670 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1434 



Tata has withdrawn his oiier, which was con- 

 tingent on the government founding a school 

 of tropical medicine at Bombay. As will be 

 seen, matters had gone very far before the 

 government of Bombay repudiated the under- 

 taking it had given. They had gone even 

 further than we have so far indicated, for 

 rather more than a year ago the Royal Society 

 was asked to select professors for the chairs of 

 clinical medicine and therapy and of proto- 

 zoology in the school. The Eoyal Society, act- 

 ing through its Tropical Diseases Committee, 

 issued advertisements widely — in this country, 

 in the dominions and in America. Fi'om among 

 the applicants it selected two, one for each 

 chair. The protozoologist selected was an 

 American, but he, we understand, subsequently, 

 on private grounds, withdrew his acceptance. 

 The successful applicant for the other chair, 

 an Australian (Professor N. Hamilton Fair- 

 ley), resigned his appointment in Australia to 

 become Tata professor of clinical medicine in 

 the Bombay School. The government of Bom- 

 bay has now given him notice that it will dis- 

 pense with his services on October 31. The 

 situation thus brought about is obviously most 

 unsatisfactory, and the matter can not be 

 allowed to rest where it is. When the Royal 

 Society acts for the Indian government and 

 invites applications for positions on definite 

 terms, the candidates selected assume that a 

 written contract is superfluous. Clearly the 

 Royal Society has been placed in a very false 

 position. At the request of the government of 

 India it undertook to select suitable persons to 

 occupy the two chairs. With the authority of 

 the government of Bombay the Royal Society, 

 through its committee, issued advertisements 

 inviting candidates to come forward and stating 

 the terms and conditions of the appointment, 

 which was to be in each case for a term of five 

 years in the first instance, "but may be ex- 

 tended by the government." It is now left in 

 the lurch by the government of Bombay, which 

 professes to find that it has miscalculated its 

 resources and is not in a financial position to 

 carry out its bargain. The Royal Society will, 

 we feel sure, have the support of public opin- 1 

 ion in any action it may take, and the medieaF 

 profession in particular will be anxious to see 



that justive is done to Professor Fairley, if not 

 by the government of Bombay, then by the 

 government of India, which can not absolve 

 itself from responsibility for the acts of the 

 provincial government. We understand that a 

 new central research institute for India may 

 shortly be established, probably at Delhi; this 

 may afford the government of India a way out 

 of the false position in which it has been placed 

 by the government of Bombay. 



THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF BELGIUMi 



The Royal Academy of Belgium celebrated 

 the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its 

 foundation on May 23 and 24 in the presence 

 of a large number of its members and of dele- 

 gates from other academies and learned insti- 

 tutions. On the Wednesday afternoon. May 

 24, numerous congratulatory addresses were 

 presented at the Palais des Academies, and the 

 members and visitors were afterwards received 

 at the Hotel de Ville by the Mayor of Brussels, 

 M. Adolf Max, and his aldermen, MM. Steens, 

 Vande Meulebrouck and Coelst; a reception 

 was held at the Palais des Academies in the 

 evening, where an exhibition of medals and 

 portraits connected with the history of the 

 academy had been arranged. The anniversary 

 celebration itself was held in the large hall of 

 the academy on the afternoon of May 25 in the 

 presence of the king, the minister of arts and 

 science, M. Hubert, formerly rector of the 

 University of Liege, Cardinal Mercier, and the 

 English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese 

 ambassadors. The president, M. Vauthier, in 

 an address of welcome, briefly sketched the 

 history of the academy and its influence on the 

 intellectual development of Belgium. The min- 

 ister of justice, M. Masson, tendered the con- 

 gratulations of the Belgian government, and 

 Monseigneur Baudrillart spoke in the name of 

 the Institut de France. Sir William B. Leish- 

 man, as vice-president of the Royal Society, 

 represented the British universities and learned 

 societies ; he referred to the activities of Belgian 

 bacteriologists and paid a high tribute to the 

 work of M. Jules Bordet. MM. Lameere, 

 Pirenne and Verlant, representing respectively 



1 From Nature. 



