2 3° 



SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



ducts were rarely tested for arsenic, which has 

 since been found to be a common constituent, in 

 traces, in many unsuspected places. 



The Chemical Society has continued its series 

 of Memorial Lectures on Eminent Chemists. In 

 December, 1900, Dr. Miers delivered an apprecia- 

 tion of Rammelsberg. who. though a friend and 

 associate of Berzelius, only died in 1899. More 

 recently Dr. Armstrong paid a similar honour to 

 the memory of the late Sir Edward Frankland. 

 These different memorial lectures are now being- 

 published collectively in book form. 



MICROSCOPY IN 1901. 



By F. Shillington Scales, F.R.M.S. 



Microscopy is so largely the handmaiden of other 

 sciences, and the wide fields of research covered by 

 the term have been so much specialised, that a 

 review even of a single year's work is an impossi- 

 bility in the space at our disposal. In Zoology, 

 Botany, and Medicine the use of the microscope 

 plays an increasingly important part, whilst its 

 applications to manufactures and industrial uses 

 become more notable each year. Especially is this 

 the' case with regard to practical problems in con- 

 nection with the metallography of steel and of 

 metal alloys. Workers like Sir W. C. Roberts- 

 Austen, Mr. J. E. Stead, and others, have elevated 

 the microscopic examination of such crystalline 

 structures into almost a distinct branch of science. 



The science of Bacteriology, however, is one that 

 is of necessity universally accepted as coming 

 peculiarly within the domain of microscopy, and it 

 is in this department that many of the most 

 interesting developments have taken place during 

 the past year. Most noticeable of all was probably 

 Professor Koch's startling statement at the recent 

 British Congress on Tuberculosis, which called 

 forth swift and vehement protest. Professor 

 Koch, whilst incidentally giving his adhesion to 

 the theory that tuberculosis is, in contradiction to 

 popular opinion, practically non-hereditary, ex- 

 pressed the opinion that bovine tuberculosis was in 

 reality not communicable to man, tecause he had 

 entirely failed in communicating human tuber- 

 culosis to cattle. The converse is manifest, but 

 though Professor Koch observed that ir was im- 

 possible to give this question a direct answ r er 

 because the experimental investigation of it with 

 human beings was out of the question, offers were 

 almost immediately made by various persons to 

 submit themselves to the test. We do not envy 

 Dr. Koch his dilemma, 



Equally important has been the progress of the 

 investigations into the causes and prevention of 

 malaria, yellow fever, elephantiasis, plague, dis- 

 temper, and the abolition of epidemics generally. 

 The work of Major Ronald Ross and others not less 

 devoted to the study has completely disposed o 



the old theory that malaria was due to miasmatic 

 vapours, and it is now proved, by the use of the 

 microscope, beyond a doubt, that it is due to 

 minute amoebulae in the human blood, which pass 

 part of their lives in certain species of mosquitoes, 

 and by means of mosquito bites infect man. The 

 recent expeditions to Sierra Leone, largely defrayed 

 by private generosity, have already succeeded in 

 making the species of Culex. to which suspicion 

 mostly points, comparatively rare in the neighbour- 

 hood of Freetown, and in consequence a great 

 reduction in the number of cases of malaria. 

 Yellow fever and elephantiasis have also been 

 traced apparently to gnats. The dissemination of 

 bubonic plague is attributed to the fleas borne by 

 rats. It is sad to have to record the death from 

 yellow fever of one investigator, Dr. Walter Myers, 

 who went out in connection with the Liverpool 

 School of Tropical Medicine. 



Death has also taken from, us Mr. George Shad- 

 bolt, of the Royal Microscopical Society, who did 

 much for the development of the microscope, but 

 whose name is perhaps best known as the inventor 

 of " Shadbolt's turntable." 



In the theory of the microscope the most in- 

 teresting contribution has been Mr. J. W. Gordon's 

 criticism of Professor Abbe's diffraction theory, 

 wherein he maintains that the diffraction effects 

 relied upon by Professor Abbe in support of his 

 argument are really produced by the diaphragms 

 behind the objectives. 



We must not omit also two more of Mr. E. M. 

 Nelson's valuable papers on the construction of 

 the microscope, dealing respectively with tube- 

 length and working aperture. 



Among.~t new books may be specifically men- 

 tioned Miall and Hammond's "Structure and Life- 

 History of the Harlequin Fly," and the recently 

 issued eighth edition of '•'• Carpenter on the Micro- 

 scope." 



In new apparatus notice may be taken of the 

 increased attention paid by the opticians to the 

 improvement of microtomes, and to the surrender 

 by some of our leading opticians to popular pre- 

 judice, as evidenced by" the demand for the Con- 

 tinental model in students' microscopes ; also to 

 the improvement in the spherical corrections of 

 achromatic objectives by the use of newer glasses 

 and original forms of- construction. ■ 



FIELD BOTANY IN 1901. 



By James Saunders, ,-l.L.S. 



In recalling the botanical literature that has come 

 under our notice during the current year, there is 

 no definite recollection of any startling discovery 

 in connection with the flowering plants of the 

 British Isles. One is, however, impressed with the 

 evident large increase in the army of observers in 

 Field Botany during the last decade. This may 



