6oo 



NA TURLl 



[OCTOISKK 2 3, 1S96 



In cases where it is impossible to give the magnitiules, the 

 three last figures will be written as three zeros. 



This alteration will come into use on the first of next month 

 (November) in all telegrams from the " Centralstelle " in 

 Kiel. 



Comets I'krrink (1895 IV.) a.nd l'n;KKiNE-L.\Mr fi896). 

 — A most interesting description of these two comets, obtained 

 from eye observations and iihotograi^hs, is given by Josejih and 

 Jean Fric, in a communication presented on April 24 of this 

 year to the Cisare Frantiska-Josefa (5th year. No. 26). Up to 

 the time of the perihelion passage of Comet Perrine, the observa- 

 tions made during this period were published in the Riilletin 

 of the same Academy (No. 8), the last observation dating from 

 December 9. The ]iath of the comet at and since the time of 

 its perihelion passage, is here indicated in the chart accompany- 

 ing this communication. In the cliche taken on February 15 

 of this year, the tail of this comet a]ipears in the form of a thin 

 line, with a position angle of 120°, being turned towards the sun. 

 This latter exceptional fact has been verified on two negatives 

 taken on February 20 and 21, both of which were made under 

 the best atmospheric conditions. The description of the 

 original cliches that were taken on February 15, shows us that 

 this comet presented a very dim line directed towards the sun, 

 and of i" in length. The nucleus was nearly of fifth magnitude, 

 and resembled a star. This cliche is further interesting from the 

 fact that it shows the first trace of the new comet Perrine- Lamp. 

 On February 20 the tail presented a fan-like form, being some- 

 what more den.se at the position angle 120°. Its breadth was 

 15' at its centre, and its length \^. The position of the tail was 

 abnormal, being turned towards the .sun. By April 21 its length 

 had increased to 2°. On March 15 only the nucleus was visible, 

 and by the 20th a photograph .showed only a feeble trace of it. 

 The cliches vvhich show the appearance of the Perrine- Lamp 

 comet are also full of interest. A striking feature of these 

 photographs is the bifurcation of the tail, exhibited on the cliche 

 made on February 22 and March 3, and its spontaneous de- 

 velopment on February 21 and 22. The direction of the tail, in 

 its relation to the sun, was normal. The communication con- 

 tains, besides the chart referred to above, reproductions of the 

 several cliches mentioned in the pamphlet. 



The Can.\ls of Mars. — First Schiaparelli and then Lowell 

 have both shown us that the Martian surface is a network of 

 canals. The number of canals, as the latter observer informs 

 '.IS, is really far more numerous than has yet been recorded, but 

 these are less in size, and only flash out clearly under the very 

 best and exceptional conditions of seeing. As one would ex- 

 pect, the greater the number of canals, the greater becomes the 

 difficulty in identifying them. In fact, unless one has first-class 

 conditions for observation, and also considerable experience, it 

 is rather rash to suggest the discovery of new canals. Mr. 

 Brenner seems, however, to be certain of his powers of identifi- 

 cation, and describes some of his observations in the Bulletin de 

 la Socicld Astroiioiiiiijue dc /v-flwcc (October). Without diagrams 

 it is unsatisfactory to try to describe the positions of these sus- 

 pected new canals, but a reference to Mr. Lowell's chart seems 

 to indicate that these may be cases of not exact identification. 

 Mr. Brenner makes it very difficult for readers of his notes, as 

 he inserts woodcuts of the surface markings, numbered most 

 carefully, these numbers having no reference at all to the text. 

 For instance, referring to one of the drawings he says : " One 

 .sees the following canals : (l) Steropes, (2) Glaucus, (3) Phlege- 

 thon, (4) Ceranniu.s, &c." 



As these are the only numbers used in the text, it is natural to 

 suppose them to refer to the illu.strations ; this, however, is far 

 from the case, hence the delusion. 



An interesting point is touched upon by Prof. V. Cerulli, con- 

 cerning the cfinspicuousness of the canals Ulysses and Sitacus. 

 These canals are not charted by Schiaparelli, but were discovered 

 by Lowell two years ago Prof. Cerulli asks the question. How- 

 ls it that they have been previously not seen, considering that 

 the former is now as prominent as Sirenius and Araxes, both in 

 the chart of Schiaparelli, and that the latter surpasses in dis- 

 tinctness the Euphrates and Phison ? They are not simply 

 canals that were observed in 1894 for the first time, but they 

 are canals which till then had no existence. Mr. Lowell also 

 remarked a peculiarity in this respect. Referring to the canals 

 Jiot on Schiaparelli's chart (Lowell, "Mars," p. 148) he says: 

 " The most peculiar case, however, i^ the relative conspicuous- 

 uess of the Ulysses." 



