December 2, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



lib 



portant part in the various discussions with which 

 the British Association busied itself. I would 

 that the disinterested community of aim which 

 thus binds together the scientific men throughout 

 the world into one international brotherhood could 

 extend its healing influence through all classes 

 and all interests. 



I remain yours faithfully, 



Abthuk James Balfoiib. 



The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 

 has, says the London Times, issued a series 

 of reports on trypanosomiasis, that is to say, 

 on the presence in the hlood of man, and in 

 the fluids of the hrain and spinal cord, of some 

 form of the microscopic parasite known as 

 ' Trypanosoma,' which, having long been rec- 

 ognized as the cause of the virulent equine 

 disease which is propagated by the tsetse fly 

 in South Africa, has lately been discovered 

 to be also the cause of ' sleeping sickness ' in 

 the human subject. The reports of Drs. 

 Dutton, Todd and Christy have been sent 

 home in instalments, some of which have 

 already appeared in the medical journals. 

 These and others are collected together in the 

 present volume, which also contains an im- 

 portant note on the tsetse flies, by Mr. E. E. 

 Austen, of the Zoological Department of the 

 British Museum, and illustrations of flies and 

 larvae from the Congo. The details of cases 

 given in the reports are, in a general way, too 

 full of medical technicalities to be of general 

 interest; but they seem to establish conclu- 

 sively that ' sleeping sickness ' is trypanosomi- 

 asis, although there are severe and even fatal 

 cases of the latter in which the somnolence is 

 not observed. The symptoms and the danger 

 appear to bear some relation to the greater or 

 less abundance of the parasites, and to become 

 more marked and more serious when these 

 have gained access to the cerebro-spinal fluid. 

 The parasites may be present in the blood of 

 deeply-seated organs when they are not dis- 

 coverable in that which is drawn from a sur- 

 face puncture; and their frequent temporary 

 disappearances from surface blood render it 

 sometimes difilcult to be certain of their pres- 

 ence in the system. At the same time it ap- 

 pears that the term sleeping sickness is used 

 very loosely among the Congo natives ; and in 



many of the persons said to be suffering from 

 it, and therefore brought to the hospital, the 

 diagnosis was not confirmed either by the de- 

 tection of the parasites or by the further prog- 

 ress of the case. One of the most curious 

 results of the expedition has been the discovery 

 of a bloodsucking larva of nocturnal habits, 

 which seems to be abundant in many parts of 

 the Congo, and which, during the daytime, 

 seeks concealment in the cracks of the native 

 floors, from which it may be dug out full of 

 bright red blood as an evidence of the nature 

 and the abundance of its previous night's meal. 

 It is the larva of the Glossina fly, which ap- 

 pears to be harmless in the imago state, 

 although it is probable that for this harmless- 

 ness the larva makes abundant compensation. 

 The discovery will probably lead to the adop- 

 tion of systematic measures for its destruction. 



A REVIEW of the laws forbidding the pollu- 

 tion of inland waters in the United States 

 has been prepared by Mr. Edwin B. Goddell 

 for the United States Geological Survey. It 

 is published as No. 103 of the series of Water- 

 Supply and Irrigation papers. Mr. Goodell's 

 purpose has not been to prepare a complete 

 work on water pollution for the use of mem- 

 bers of the bench and bar, but rather to put 

 into the hands of public officials, legislators, 

 water companies, manufacturers, farmers and 

 others interested in the subject, a guide for 

 their action, and to furnish references to the 

 sources from which a more exhaustive knowl- 

 edge of the subject may be obtained if re- 

 quired. No attempt has been made to pre- 

 sent a detailed statement of the entire law 

 against water pollution as it exists independ- 

 ently of statutes, but the broad legal principles 

 under which antipollution statutes become 

 operative are explained and important court 

 decisions are quoted to show authority for 

 various deductions. These principles and de- 

 cisions have been classified and are presented 

 in three groups: (1) The rights of riparian 

 owners to pure water as against one another. 

 (2) The rights of the public (as distinguished 

 from individual owners) to have inland waters 

 kept free from pollution by riparian owners 

 or others. (3) The conditions under which, 

 and the extent to which, public municipalities 



