26o 



NA TURE 



[July i6, 1908 



tion of all teachers of science in secondary schools, whether 

 thuy are teaching in Ireland or elsewhere. We notice, too, 

 that the department will, in August, 1908, award not more 

 than six industrial scholarships — of the value of 80/. each, 

 and renewable for a second and third year — to persons 

 engaged in industries, such as the woollen, linen, leather, 

 and tanning industries. The object of these scholarships 

 is to enable selected persons, who must already have been 

 engaged in one of the higher branches of the industry, to 

 take a full course of instruction in an institution providing 

 special courses of an approved character, with the view of 

 training them for the management of such an industry. 

 Candidates will be required to show that there is a reason- 

 able expectation of their being able to find suitable employ- 

 ment in the industry in Ireland after the termination of 

 their scholarships. 



The installation of Lord Morley of Blackburn as Chan- 

 cellor of the University of Manchester took place on Julv 10. 

 Replying to an address presented to him by the Vice- 

 Chancellor, Mr. A. Hopkinson, Lord Morley dealt with 

 the functions of universities. He urged those present not 

 to allow technical teaching, valuable as that science was, 

 to throw into a second place the true object and scope of a 

 University. It is a remarkable and encouraging fact, he said, 

 that there has been no disposition during the last twenty or 

 twenty-live years among the many benefactors of these 

 institutions to limit their benefactions. On the contrarv, 

 some of the most remarkable of these benefactions have 

 been for music, for philosophv, for theology, and for 

 literature. This would seem "to justify the' hope that 

 merely and purely technical teaching will not drive out 

 teaching of the University type, .^fter the installation 

 Lord Morley and Mr. Arthur Balfour were entertained 

 at luncheon. Mr. Balfour, in replying to a toast, said : — 



In order to pursue knowledge to the best advantage, 

 knowledge must be pursued for her own sake ; and she 

 is more likely to be successfully pursued for her own 

 sake in a great academical house than by any other 

 method or machinery which the wit of man has as yet 

 devised. .As knowledge is to be pursued for its own sake, 

 mankind has found its greatest instrument for the better 

 prosecution of knowledge in science. The great advance- 

 ment of mankind is to be looked for in our ever-increasing 

 knowledge of the secrets of nature — secrets, however, which 

 are not to be unlocked by the men who pursue them for 

 purely material ends, but secrets which are open in their 

 fulness only to men who pursue them in a disinterested 

 spirit. The motive power which is reallv going to change 

 the external surface of civilisation, which is going to 

 add to the well-being of mankind, which is going to 

 stimulate the imagination of all those who are interested 

 in the universe in which our lot is cast, that lies after 

 all with science. I would rather be known," Mr. Balfour 

 '■nntinued, " as having added to the sum of our know- 

 ledge_ of the truth of nature than anything else I can 

 imagine. ^ Unfortunately for me, my opportunities have 

 Hin in different directions ; but the h.-ippiest of men surely 

 •M-e those whom fortune has given time, leisure, the oppor- 

 tunity, and. above all, the genius which enables them to 

 renetrate into the secrets of nature in such a wav that, 

 perhaps unknown to themselves, unknown even to the 

 feneration in which they are born, something w^ill have 

 b"en given to mankind which posterity can develop into 

 some _ great practical discovery on which the felicity of 

 mankind may depend." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March 12. — "On Reciprocal Innervation 

 in Vaso-motor Reflexes and the Action of Strychnine and 

 of Chloroform thereon." By Dr. W. M. Bayliss, F.R.S. 



(i) In depressor reflexes there is, along with inhibition 

 of tone in the vaso-constrictor centres, an excitation of 

 vaso-dilator centres. This has been shown in the cases 

 of the submaxillary gland, the penis, the hind-limb, the 

 external ear, and probably the tongue. 



(2) Correspondingly, in pressor reflexes, along with 

 excitation of ' constrictors, there is, in appropriate con- 



VO. 2020, VOL. 78] 



ditions, inhibition of dilator tone. This is, however, more 

 difficult to demonstrate. 



