FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. I.] 



December, iJ 



[No. lo. 



PAGE 



Current Events 217 



General Notes 220 



The Sanitary Congress of Vienna .. 223 



A Word for Germs 224 



Illumination of Watch Dials by the 



Electric Light 225 



Weights at Different Ages 225 



Technical Education Abroad. — II. . . 226 



The Polygraph 227 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Definition of Science 227 



Cocaine 227 



Clinical Thermometers 229 



The Telephone. — V 230 



Folded Filters 231 



Abridgment of an Address by Sir J. 



Paget 232 



Proceedings of Societies — 



The Institution of Civil Engineers 234 



PAGE 



The Geological Society 235 



Middlesex Natural History Society 235 



Society of Telegraph Engineers . . 236 



Reviews of Books 236 



Technical Education 238 



Announcements 238 



Record of Scientific Societies 238 



Scientific Meetings and Exhibitions. . 239 



Applications for Patents 240 



CURRENT EVENTS. 



The Utility of Scientific Work. — In his admirable 

 address to the medical students at the Owens College, Man- 

 chester, Sir James Paget laid great stress on the utility of 

 scientific work in the practice of medicine and surgery. 

 As will be seen from our abridgment elsewhere, most 

 of his remarks are just as applicable to those engaged 

 in other kinds of work based on or connected with 

 different branches of science. It is seldom, indeed, that we 

 have read a more useful, and at the same time a more 

 thoroughly high-minded address, and we make no apology 

 for giving elsewhere lengthy abstracts from it. We com- 

 mend it to all, scientific or otherwise, for whoever reads it 

 must be the better for it. Sir James mentions, incidentally, 

 that a misleading distinction is often made in speaking of 

 the scientific part of a student's training as opposed to his 

 more practical work, as though it were implied that the 

 studies which are called scientific are not useful. 



He also points out that the main thing for progress and 

 self-improvement is accurate observation, and that this in- 

 volves habitual watchfulness of all the conditions in which 

 objects or events are found. Often, indeed, we think our- 

 selves observant when, in fact, we have the habit of inserting 

 something of our own, something of our beliefs, of our ex- 

 pectations, nay, even of our wishes, into that which we think 

 or say we observe. " We expect facts or events to agree 

 with what we believe that we know, and we make light of 

 the differences and exaggerate the likenesses ; we take no 

 thought of what we call accidental exceptions ; we think 

 them unmeaning — as if anything in nature could be without 

 meaning — and we do not half observe them." The personal 

 equation is no doubt always a difficulty, and must be care- 

 fully guarded against ; and Sir James Paget does well to 



emphasise the fact. Often, indeed, facts have been long and 

 strangely overlooked which would have led to the making 

 of discoveries years before they were actually arrived at. 



Cremation. — According to a contemporary, Sir Spencer 

 Wells, in his Nottingham address on cremation, dwelt upon 

 an aspect of the question which has been a good deal 

 neglected — namely, the tendency of inhumation to preserve 

 the germs of specific diseases, impregnating the soil and ren. 

 dering it poisonous for an indefinite number of years. Here 

 he might very fitly have mentioned that in Brazil cremation 

 is now legally compulsory during epidemics of yellow fever. 

 He gave, as an instance, an outbreak of scarlet fever caused 

 by the reopening of a burial place used during an epidemic 

 of that disease thirty years before ; and he pointed the moral 

 by telling his audience that during the last three months the 

 bodies of 476 scarlet fever patients had been buried around 

 London — "some 5°.°°° lb. of animal matter, charged with 

 myriads of parasitic organisms, which may retain their 

 vitality for many years." He reminded his hearers that 

 there exists no legal objection to cremation ; he met the re- 

 ligious objection by the saying of Lord Shaftesbury, ad- 

 dressed to himself, " What has become of the Blessed 

 IVIartyrs ? " and he argued that the sentimental objection 

 would be overcome as soon as people realize " what a re- 

 volting change takes place after burial in the bodies of those 

 they have loved." The address may fairly be called a nail 

 in the coffin of inhumation. 



The Phylloxera, — The war against the phylloxera still 

 goes on, though without any decisive success. France has 

 suffered more from these small insects than she did from 

 the German invaders, and the end is not yet. Nostrum 

 after nostrum is tried with partial success and is again aban- 



