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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Aug, 17, 1888. 



There are others, such as the lucifer match, where the 

 good does little more than turn the scale ; and there are, 

 lastly, a class where the apparent evil results are likely 

 to counterbalance, if not to overbalance the good. 



It is a strange and painful fact that in the present day 

 the attention of inventors is more than ever turned to 

 devices for the wholesale destruction of human life and 

 of property. This is obviously a subject so largely 

 mixed up with moral and political considerations as to 

 fall very barely within our legitimate scope. But we 

 may point out that recognised governments may, perhaps, 

 refrain from the employment in war of "high" explo- 

 sives, of aerostats, submarine boats, etc. ; but will 

 treasonable societies be so scrupulous ? We fear not. 

 It is, indeed, noteworthy that the chief use of the " high " 

 explosives hitherto made for the destruction of human 

 life has been in the so-called " private war" waged by 

 such bodies against governments. 



It must also be considered that the " navigable 

 balloon" will be of immense advantage to the ordinary 

 criminal. He can come in the night, sailing unseen over 

 the heads of policemen or soldiers, and break into banks, 

 warehouses, mansions, etc., at upper windows or sky- 

 lights. In the morning no trace of him will be .left, and 

 there will be no clue to suspect any one of the inhabitants 

 of the globe more than any other. For murder or other 

 outrage the facilities will be as much increased as for 

 robbery. 



Hitherto, and especially of late, the criminal classes 

 have shown themselves fully alive to any inventions 

 which promise to subserve their objects. Why, then, 

 should they hesitate to use the " navigable balloon " ? 



Of course the utter proscription of such inventions 

 would be practicable only if all nations would agree. 

 But, unless we are wrongly informed, the Austrian 

 Government has showna good example by suppressing an 

 invention which would doubtless have been useful to its 

 possessors in war, which would have given man com- 

 plete safety in dealing with wild beasts, but which would 

 have opened the door for robbery and murder on the 

 vastest scale. 



Geology for All. By J. Logan Lobley, F.G.S. London : 

 Roper and Drowley, 29, Ludgate Hill. 



This little book contains the substance of a course of 

 lectures delivered at the City of London College in 1887, 

 which appeared in a series of articles written for the 

 Industrial Review by the author. 



It was a happy thought to have these articles repub- 

 lished in book form, as they make a concise introduc- 

 tion to the study of geology as a science, and can be 

 recommended to any one who desires to gain a general 

 knowledge of the composition and classification of the 

 rocks forming the earth's crust, without taking the science 

 of geology as a regular study. 



We think that the author has been very successful in 

 writing a small, comprehensive book on geology that is 

 interesting and attractive to those requiring only a general 

 knowledge of the subject, and at the same time has pro- 

 duced a work that will serve as a good introduction to 

 a more complete study of the science. 



Causes of Mental Phenomena. — According to an 

 American contemporary, Dr. S. V. Clcvenger is en- 

 deavouring to work out the proposition that "mental 

 phenomena are modes of chemical energy," 



BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 



Abstract of the Presidential Address by William 

 T. Gairdner, M.D., LL.D. 



IN seeking about for a topic on which I might occupy 

 your attention this evening, I have been led to make 

 some special reflections on the curious survival among 

 us of an ancient way of thinking that is presented to 

 the mind by the designation in English of the physician, 

 or, as Chaucer has it in his well-known Prologue to the 

 " Canterbury Tales," the " Doctour of Physike." I do 

 not know if it has occurred to many of you to observe 

 that in no other language than our own has this survival 

 occurred. The surgeon — chirurgus — has, indeed, kept 

 from a very remote antiquity the title which was given 

 to him in the days of his subjection as the handworker ox 

 operator under the direction of the physician. But the 

 most remarkable thing about this last, and conventionally 

 the higher, title is that while it seems to recall a time 

 when the medical art was distinctively associated in the 

 minds of men with the study of abvaii, and when the 

 healer of the sick was regarded as in a very special, if not 

 exclusive sense, a student of nature, it is very hard to dis- 

 cover from the traditions of language, either our own or 

 any other, when this idea first took shape — how and 

 when the notion began to be entertained that the most 

 fitting title for the most highly honoured representative 

 of the medical art was to call him, distinctively, a 

 naturalist, or, if you will, a natural philosopher or 

 physicist. It has occurred to me that it may not be an 

 altogether unprofitable task for one who holds a chair in 

 this University popularly designated as one of Physic, to 

 inquire how the idea represented in this word physic 

 came first into existence, and how it got floated into 

 such a degree of popularity as not only to have prac- 

 tically displaced to a considerable extent in our own 

 language the much older one of medicine — that is, heal- 

 ing — as applied to the art itself, but to have got itself 

 into currency as applied to the very tools of the art, the 

 drugs with which the physician, so called, was supposed 

 mainly to work his cures. I hope to be able to show 

 you that these words physician and physic have relations 

 with some of the very best and highest traditions of 

 antiquity, and that it may be possible for us even now 

 to make an application of them which will repay and at 

 the same time justify their retention in the English lan- 

 guage, although, it may be, tending also to discover 

 certain deficiencies which still unhappily exist in our 

 systems, both of medical and general education. 



My argument, in other words, will be this : — For a 

 series of indeterminable ages, from the time, very pro- 

 bably, of Hippocrates downwards to what we call the 

 dark or middle ages, the tradition has continuously 

 existed that the healer or physician of the highest class 

 ought also to be, in a very real sense of the word, a 

 naturalist or perhaps a man of science (physical science 

 being, of course, understood); that it is his prerogative to 

 be trained and exercised after the best manner and 

 according to the most thorough discipline of the science 

 of his age ; and that he ought to be (or, at least, that he 

 has been in very remote times) regarded as being admir- 

 able and trustworthy as a healer or physician chiefly in 

 proportion to the confidence reposed in him as a natura- 

 list, that is, a humble, reverent, and exact follower and 

 student of nature. 



You are all familiar, no doubt, with the magnificent 



