478 



8CIEJSICE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 199 



the coffee-plant, that during the past few years 

 has destroyed a large number of plantations 

 over a considerable area in the northern part of 

 the province of Rio de Janeiro. This is intrusted 

 to Dr. Emil Goldi, an able and energetic young 

 Swiss naturalist, vs^ho has recently been appointed 

 sub-director of the zoological section of the 

 national museum. Dr. Goldi has been in the field 

 for the last two months, studying the disease in 

 situ, but as yet has not made public any of his 

 results. A valuable biological contribution may 

 be confidently expected from this commission. 



A third commission, headed by Dr. J. B. 

 Lacerda, well known through his researches on 

 snake-poison and on beriberi, is about to pro- 

 ceed to the northern provinces of Para and 

 Maranham to study the disease beriberi, which is 

 extending rapidly over the north of the empire, 

 and is beginning to appear to an alarming extent 

 in the south as well. The last steamer to New 

 York takes the president of the chamber of depu- 

 ties, who is making a sea-voyage in the hope of 

 throwing ofl: the disease ; and a prominent phy- 

 sician of Rio, who was appointed on the beriberi 

 commission, has been obliged to resign on account 

 ■of having become a sufferer from it. As has al- 

 ready been noticed in Science, Dr. Lacerda attrib- 

 utes the disease to a microbe, a conclusion which 

 has been confirmed by Dr. Ogata Masanori of 

 Tokio, in Japan. Up to the present time, ele- 

 ments for the study of beriberi have been rather 

 difficult to obtain in Rio, and the present study in 

 the principal centres of the disease will undoubt- 

 edly add greatly to our knowledge on the subject. 

 Dr. Lacerda has also been investigating a very 

 similar disease of horses, very prevalent in the 

 provinces of Para and Matto Grosso, known as 

 peste da Cadeiras, or hip-evil, which at one time 

 he was inclined to identify with the beriberi ; 

 but he has recently discovered some well-marked 

 differences in the micro-organisms characteristic 

 of the two. 



Considerable interest has been manifested 

 among medical men in the proposed American 

 commission to study Dr. Frere's yellow-fever in- 

 vestigations, and methods of inoculation. The 

 work of Dr. Frere seems to have awakened a more 

 lively interest abroad than here. The official sup- 

 port that he received as president of the board of 

 health has been withdrawn since his retirement 

 from that post, on account of his commendable, 

 though perhaps not always judicious, efforts to 

 suppress the powerful industry of manufactured 

 wines, while the general attitude of the medical 

 profession is that of extreme reserve. While he 

 has a number of very fervent followers, a number 

 ■of pro minent physicians have vigorously combated 



his conclusions. As few, if any, of his critics, 

 are practised microscopists, he has been able to 

 meet their scientific arguments quite successfully, 

 but has been less fortunate in the defence of his 

 statistics regarding the immunity of inoculated 

 persons. Like all Brazilian statistics, these are 

 too loosely drawn to inspire confidence. A large 

 proportion of the inoculated has been among the 

 shifting population, whose subsequent history can 

 only be followed with difficulty ; and Frere is 

 accused of not admitting that the disease is yellow- 

 fever, in the case of the death of an inoculated 

 person, no matter what the opinion of the attend- 

 ing physician may be. 



The National museum has recently received 

 several interesting additions. The veteran paleon- 

 tologist of Buenos Ayres, Dr. Hermann Bur- 

 meister, made it a present of a very perfect skele- 

 ton of Scelidotherium, and added greatly to the 

 value of Ids gift by coming in person to superin- 

 tend the mounting of it. Although in his eigh- 

 tieth year, Dr. Burmeister is stiU vigorous, and 

 looks able to continue his work for several years 

 yet. While in Rio, he received many attentions 

 from the emperor and imperial family, and found 

 himself obliged rather reluctantly to accept from 

 the- emperor the decoration of dignitary of the 

 order of the rose, which is next to the highest 

 rank of the order, and one seldom conferred. The 

 museum has also received a fragment, weighing 

 nearly two kilograms, of the famous Bendigo or 

 Bahia meteorite, the second largest mass of native 

 iron known ; and hopes are entertained of obtain- 

 ing the entire mass, which is estimated to weigh 

 about nine tons, and lies about sixty miles away 

 from a recently constructed line of railroad. A 

 wealthy gentleman of Bahia is inquiring into the 

 feasibility of transporting it with the intention of 

 placing it in the museum if it be found practicable. 

 The latest addition is a perfect skeleton of a whale, 

 apparently Balaena australis, measuring about 

 fifteen metres in length, which was stranded a 

 few weeks ago in a little bay to the south of Rio. 



Dr. Barbosa Rodriguez, director of the museusa 

 of Manaos, province of Amazonas, has just an- 

 nounced the rediscovery of Lepidosiren. cf which 

 no specimens have been found since the time of 

 Natterer and Castelnau, and whose existence in 

 South America has recently been put in doubt. 

 It may now be confidently expected that speci- 

 mens of this rare and interesting animal can be 

 obtained in large numbers. Y. A, 



Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 15. 



M. C. GuYOT, professor in the School of for- 

 estry at Nancy, is preparing an important work 

 on ' Les forets lorraines jusqu'en 1789.' 



