Jancaet 4, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



15 



and he was the contrary, that we should not 

 be sufficiently in sympathy to discuss these 

 matters with good feeling. I do not know 

 how this may have been; but, speaking as one 

 who, though subscribing to no formal religious 

 creed, has a religious faith which is precious 

 and a religious experience that is vital, I can 

 not easily believe that our friend had nothing 

 of these possessions. For the best evidence of 

 something divine within ourselves and of 

 something divine greater than our individual 

 selves comes to us through affliction and sor- 

 row borne with love; and this experience he 

 had in full. 



Edwin H. Hall 

 Harvakd Universitt 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



THE MEDALLISTS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 At the anniversary meeting of the Eoyal 

 Society on November 30, the president, Sir 

 J. J. Thomson, conferred the medals of the 

 society. The work of the recipients was thus 

 characterized : 



Copley Medal. — M. Emile Eoux, Pasteur 's chief 

 collaborator, succeeded him as the director of the 

 Institut Pasteur, which he has successfully de- 

 veloped and maintained as the foremost school of 

 bacteriology, both for teaching and for research. 

 From the early eighties, when he was associated 

 with Pasteur and Chamberland in the study of 

 anthrax and the production of vaccines against this 

 disease, he has played a leading part in the de- 

 velopment of our knowledge of the processes of 

 immunity. His work with the distinguished veter- 

 inarian Nocard upon the contagious pleuro-pneu- 

 monia of cattle was the first demonstration of the 

 existence of ' ' ultra-microscopic, ' ' or, as they are 

 now termed, filterable viruses as disease-producing 

 agencies; his work with Yersin, the first full study 

 of the bacillus of diphtheria and of its toxins. 

 He shares with the late Professor Behring, of 

 Marburg, in the introduction of diphtheria anti- 

 toxin as a practical means of prophylaxis and 

 cure, and with him as cofounder of serum thera- 

 peutics was awarded the Nobel prize. All the lead- 

 ing French bacteriologists of our generation have 

 been his pupils. 



Eoyal iledais. — Dr. Aiken is distinguished for 

 his lifelong researches on the nuclei of cloudy con- 

 densation, embodied in a series of memoirs com- 



municated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The 

 latest of these appeared in the present year. Dr. 

 Aitken's discoveries opened up a new field of in- 

 vestigation in physics, and constitute a chapter of 

 knowledge of great importance intrinsically and in 

 their relation to the physics of meteorology. Dr. 

 Aitken, who has pursued his work aa an amateur, 

 has displayed great experimental ingenuity, and 

 his remarkable construction of the "dust-coun- 

 ter ' ' has provided a permanent scientific appur- 

 tenance of precision to the physicist and cliraatol- 

 ogist. Among other contributions to science. Dr. 

 Aitken has made important advances in our knowl- 

 edge of the formation of dew. 



Dr. Smith Woodward has been for many years 

 keeper of the department of geology in the British 

 Museum, and has published a very large number of 

 valuable memoirs on fossil vertebrates, especially 

 fishes. He has also published an important "Cata- 

 logue of FossU Pishes in the British Museum,' ' and 

 his "Outlines of Vertebrate Paleontology," pub- 

 lished in 1898, is a standard text-book on the sub- 

 ject. Dr. Smith Woodward 's original memoirs are 

 too numerous to mention, but they have secured 

 for him a world-wide reputation, and he is uni- 

 versally regarded as one of the highest authorities 

 on vertebrate paleontology. 



Davy Medal. — M. Albin Hallcr, professor of or- 

 ganic chemistry at the Sorbonue, Paris, founder 

 and first president of the International Associa- 

 tion of Chemical Societies, and at the present time 

 the most representative chemist of France, is dis- 

 tinguished for his many and important contribu- 

 tions to chemical science during the past forty 

 years. His investigations have covered a very 

 wide field in the domain of organic chemistry, the 

 most important being those dealing with com- 

 pounds belonging to the camphor group. He has 

 maintained over a long period of years the repu- 

 tation of the Sorboune School of Chemical Re- 

 search, created by Dumas and Wurtz, his prede- 

 cessors in the chair. 



Buchanan Medal. — Sir Almroth Edward Wright 

 was the first (1896) to apply laboratory knowledge 

 on typhoid immunity to the protection of human 

 beings against enteric fever. Against formidable 

 opposition he carried out a long series of observa- 

 tions with the highest scientific acumen and un- 

 surpassed technique, and laid the foundations for 

 the effective elimination of enteric fever from the 

 armies of the world. Nothing of importance has 

 been added to his work down to the present time. 



Hughes Medal. — Professor C. G. Barkla's in- 

 vestigations have mainly dealt with X-rays, and 



