September 30, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



445 



Laboratory at Plymouth, this excursion brought 

 the Congress to a close. 



In the Irish Courts the Master of the Rolls 

 recently delivered judgment, says the British 

 Medical Journal, on a question brought before 

 him in reference to the Carmichael Trusts. Ap- 

 plication was made on behalf of the College of 

 Surgeons that the existing scheme for the man- 

 agement and administration of the Carmichael 

 Prize Fund, created by the will of the late Dr. 

 Carmichael, might be altered, and a new scheme 

 for the management of the fund should be set- 

 tled by the Court. The late Dr. Carmichael, 

 by his will of 1849, bequeathed to the College 

 of Surgeons a sum of £3,000, and directed that 

 the interest arising from this sura should be 

 applied in giving every fourth year a premium 

 of £200 for the best essay, and £100 for the 

 second best essay on medical education ; and he 

 directed that the authors of such essays should 

 make suggestions as to the improvement of the 

 profession with a view to rendering it ' more 

 useful to the public and a more respectable body 

 than it is at present.' From time to time the 

 College of Surgeons advertised in the public 

 press for essays, but generally the essays sub- 

 mitted were deemed to be of insuflBcient merit, 

 and no prizes were awarded. In 1866 the first 

 prize was awarded to Dr. Mapother, and the 

 second to Dr. Ashe. In 1879 the prizes were 

 awarded to Mr. Rivington and Dr. Laffan, and 

 in 1887 they were again awarded to the same 

 two gentlemen. Since then no advertisements 

 have been inserted for further prizes, the income 

 of the fund being insufBcient to pay for the print- 

 ing of the 700 copies of each which were directed 

 by the testator to be printed, and copies sent 

 to Cabinet Ministers, heads of colleges, etc. 

 The cost of printing each essay was on an aver, 

 age £100. One of the essays exhibited in court 

 ran to 1,200 pages. The Council of the College 

 of Surgeons were, it was stated, of opinion that 

 the essays were doing no good, and they pro- 

 posed that the income of the fund should be 

 apportioned between the College of Surgeons 

 and the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund So- 

 ciety of Ireland, the College of Surgeons to get 

 three-fourths of the income, and the other body 

 one-fourth, the Royal Medical Benevolent So- 

 ciety having been mentioned by the testator as 



the body to get the £3,000 in the event of the 

 College of Surgeons not carrying out the trusts 

 named in the 'sequel.' The College of Sur- 

 geons proposed that their three-fourths of the 

 income should be used in awarding every second 

 year to a licentiate of the College a traveling 

 prize of £100, in order to enable the successful 

 candidate to visit hospitals in Vienna and other 

 capitals on the Continent. Afiidavits in sup- 

 port of the application were made by Sir Charles 

 Cameron, Sir "William Thomson, Sir William 

 Stokes, Sir George Duffey, Sir William Thorn- 

 ley Stoker, Dr. Heuston, Dr. Jacob, Dr. Story 

 and other leading members of the Colleges of 

 Surgeons and Physicians. The Master of the 

 Rolls said the original gift in this will had not 

 in any legal sense at all failed, and, except as 

 regarded the amount of money now available 

 for the trust, it appeared to him quite possible 

 to carry out the instructions of the testator, and 

 he was of opinion that he had no power to de- 

 vote the testator's money to a purpose which 

 he did not contemplate or sanction. However, 

 as the income of the fund was now insufficient 

 to pay prizes of £200 and £100 every fourth 

 year, including the large expenses of printing 

 prize essays, and owing to the fact that the Col- 

 lege has no fund to pay examiners of those 

 essays, he thought some modification of the ex- 

 isting scheme was necessary. He would, there- 

 fore, refer the matter to chambers for an in- 

 quiry as to what alterations in the scheme were 

 necessary to make it practicable and workable. 

 Nature quotes from the Atti, of the Reale 

 Accademia dei Lincei, of Rome, the recent 

 awards of prizes given by the King of Italy. 

 For the Royal prize for mathematics eight 

 competitors sent in no less than about ninety 

 written and printed memoirs ; and after a 

 critical examination of these the judges have 

 now divided the prize equally between Pro- 

 fessor Corrade Segre and Professor Vito Vol- 

 terra. The papers submitted appear to have 

 been of a very high standard of excellence, and 

 are stated to form a worthy sequel to the 

 works of Betti, Brioschi and other illus- 

 trious Italian mathematicians. The award 

 of the Royal prize for social and economic 

 science has been deferred for a period of 

 two years. A similar decision has been ar- 



