386 



NA TURE 



[May 27, 19C9 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The following have been appointed 

 members of the board of electors to the professorship of 

 astrophysics : — Sir George Darwin, K.C.B., Sir Robert 

 Ball, Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M., hon. LL.D., 

 Mr. Fitzpatrick (president of Queens' College), Dr. Hob- 

 son, Dr. Liveing, Sir J. J. Thomson, and Dr. R. T. 

 Glazebrook. 



The Rede lecture will be delivered on Thursday, 

 June 24,' at- 12 noon, in the Senate House, by Sir .Archi- 

 bald . Geikie, K.C.B., P.R.S. The subject will be 

 " Darwin as Geologist." 



The special board for biology and geology has re- 

 appointed Mr. J. J. Lister to be a manager of the Balfour 

 fund for five years to June, 1914. 



London. — The governors of the Imperial College of 

 Science and Technology, following on the appointment of 

 Prof. Adam Sedgwick as professor of zoology at the 

 college, and of Prof. McBridc as his special assistant, 

 have lost no time in making their intentions known with 

 regard to the work of nc.xi session. Provision has been 

 made, quite apart from the general work of the depart- 

 ment, for a series of special courses of lectures. These 

 include marine biology and fishery science with practical 

 work at the college, and, during the summer vacation, at 

 the Plymouth station of the Marine Biological Association 

 by Dr. E. J. Allen, director ; an advanced course of 

 vertebrate embryology, by Mr. Richard Assheton ; and, in 

 addition, courses of entomology and the physiology of 

 development, the lecturers for which have still to be 

 appointed. In addition to the above, the governors have 

 appointed Mr. Dobell as special lecturer in cytology and 

 protistology, subjects of rapidly growing importance so 

 intimately concerned with the phenomena and the causes 

 that underlie the conditions cf heredity, health, and 

 disease. 



.At the meeting of the Senate of the University on 

 May 19, the degree of D.Sc. in physiology was granted 

 to Dr. N. H. Alcock, an internal student of the physio- 

 logical laboratory, for a thesis entitled " The Physiology 

 of the Peripheral Nerves, especially with regard to their 

 Electrical Phenomena," and other papers. The degree of 

 D.Sc. was also granted to the following external 

 students : — in chemical physiology, to Mr. Charles DorSe, 

 for a thesis on "Cholesterol," and other papers; and in 

 geology, to Mr. John Ball, for a thesis entitled " A 

 Description of the First or .Aswan Cataract of the Nile," 

 and other papers. 



Mr. F. W. Twort has been appointed superintendent of 

 the Brown .Animal Sanatory Institution in succession to 

 Dr. Gregor Brodic, resigned. 



Mr. .A. R. Brown has been appointed university lecturer 

 in ethnologv for the session 1909-10, under the Martin 

 White benefaction. 



The principal of the University (Dr. H. A. Miers, 

 F.R..S.) has been appointed a member of the governing 

 body of the Imperial College of Science and Technology 

 in succession to Prof. D. S. Capper, resigned. 



The certificates of the joint matriculation examination 

 of the northern universities have been recognised under 

 certain conditions as exempting from the London matricu- 

 lation examination. 



Mr. C. A. Ealand, staff instructor in biologv at the 

 Essex County Laboratories, Chelmsford, has been 

 appointed principal of the laboratories. 



Prof. G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S., professor of anatomy 

 in the Government School of Medicine, Cairo, has been 

 appointed to the chair of anatomy in the University of 

 Manchester. 



Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford, was the principal guest at the summer 

 dinner of the Oxford Graduates' Medical Club on May 20. 

 Replying to the toast of " The Visitors," Lord Curzon said 

 that to most people Oxford is identified with the study 

 of what is properly known as humane culture. Very few 

 people outside the colleges are aware of the fact that 

 Oxford was Once the home of the school of medicine, and 



NO. 2065, VOL. So] 



that it lias turned out soiue of tlie most distinguished 

 physicians who have cast lustre upon ihe English na.ne. 

