386 



NATURE 



[August 15, 1907 



The second International Congress on Physiotherapy 

 will meet in Rome under the presidency of Senator Guido 

 Baccelli in October next, and bids fair to be a great 

 success, representatives from Great Britain, France, 

 Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, 

 Holland, Switzerland, and Japai? having already intimated 

 their intention of being present. The Italian Government 

 is granting special travelling facilities to those attending 

 the congress. The general secretary of the congress is 

 Prof. Carlo Colombo, Via Plinio, Rome. The English 

 secretary is Mr. W. Deane Butcher, Holyrood, Ealing. 



A Rel'ter telegram from New York states that the 

 main expedition of the Peary Arctic Club has been post- 

 poned for a year in consequence of the new. boilers in 

 the Roosevelt having been delayed ; the vessel meanwhile 

 is to be taken to Etah, Greenland, for the purpose of 

 establishing a coal dep6t, and will return by the end of 

 September. 



According to the Athenaeum, a scientific expedition for 

 the exploration of Central Asia has been organised by 

 the Russian Geographical Society. It will be under the 

 leadership of M. Kozlow, and will leave in October next. 

 The expedition proposes to spend two years in the close ex- 

 amination of southern Mongolia and the western parts of 

 the Chinese provinces of Kansuh and Szechuen. It is 

 stated by our contemporary that the entire cost of the 

 expedition will be borne by the Czar. 



It is stated in the Western Electrician that wireless 

 telegraph stations have been erected on Spitsbergen and 

 at Hammerfest and Tromso in order that wireless com- 

 munication may be kept up with the Wellnian Arctic 

 Expedition. 



According to the Electrical Review, a committee of 

 inquiry into the question of electric-railway working in 

 the United States is about to leave Berlin for New York, 

 in connection with the long-discussed scheme for the 

 introduction of electric traction on German railways, and 

 particularly on the Berlin city railways. The committee 

 intends to inspect, among other lines, the Baltimore- 

 Washington-.^nnapolis Railway, which is equipped on the 

 Westinghouse single-phase system, together with the 

 elevated and tunnel railways in the United States. It is 

 stated that the Berlin State Railway Administration will 

 soon prepare plans for the conversion of certain lines as a 

 result of a recent order made by the Minister for Rail- 

 ways, although nothing of practical value can really be 

 accomplished until the return of the committee and the 

 presentation of its conclusions. 



The Mississippi Valley Laboratory of the L'nited States 

 Department of .Agriculture has, according to Science, been 

 abolished, and the work in forest pathology will in future 

 be carried on at Washington, D.C. 



The .Mvarenga prize of the College of Physicians of 

 Philadelphia for the present year has been awarded to 

 Dr. W. Louis Chapman for his investigations on " Post- 

 operative Phlebitis, Thrombosis and Embolism." 



The council of the Selborne Society has for some time 

 had under its consideration a suggestion that the work of 

 the society could be done much more efficiently if sections 

 were formed, consisting of members specially interested in 

 any particular objects. It is thought, for example, that 

 one group of members might deal with the protection of 

 plants, another with the question of the wearing of 

 feathers, a third with the preservation of ancient buildings, 

 NO. 1972 VOL. 76] 



i 



a fourth with that of places of natural beauty, a fifth 

 with general amenities, and so on. The matter has now 

 been referred to the general purposes committee, and 

 members who are interested in any matter coming within 

 the society's objects are invited to communicate with the 

 honorary general secretary, that a report may be made to 

 the council as to the possibility of carrying out the idea. 



The Gypsy Lore Society, which was founded in 1888 

 and met an untimely end four years later, has now been 

 revived, with its headquarters at 6 Hope Place, Liverpool. 

 The first number of the new Journal illustrates the diflfi- 

 culties which surround the problem of the origin of this 

 mysterious people. The most important contribution is 

 Mr. John Sampson's article on " Gypsy Language and 

 Origin," which contains a useful summary of the litera- 

 ture of the subject. The linguistic evidence seems to 

 connect the Gypsy speech of Europe with that of Kashmir 

 or Dardistan, but the intervening links, particularly the 

 dialects of Syria and Armenia, are still little known, and 

 much work remains to be done before a comparative 

 grammar and dictionary can be compiled. The society, 

 however, must resist the tendency to confound the ethno- 

 logical with the linguistic problem. It may perhaps be 

 admitted that the basis of Gypsy speech is to be found 

 in that of one of the vagrant tribes of India. But it is 

 probable that this Dravidian race element has now largely 

 disappeared in the European branch of the tribe, and 

 anthropometry can throw little light on the varied 

 elements from which it has been recruited. Ml students 

 of anthropology, linguistics, and folk-lore offer a friendly 

 welcome to the revived society, which will, it may be 

 hoped, enjoy a longer lease of life than its predecessor. 

 It has been suggested that, with the collaboration of 

 members of the Gypsy Lore Society, an anthropological 

 survey of the Gypsies should be undertaken, with the 

 view of classifying them from that point of view and 

 determining their ethnographical position among the races 

 of India. Members of the society who are interested in 

 this subject, and especially those who are in a position 

 to take part in the work, are invited to communicate with 

 Mr. J. W. Scott Macfie, Rowton Hall, Chester. 



.An institute entitled the Istiluto Therapeutico Italiano 

 has been established at Milan under the directorship of Dr. 

 Zanoni, the work of which will be the investigation of 

 the action of new drugs, especially in regard to serum- 

 therapy and hypodermic medication. 



The Vienna correspondent of the Lancet states that the 

 new premises of the Vienna Serum Institute have been 

 recently opened. The institute serves two distinct pur- 

 poses, viz. scientific research and the preparation of sera 

 against certain diseases for the supply of medical institu- 

 tions and practitioners. It is stated that 71,506 bottles 

 of anti-diphtheritic serum were made in the institute and 

 sold in 1905, and 75,000 bottles in igo6, together with 

 7500 doses of anti-scarlatinal serum and 2000 doses of 

 dysentery serum. Since 1906 the institute has been self- 

 supporting, as the sale of the sera to private patients 

 covers the cost of manufacture. The quantity of blood 

 taken from each animal amounts to six litres (eleven pints) 

 each time, and as this is repeated ten times a year, no 

 pints of blood have to be reproduced by the organism 

 within a year. 



The French .Association for the .Advancement of Science 

 recently met at Rheims under the presidency of Dr. 

 Henrot. In the presidential address, after remarking that 

 with notification, isolation, and disinfection, with certain 