(3) .Similarly, in the local, or Lov^n, reflexes, there is 

 also both excitation of dilators and inhibition of con- 

 strictors. 



(4) The action of strychnine is to convert the inhibitory 

 phase of all vascular refle.xes into an excitation, so that : — 



{5) The depressor nerve produces a rise of blood-pressure 

 under full doses of the alkaloid. It does this by exciting 

 the constrictor centre by the same mechanism which 

 normally inhibits it. 



(6) In the " dilator " animal under strychnine, pressor 

 reflexes become depressor, in that inhibition of dilators is 

 con\'crted into excitation. 



(7) \'arious parts (synapses) of the reflex arc are differ- 

 ently sensitive to the alkaloid, the synapse of the pressor 

 fibres with the constrictor centre being the first to show 

 paralysis as the dose is increased. 



(8) In the " dilator " animal strychnine causes a fall 

 of blood-pressure on injection by exciting dilator centres. 

 In the normal animal the first dose causes a rise, and sub- 

 sequent ones a fall of pressure, since the first dose, if not 

 too small, after exciting the vaso-constrictor centre, 

 paralyses the synapses concerned, so that the simultaneous 

 excitation of the dilator centres can now make itself felt. 



(q) The excitation of constrictors produced by reversal 

 of inhibition is more resistant to the alkaloid than that 

 produced in the normal way. 



(10) .Asphyxial blood does not act directly on the efferent 

 constrictor neurones, since it has no action at a stage of 

 strychnine poisoning at which the depressor still excites 

 constriction, by reversal of inhibition. 



(ii) Chloroform converts pressor into depressor reflexes 

 (in the rabbit) by reversal of excitation of constrictors into 

 inhibition. 



(12) This effect of chloroform is not exerted on the 

 efferent neurones directly, but at some point considerably 

 earlier in the reflex arc. This is shown by the fact that 

 asphy.xial blood causes rise of pressure when excitation of 

 sensory nerves causes fall. 



June 4. — " The Optical Constants of Gypsum at Different 

 Temperatures, and the Mitscherlich Experiment." Bv Dr. 

 A. E. H. Tutton, F.R.S. 



The experimental work on selenite now described con- 

 firms the author's previously published conclusion, derived 

 from other examples, that the phenomenon of crossed-axial- 

 plane dispersion is due to very low double refraction, com- 

 bined with close approximation of the intermediate index 

 of refraction to one of the extreme indices, and to the fact 

 that change of wave-length of the light or change of 

 temperature, or both, cause the intermediate index to 

 approach still nearer to the extreme one in question until 

 it becomes identical with it, and eventually to pass it, the 

 relative positions of the two indices thus becoming reversed. 

 The uniaxial rectangular cross and circular rings are pro- 

 duced at the critical point of identity. This critical point 

 is a function of both wave-length and temperature, being 

 a fixed one only for a particular wave-length and specific 

 temperature. The temperature has a maximum for wave- 

 length 573 on the greenish-yellow side of the D lines (aSq). 

 The optic axial angle has a maximum for the same wave- 

 length 573, for all temperatures below that of the crossing 

 of the optic axes, and a minimum for temperatures superior 

 thereto up to the temperature of decomposition (120°) of 

 selenite. The change of orientation of the median lines 

 (bisectrices of the optic axial acute and obtuse angles) 

 within the symmetry plane, at any specific temperature, 

 also exhibits a critical limit for this greenish-yellow light 

 of wave-length 573. whicli is thus a very important radiation 

 in connection with the optics of selenite. The range of 

 temperature which includes the production of the uniaxial 

 figure for all colours of th« spectrum does not exceed 4°, 

 varying in different crystals from 3°-5 to 4°. The absolute 

 temperatures of crossing for the four crystals investigated 

 varied q°, the maxima (for wave-length 573) varying from 

 ios°-s to ii4°-5, corrected for conduction of crystal holder. 



Zoological Society, June 16. — Dr. Henry Woodward. 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Photographs and 

 fragments of skin and bone of a mammoth and a rhino- 

 ceros discovered in an ozokerite mine at Starunia, Galicia : 



