laid out, viz. to collect data from all parts of the globe 

 for the purpose of compiling synoptic daily weather maps 

 for the study of the atmosphere as a whole. At the present 

 time the investigation of the upper air is being made 

 throbghout the world, and each national weather bureau 

 is extending its field of observation horizontally, while each 

 is now alive to the fact that satisfactory advance in prac- 

 tical meteorology requires corresponding progress in our 

 knowledge of the sciences involved in the motions of the 

 atmosphere. Another step in advance is due to the in- 

 vestigation of the interaction of the continental and 

 oceanic hemispheres, to our knowledge of which subject 

 the researches of Sir Norman and Dr. Lockyer, among 

 others, have greatly contributed. This principle is already 

 recognised by the directors of the Indian Meteorological 

 Service in their forecasts of the approaching monsoons. 



.At the annual meeting of the National Association of 

 Colliery Managers at Chesterfield on July 25, Mr. J. P. 

 Houfton delivered the presidential address. He dwelt 

 upon the increasing dilliculty and complexity of the 

 problems connected with mining as the shallower seams 

 were exhausted, and urged the necessity for the colliery 

 manager to be a man of scientific training and education. 

 He considered that it was of national importance that a 

 university of mining should be established in order to 

 furnish the colliery managers of the future with the 

 technical knowledge and scientific training required to 

 enable them to work the deeper coal seams. 



For the summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers, which opened on July 30 at Aberdeen under 

 the presidency of Mr. T. Hurry Riches, an interesting 



