35i 
PHYSIOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
JAMES W. FRASER, M.D. 
The subject of Physiology was specially honoured at the 
meeting at Hull in that the President of the Association 
was Sir Charles S. Sherrington, the most distinguished English 
physiologist, who is also the President of the Royal Society. 
His address on Animal Mechanism dealt largely with 
postural reflexes, a subject which he has made his own, but 
reviewed the nervous system also from other points of view. 
In the Special Section for Physiology the meetings were 
well attended and some excellent work was done.' 
Prof. E. P. Cathcart, F.R.S., of Glasgow, presided, and 
Prof. P. T. Herring, of St. Andrew’s, acted as Recorder in 
the regrettable absence, through illness, of Prof. Lovatt Evans. 
At the opening meeting on Thursday, the first paper was 
by Dr. Eve of Hull, on ‘ Life and Energy/ which attracted 
much attention, and dealt with the origin of life from the 
point of view of the photosynthesis of carbohydrates, and 
possibly of nitrogenous compounds from inorganic substances. 
This was followed by a paper by Dr. T. Ritchie Rodger, on 
4 The effect of Loud Noises on the Cochlea/ in which he showed 
from his own observations among boiler-makers that deafness 
began for the notes which predominated among the sounds 
in the workshop, and was often only detected by testing for 
these notes. Continental observers had found the same thing 
for workmen exposed to other loud sounds, e.g., steam whistles, 
and the actual condition of the cochlea in animals similarly 
exposed showed the same effect. Reference may be made here 
to a paper read and to a model demonstrated by Dr. Wilkinson, 
of Sheffield, on the same afternoon, which showed that different 
parts of the cochlea reacted to different sounds. Both of these 
papers supported Holmholtz’s theory that the cochlea is the 
organ for the analysis and appreciation of musical sounds. 
Dr. J. E. Bannen showed diagrams of radiograms of the 
progress of an opaque meal through the alimentary canal. 
On Thursday afternoon, after Dr. Wilkinson’s paper, was 
one by Professor A. V. Hill, F.R.S., on ' Athletes and Oxygen 
Supply,’ showing the curves of oxygen consumption during 
muscular work of varying degress of severity. 
Friday morning’s meeting commenced with the Presidential 
Address on ‘ The Efficiency of Man.’ Professor Cathcart did 
not read his address as published, preferring to use parts of it 
as an introduction to a discussion, in which Professor A. V. 
Hill and others took part. Experiments had shown that the 
muscular efficiency (using efficiency in the engineering sense) 
was high, about 23 per cent., and that even under severe 
fatigue it did not fall very much. 
1922 Nov. 1 
