9c;8 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 964 



Bureau will differ radically in principle from 

 any in use. Instead of the wheels, brakes, and 

 other movable parts of the car constituting 

 part of the standard weight, as is customary, 

 the Bureau proposes to carry a series of 10,000- 

 pound weights and a truck for moving them on 

 the scales, in a specially designed car pro- 

 vided with a power crane and other accessories 

 for handling the weights. The advantage of 

 this arrangement is that the weights may be 

 standarized and transported from one end of 

 the country to the other with a reasonable 

 assurance that they will remain constant, 

 whereas if the running gear is included in the 

 weight of the test car it would be necessary to 

 verify this weight at frequent intervals. After 

 testing a scale with the standard weights, the 

 empty car may then be put on the scale and its 

 weight determined, after which the weights 

 may be loaded into the car and the scale tested 

 up to the full capacity of the car plus the 

 standard weights. 



The eighty-first annual meeting of the Brit- 

 ish Medical Association will be held at Brigh- 

 ton, July 22-25. According to the Journal of 

 the American Medical Association in the sec- 

 tion of bacteriology and pathology the papers 

 will include one by Dr. Miller Gait on " The 

 Value of the Blood-count in Obscure Bacterial 

 Infections," and an account by the staff of the 

 John Howard McFadden Research fund on 

 " Some Researches on the Jelly Method of 

 Staining Cells Alive." A joint discussion has 

 been arranged with the section on pharmacol- 

 ogy on " Anaphylaxis," the papers promised 

 including a consideration of " The Action of 

 Asbestos and other Finely-divided Substances 

 on Various Physiologic Substances." In the 

 section of climatology and balneology there 

 will be discussions on " Sea Bathing," to be 

 opened by Dr. W. J. Tyson, and on " The In- 

 ternational Aspects of British Health Resorts," 

 to be opened by Dr. ISTeville Wood. In the sec- 

 tion of diseases of children. Dr. E. J. Poynton 

 and Dr. Carey Coombs will initiate a debate 

 on the " Affections of the Heart in Childhood." 

 In the section of electrotherapeutics papers 

 and discussions have been arranged on " Ront- 



gen Diagnosis," on " Electrodiagnosis and 

 Electrotherapeutics " and on " Rontgen 

 Therapy and Radium." The subjects chosen 

 for discussion in the section of medical sociol- 

 ogy are " Crime and Punishment," on which 

 Dr. Charles Mercier, Sir Bryan Donkin and 

 Dr. James Scott will read papers, and on 

 " Hospitals in Relation to the Stage, the Pub- 

 lic and the Medical Profession," in which Sir 

 Henry Burdett and Dr. I. G. Gibbons will read 

 papers. The discussion will, it is hoped, prove 

 valuable in helping to elucidate the problems 

 involved in providing hospital accommodation 

 for insured persons under the national insur- 

 ance act. A discussion on " Eugenics " will 

 be introduced by Professor Bateson, to be fol- 

 lowed by Dr. Stewart Mackintosh, and Mr. 

 Chas. B. Davenport, of New York. The ar- 

 rangements for the navy, army and ambulance 

 sections include a paper by Major BirreU on. 

 " Notes on the Work of a British Red Cross 

 Unit with the Bulgarians." 



A British Blue Book has been issued giving 

 statistics of the number of persons killed by 

 wild animals and snakes in British India from 

 1880 to 1910. According to the summary in 

 the British Medical Journal the figures show 

 that the tiger is the animal most destructive 

 to human life; during the last five years of 

 the period it was responsible for 38 per cent, 

 of the total number of deaths caused by wild 

 animals, leopards accounting for 16, wolves 

 for 12 and bears for 4 per cent. Of the total 

 number of persons (2,382) killed by wild ani- 

 mals in the year 1910, the tiger accounted for 

 882, the leopard for 366 and wolves and bears 

 for 428. Elephants and hyenas, the two other 

 animals distinguished in the returns, were be- 

 tween them responsible for 77 deaths in 1910. 

 Of the 629 deaths attributed to " other ani- 

 mals," 244 are assigned to alligators and 

 crocodiles, 51 to wild pigs, 16 to buffaloes, 24 

 to wild dogs and 220 to unspecified animals. 

 In 1910 there were 22,478 deaths from snake- 

 bite, compared with 21,364 in the previous 

 year, but Bombay was one of the provinces 

 which did not contribute towards the increase, 

 and is in other respects one of the more for- 

 tunate parts of India. In Bengal, for ex- 