NO. 1408, VOL. 54] 



THE HUXLEY LECTURE.-RECENT AD- 

 VANCES IN SCIENCE, AND THEIR BEARING 

 ON MEDICINE AND SURGERY} 



n. 



IM'OW let me turn to another theme .suggested by what has 

 happened in .science and in the profession since the days of 

 Huxley's studentship, and that is the complexity of the bear- 

 ings of any one discovery, of any one advance, as well on science 

 itself as on the applications of science. 



In the garment of science, with which ma[i is wrapping him- 

 self round, or rather is being wrapped round, the several 

 threads are woven into an intricate web. As the loom which 

 is weaving that ever-spreading garment takes in new warp and 

 new woof, such threads only of each aic taken in as can be 

 fitly joined to those which have come in before, each thread as 

 it is twisted in becomes a hold for other threads to be caught 

 up later on. No single observation, no single experiment 

 stands ahme by itself, nor can its worth be rightly judged by 

 itself alone. The mistaken philanthropists who have put re- 

 strictions, and would put more on physiological investigations, 

 betray that ignorance of the ways of .science, which seems to 

 be a necessary condition of their altitude, when they ask us to 

 state in a sentence the direct application to the good of man 

 of each experiment on a living animal. In the doors of science, 

 each the opening as often of a path as of a chamber, it is not, 

 as such folk seem to think, that each bobbin pulls only one 

 latch. Every experiment, every observation has, besides its 

 immediate result, eftects which, in proportion to its value, spread 

 away on all sides into even distant parts of knowledge. The 

 good of the experiment by itself is soon merged in the general 

 good of scientific inquiry. The science of physiology, and by 

 implication the art of medicine, is built up in part on experi- 

 ments on living animals ; in part only, but that ]iart is so woven 

 into all the rest that any attempt to draw it out would lead to 

 a collapse of the whole. 



It is because each experiment or observation is thus a thread 

 caught up in a close-set web, that its value depends not alone on 

 the mere lesult of the experiment or observation itself, but also, 

 and even more so, on the time at which, and on the circum- 

 stances and relations under which it is made. This truth the 

 real worker in science has borne in upon him again and again ; 

 it is this which leads him to that humility which has ever been 

 the outward token of the fruitlul labourer. He feels that it is 

 not so much himself working for science as science working 

 through him. 



Let me attempt to illustrate this by dwelling on some two or 

 three single observations in physiology, made almost at the time, 

 or very soon after the time at which Huxley was a student. It 

 will, I think, be seen that each of them has reached a long way 

 in its bearing on the science of physiology and on the art of 

 medicine, that the full efiect of each has been dependent both on 

 what went before and on what has happened since, and though 

 they were all made, so to speak, long ago, some of their fruits 

 were brought in as it were yesterday, and their full fruition is 

 perha]5s not yet accomplished. 



I will first invite your attention to a single experiment, for, 

 though repeated on various animals, we may call it a .single ex- 

 periment, which in the fall of the year 1845 Ernest Heinrich 

 Weber, then Professor of Anatomy at Leipzig, and his brother 

 F^duard Friedrich, reported to an assembly of Italian .scientific 

 men in Naples, and of which they subsequently published an 

 account in Miiller's Archiv in 1846. Making u.se of the 

 recently introduced rotating electro-magnetic apparatus (the 

 physical discovery begetting the physiological one), they found 

 that powerful stimulation of the vagus nerves had the un- 

 expected result of stopping the heart from beating. 



This single experiment, which I may quote by the way as a 

 typical experiment on a living animal— for it is impossible to 

 imagine how the discovery of this action of the vagus on the 

 heart could have been made otherwi.se than by an experiment on 

 a living animal — this single experiment has made itself fell far 

 and wide throughout almost the whole ol physiology. 



In the fir.st place, it has made us understand in a w.ay im- 

 possible before the experiment, how through the intervention of 

 the nervous system, the work of the heart is tempered to meet 

 the strain of varying circumstances. As I said a little while 

 back, only a few years before even eminent observers were 



1 Delivered at Charing Cross Medic.-il School, on October 5, by Prof. 

 Michael Foster, Sec.R.S. (Continued from p. 583.) 



