402 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 169. 



monthly organ, published in Paris, now in 

 its second year, Therapeutique Iniegrale. Its 

 guiding spirit is Dr. G. Encausse, known 

 to modern alchemists as Papus, the author 

 of many treatises on the ancient pseudo- 

 science. As apostles and forerunners of 

 this system he claims Hippocrates, Paracel- 

 sus, Hahnemann. 



All this would be very amusing if it were 

 not sad— sad to find tliat educated men can 

 so degrade their knowledge of chemistry, 

 physiology and medicine ; sad to think of 

 the conceptions of these sciences formed by 

 persons subject to the influence of these 

 ' lewd impostors ; ' sad to think of the suf- 

 fering that ensues for lack of proper treat- 

 ment; sad to think of the unscrupulous 

 immorality of those willing to trifle with 

 human life for selfish gain. One is inclined 

 to cry with Massinger : 



" Out you imposters, 

 Quack salving, cheating montebanks, your skill 

 Is to make sound men sick, and sick men kill." 



H. Caerington Bolton. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICAL 

 SCIENCE. 



11. 



The subject of telegraphy is closelj' asso- 

 ciated with the present excellent system of 

 electrical measurements and with the in- 

 vention of many of our most delicate meas- 

 uring instruments. As the applications of 

 electricity increased there gradually grew 

 up a new branch of engineering, a branch, 

 however, in which the foot-rule, pound- 

 weight, chronometer and thermometer were 

 not sufficient. Other standards of measure- 

 ment were required, in order that quantities 

 could be gauged and consistent work done. 

 The way to connect the measurements of 

 the new quantities with the units already 

 in use in dynamics had been pointed out by 

 Gauss and others, and at the suggestion of 

 Thomson the British Association appointed 

 a committee in 1861 to determine the best 



standard of electrical resistance. This led 

 to an unexpected amount of work not only 

 on a standard of resistance, but also on the 

 general subject of electrical measurement. 

 The committee regretted, at the end of the 

 first year, that it could not give a final re- 

 port, but hoped that the inherent difficulty 

 and importance of the subject would suffi- 

 ciently account for the delay. It can hardly 

 be said that the final report has yet been 

 forthcoming, as a committee with some of 

 the original members in it still exists and 

 reports regularly every year on valuable 

 work done by it. The committee worked 

 energetically for a number of years, not 

 only on the standard of resistance, but on 

 those of current, electro-motive force and 

 capacity. It incidentally supplied a great 

 deal of quantitative data on a number of 

 subjects and particularly as to the perma- 

 nence of alloys, the variation of their re- 

 sistance with temperature as depending on 

 their composition and so forth. In looking 

 over the results of the early work of the 

 British Association committee one is apt to 

 indulge in adverse criticism. It is hard for 

 many of the younger workers to appreciate 

 the difficulties which are met in a first at- 

 tempt. It would be equally just to con- 

 gratulate ourselves that we have better 

 marksmen to-day than there were fifty 

 years ago, without making allowance for 

 the modern rifle. 



The first absolute determination of re- 

 sistance was probably that made by Kirch- 

 hofi" about fifty years ago. Weber published 

 his method in 1852, and then came the B. 

 A. determination by Maxwell, Stewart and 

 Jenkins in 1863. Neither of these were 

 very exact, but they paved the way for the 

 splendid exhibitions of experimental skill 

 which followed. Among those to whom we 

 are most indebted for this later work may 

 be mentioned Kohlrausch, Rayleigh, Glaze- 

 brook, Rowland, Wiedemann, Mascart, etc. 

 The greatest step in advance in recent years 



