Scientific worthies : [No.] 29, Sir Joseph Lister / [Hermann Tillmanns].

  • Hermann Tillmanns
Date:
[1896]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scientific worthies : [No.] 29, Sir Joseph Lister / [Hermann Tillmanns]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/26 (page 15)
    Ministry of the Interior and the Imperial Ministry of Marine. A programme of exceptional interest for the instruction and entertainment of the members is already in course of prepara¬ tion. The meetings for the reading and discussion of papers vrill be held in Hamburg in the Biirgerschafts-Saal in the Ixuilding of the Patriotische Gesellschaft, and in Berlin in the large hall of the Technical High School. Papers have already been promised by the following German members of the Institu¬ tion :■—Herr Dietrich (Privy Councillor), Constructor-in-Chief ■of the Imperial German Navy, Herr F. Laeisz, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Hamburg, and by Mr. B. Martell and Dr. F. Elgar, amongst other home members of the Institu¬ tion. It is hoped that the members of the Institution will do all in their power to assist in doing honour to their most hospitable hosts by attending in large numbers. It is with sad feelings that we read of the elaborate prepara¬ tions that have been made abroad to celebrate the centenary of the discovery of vaccination, and reflect that nothing is being done in England to honour Jenner’s memory. The British Medical Journal says:—On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner performed the first successful vaccination. The centenary of that event is to be celebrated in a manner befitting its import¬ ance in the history of mankind in Germany, Russia, and the United States. In Berlin preparations have been made under the direction of a Committee which includes Profs. Virchow, Gerhard, von Leyden, Robert'Koch, von Bergmann, Koenig, Heubner, Langerhans, Proskauer, and other leading representa¬ tives of medical and sanitary science, for a great meeting on May 14 in honour of the discoverer of vaccination. There is also to be an exhibition in the Medicinische Waarenhaus (Friedrichstrasse, 108 *1, Berlin, N.) of literature, old and new, relating to vaccination, portraits, medals, instruments, See. In St. Petersburg, the Russian Public Health Society, the Honorary President of which is the Grand Duke Paul Alex- androvitch, has, with the sanction of the Czar, organised a commemoration festival on a still larger scale. On May 14 a “general and solemn” meeting will be held in honour of the discovery. Four prizes will be awarded for the best works on vaccination. An exhibition of objects connected with vaccina¬ tion will be held. A Russian translation of Jenner’s writings, with a biography and portrait, and reproductions of his drawings, will be published under the editorship of Dr. W. O. Hubert. The Council of the Society, with the help of the Government, of provincial and municipal administrative bodies, of scientific societies, and private medical practitioners, has collected materials for a history of small-pox and vaccination in Russia, which will appear at the same time. In the United States arrangements for the celebration of the centenary have been made by a conjoint Committee appointed by the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association. The celebration is fixed for May 7, the third day of the meeting of the American Medical Association at Atlanta, and the whole of that day will be occupied by addresses and discussions on Jenner and vaccination. Truly is a prophet without honour in his own country when that country is England. Sir John Gorst stated in the House of Commons, on Thursday last, that arrangements are being made to open the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street on Sundays, but the con¬ tinuance of the practice will depend upon how far the number of visitors appears to justify it. The Botanical Gazette has passed into the possession of the University of Chicago. It is not, however, to be the botanical organ of the University, but will be freely open, as before, to botanists of all parts of the globe. The object of the change is to secure permanence and possibility of development. The old NO. [384, VOL. 54] 15 editors, Prof. J. M. Coulter, Prof. C. R. Barnes, and Prof. J. C. Arthur, remain. We learn from the Botanical Gazette that the recent “ Culver gift ” of one million dollars to the University of Chicago for biological endowment has resulted in the establishment of a Department of Botany, in which Dr. John M. Coulter has accepted the head professorship. A large building, to be known as the “ Hull Botanical Laboratory ” has been planned, and its erection will soon be begun. The four stories of this building will contain ample space for lecture-rooms, libraries, laboratories, and private research rooms for morphology, physiology, and taxonomy. Above the fourth story a large roof-greenhouse will supply an abundance of living material under all conditions As the building will not be completed before April 1897, the full botanical staff will not be organised before the autumn of that year. During the last few weeks some experiments in sea-fish hatching have been carried on at the Port Erin Biological Station, for the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee. Prof. Herdman has erected a series of wooden tanks and sand filters, through which the water is passed by the action of a water¬ wheel worked by the fresh-water tap. The Sea Fisheries steamer, John Fell, spent several days at Port Erin trawling for the spawning fish. The ova were fertilised on board, and then conveyed to the tanks. The first batch of young fish (“witches” or white soles) were hatched out on April 29, exactly seven days after fertilisation ; and there are now in the tanks, far advanced in their development, lemon soles, witches, and grey gurnards. The work, so far, has been carried out successfully, and the result ought to encourage the Lancashire Committee to realise their project of erecting a sea-fish hatchery near the principal spawning grounds of the Irish Sea. We regret to note the death of the Rev. W. C. Ley, on the 22nd ultimo, at the age of fifty-five. He was ordained in 1863, and in 1874 was presented by the Lord Chancellor to the rectory of Ashby Parva, near Lutterworth, which he held until 1892. Mr. Ley had for many years paid special attention to the study of the clouds and the movements of upper air-currents. In 1872 he published an important work on “The laws of the winds prevailing in Western Europe,” in which he showed how the preparation of synchronous weather charts, and the accu¬ mulating testimony of the universality of the law generally known as Buys Ballot’s, connecting wind conditions with the distribution of barometric pressure, had proved some accepted weather theories to be erroneous, and had rendered necessary a new investigation of the general laws. In the year 1879 the Meteorological Council appointed him Inspector of their English stations, and in the following year they requested him to prepare a manual to facilitate the study of the weather in connection with the information supplied by their Daily Weathe Reports. This work, entitled “ Aids to the study and forecast of weather,” explains clearly the relations of weather conditions to the distribution of areas of both high and low atmospheric pressure. His most recent work, “ Cloudland, a study on the structure and characters of clouds,” published in 1894, was prepared for press by his son, owing to the serious illness of the author. It embodies the results of his life’s work in connection with this subject; the nomenclature is probably too advanced for general adoption, but the treatise contains much valuable information upon the classification of the clouds and the origin of their formation, as well as upon the important bearing of cloud observation on the prognostication of weather. Many papers of minor importance were contributed by Mr. Ley to the Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.R.S., gave the first of a course of lectures on the animals in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, in the