952 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 209. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal 

 that the Nizam's governmeut has sanctioned 

 the immediate construction of a complete and 

 thoroughly-equipped Pasteur Institute for Hai- 

 derabad. It will adjoin the hospital and med- 

 ical school, and will be available in about six 

 months for patients. The Colombo Pasteur 

 Institute, which is being constructed near the 

 Lady Havelock Hospital out of funds towards 

 which Mr. J. W. C. De Soysa contributed 10,- 

 000 Rs. in memory of his father, is approaching 

 completion, and will be opened probably early 

 next year. Meanwhile the Pasteur Institute 

 for India hangs fire, and the delay is calling 

 forth some expression of impatience on the part 

 of subscribers. 



Dr. Crosby, of the New York City Board of 

 Health, has given out the following statistics of 

 deaths from influenza in the city : 



1890. '91. '93. '93. '94. '95. '96. '97. '98. 



Jan 264 1 281 5 71 242 16 JO — 



Feb 30 — 109 4 33 165 18 28 8 



March 12 45 50 47 29 84 17 64 19 



April 3 507 20 86 16 44 26 51 16 



May 1 123 13 30 5 15 5 21 2 



June 2 34 3 962—42 



July — 4 1—4—112 



August... — 3 — — 1 1 1— — 



Sept ___ 2 — — — 2 — 



Oct — 4— 44222 — 



Nov 1 4 13 5 6 4 4 3 12 



Dec 1 129 5 35 13 8 11 10 ? 



Totals.. 314 854 495 227 188 567 101 196 58 



The mortality attributed to other sources has 

 also been greatly increased during epidemics of 

 'the grip.' It appears that the disease grows 

 in severity for two or three months, and the 

 outlook for New York and other cities is con- 

 sequently unfavorable. Until December, 1889, 

 when the disease was imported from Europe, 

 having apparently traveled from China to Eus- 

 sia, there had been no epidemic since 1849. 



The question has of late been often raised 

 among professional men whether it would not be 

 wise and practical to seek to evade many of the 

 difficulties and objections arising from the em- 

 ployment of ' experts ' by litigants on both 

 sides, leaving Court and jury to gather the es- 



sential facts and the technical merits of the 

 case, as best they can, from pi-ejudicial and ad- 

 mittedly partisan testimony, the usual sugges- 

 tion being the appointment by the Court of its 

 own experts. We find in ' Der Ingenieria ' of 

 Buenos Ayres, 1898, pp. 91-102, an account of 

 the investigation of the cause of a steam boiler 

 explosion by the National Eailway Board, in 

 the course of which a detailed report was sub- 

 mitted by independent experts appointed by 

 the Courts. It would seem that Argentina 

 has progressed further in this direction than the 

 United States. 



Professoe H. H. Turner, of Oxford Univer- 

 sity, makes the breaking of windows at the Ob- 

 servatory by small boys the occasion of a re- 

 newed appeal for a house for the director in the 

 park near the Observatory. He says : "It was 

 in the last few months of my chief assistantship 

 at Greenwich that the anarchist Bourdin made 

 his attempt to blow up the Royal Observatory ; 

 and the attempt, unsuccessful as it fortunately 

 was, could not fail to impress those immedi- 

 ately concerned as to the necessity for carefully 

 protecting an observatory isolated in the mid- 

 dle of a park. I do not wish to compare the 

 mischievous boyish freak of yesterday with this 

 grave and dastardly outrage ; but there is this 

 common to the two — that the opportunity was 

 selected with reference to the absence of people 

 from the spot. Bourdin selected a time when 

 the Astronomer Royal was away and the staff 

 would ordinarily have left the Observatory 

 (though, as a matter of fact, one or two were 

 on the spot, having stayed beyond the usual 

 closing hour to finish some Avork) ; the boys 

 with catapults found Sunday afternoon a good 

 time to use them." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



There seem to be diflficulnes in arranging for 

 the accommodation of the University of Lon- 

 don, in the buildings of the Imperial Institute. 

 In the meanwhile the Council of University Col- 

 lege have notified the Statutory Commisson that 

 they are prepared to consider placing the land, 

 buildings and endowments of the College at the 

 complete disposal of the Commission. 