 After eulogising the achievements of Linacre, Sydenham, 

 Wren, Harvey, and Radcliffe, the Chancellor went on to 

 remark that about the middle of the last century the con- 

 dition of science at O.Kford might almost be compared to 

 that of the Dark Ages, and the attitude towards medical 

 science in particular, and to science in general, was one 

 of suspicion if not of active hostility. " In 1850, when the 

 first commission was about, to commence its labours at 

 Oxford, there was not a single scientific laboratory in that 

 University, and had the whole of the medical students in 

 Oxford at, that time been, sent down, they could have been 

 laken to the station, if station there was, in a single four- 

 wheeled cab. But even when the night was darkest, the 

 dawn was nigh ; and, there, has been no more dramatic, 

 more inspiring, or . more creditable page, in the history of 

 learning than the steps by .which science fought its way 

 back into Oxford until, at the present moment, it sits 

 enthroned alongside the humanities and has a crown of 

 equal authority and prestige upon its brow." 



Tme Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- 

 tion for Ireland has ■ published the results of an inquiry, 

 by Mr. F. C. Forth, director of technical instruction for 

 Belfast, into the number of students of each age enrolled 

 in the classes of the Belfast Municipal Technical Institute, 

 together with notes on the increase in attendance that is 

 possible at technical classes. The statistics published in 

 the report are rendered more intelligible when it is remem- 

 bered that the population of Belfast in 1901 was 349,180, 

 and that about one-fifth of the population, or 63,870, were 

 from five to fourteen years of age, of whom 50,000 were 

 on the rolls of national schools ; 7000 were fourteen years 

 of age, of whom only 730 were attending national schools. 

 .A satisfactory feature of the statistics is the great increase 

 they show in the number of students at each age during 

 the seven years of the institute's existence. It is clear, 

 too, that the students now begin their evening studies at 

 an earlier age after leaving' the day school than was 

 formerly the case. In igoi there were more students at 

 seventeen than any other age; in 1907 the largest number 

 were sixteen years of age. .Another outstanding fact is 

 the large increase in the number of women students as 

 compared with the men. Mr. Forth discusses what he 

 calls " ideal " conditions of education, and arrives at some 

 interesting results. He takes one-sixth of the population 

 to be of elementary-school age and about 2 per cent, as 

 of fourteen years of age — which he thinks might be taken 

 as the age for leaving the day school and entering even- 

 ing classes.' If half the number of children of fourteen 

 years of age joined the evening classes and followed up 

 their studies, that would mean i per cent, of the popula- 

 tion,- and if certain other " ideal " conditions prevailed 

 5J per cent, of the population would be undergoing 

 technical instruction, and this in the case of Belfast would 

 raise the total number of students' scientific and techno- 

 logical subjects from about 5000 to 20,000 students. 



• SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, May 20. — Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., 

 president, in the chair. ^Observations on the urine in 

 diseases of the pancreas : P. J. Cammidge. In the 

 course of a series of observations on the metabolic changes 

 associated with diseases of the pancreas it was found that 

 if the urine of a patient suffering from an inflammatory 

 affection of the gland were boiled with hydrochloric acid, 

 the excess neutralised with lead carbonate, and the freed 

 glycuronic acid precipitated out with, trirbasic lead acetate, 

 treatment of the filtrate -with phenylhydrazine, after thi 

 excess . of lead had been . removed . with sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, yielded a crystalline, product ■ which varied in 

 amount with- the intensity, and stage of the disease. 

 Normal urines, and specimens from patients suffering from 

 diseases in which there was no reason to think that th^- 

 pancreas was involved, -gave no reaction. Twenty-eighr 

 cases in which the urine had been examined during lif' 

 were investigated post-mortem, and the results of th- 

 urinary examination confirmed. The urines of three dogs 



