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PATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREATBRITAIN AND IRELAND.

A MEETING of this Society was held on July 14th and15th in the Medical School, University College Hospital,with Prof. A. E. BOYCOTT in the chair.

Dr. W. M. CROFTON (Dublin) described an egg-glycerine medium which he had found very successfulin obtaining direct growths of tubercle bacilli fromsputum treated with antiformin. He also dealt withan outbreak of diphtheritic roup in fowls from which hehad isolated an influenza-like bacillus, vaccines ofwhich seemed to act preventively and curatively.

Drs. A. STOKES and J. T. WIGHAM (Dublin), in 1515samples of serum from 772 individuals, found completeagreement between the Wassermann and Sigma reac-tions in 96 per cent.

Drs. J. W. BIGGER and WiGHAM (Dublin) foundthat complement could be kept for many days instrong (9 per cent.) salt solution and red corpusclesin formalised strong sugar solutions.

Drs. P. HARTLEY, A. J. EAGLETON, and C. C. OKELL(London) had approached the same problem by dryingsera at low pressures. Antibodies were almost per-fectly preserved by this method, as was the active sub-stance in positive Wassermann sera, and complementremained unaltered for several months, after which itdeteriorated. These preparations had been tested alsoby Prof. C. H. BROWNING and Dr. E. M. DUNLOP(Glasgow) and found very satisfactory.

Prof. E. E. GLYNN (Liverpool) demonstrated animproved form of his apparatus for automaticallymeasuring and distributing the components of theWassermann test.

Prof. J. S. C. DOUGLAS (Sheffield) pointed out thatrather gross errors in serological tests might arisefrom the difficulty of completely removing the lasttraces of serum from a narrow pipette.

Dr. R. ST. J. BROOKS, Miss M. RHODES, and Prof.J. C. G. LEDINGHAM (London) described their experi-ments with the minute virus of tularaemia, a wide-spread disease of ground squirrels, jack-rabbits, &c.,in California and Utah, which is transmissible to manby the blood-sucking fly Chrysops and other insects.

Dr. J. HENDERSON SMITH (Rothamsted) discussedthe growth of the hypha in moulds and compared itwith the growth of bacteria, higher plants, and animals.The general process was evidently very similar in allcases, but its identification with an autocatalytic processhe regarded as quite unproven and unsatisfactory.

Dr. HARTLEY had examined the toxin production ofa number of strains of diphtheria bacilli belonging todifferent serological (agglutinative) groups ; the toxinswere indistinguishable and were all neutralised byantitoxin prepared from any one of them.

Dr. R. SMITH (Glasgow) found that the autolysinin the blood of a case of paroxysmal haemoglobinuriawas not identical with the substance responsible forthe positive Wassermann reaction in the same serum.

Prof. ROBERT MUIR (Glasgow) described the relative,combining powers of ox isolysin and heterolysins forblood corpuscles.

Prof. Sir F. W. ANDREWES (London) described thepresence in pasteurella cultures of two strains of bacilli,one reacting very specifically with agglutinating seraand giving rise to highly specific sera when used asantigen, while the other had more group receptors andgroup antigens. The differences are not permanentand may change in either direction.

Dr. D. EMBLETON (London) dealt with a filtrableculture which he had obtained from four cases ofcommon colds, discussing especially the difficulty ofbeing sure whether the minute stainable bodies presentwere live organisms or not.

Dr. J. H. D113LE (Manchester), in swabbings fromnormal throats had found, in addition to Pfeiffer’sbacillus, another group of haemophilic organisms whichwere larger, had more active fermentative powers, andwere mostly haemolytic.

Mr. H. G. THORNTON (Rothamsted) gave an accountof a group of organisms found in soil which eat phenoland another series which destroy naphthalene ; theyare, with one exception, very widely spread in culti-vated land.

Drs. E. DALYELL, A. FELLER, II. MACKAY, andH. WIMBERGER (London and Vienna) described anddemonstrated the bone lesions in rickets, pointing outthat the course of the disease can be satisfactorilyfollowed only by X ray pictures, and showing examplesof rickets cured with cod-liver oil, with sunlight, andwith ultra-violet light.l

Mr. T. R. PARSONS and Dr. E. P. POULTON (London)discussed the various indirect methods of determiningthe hydrogen-ion concentration of the blood and gavean account of a large number of determinations madeby Hasselbach’s method in various conditions asso-ciated with breathlessness, finding in some an increasein the arterial carbon dioxide, in others a rise in thefixed acidity.

Drs. G. M. FINDLAY and R. D. MACKENZIE (Edin-burgh ) had investigated the effect of vitamin deficiencieson the development of experimental tuberculosis. Inguinea-pigs scurvy made no difference, nor was thecourse of infection in rats altered by deprivation ofvitamins A and B except that animals deprived of Awere more liable to secondary infections. The sameworkers had also investigated the changes in the bonemarrow in avitaminoses ; lack of A produces atrophyof the haemopoietic tissue, lack of B extreme haemor-rhagic congestion with some atrophy, lack of Chaemorrhage and in long-standing cases gelatinousdegeneration and atrophy.

Drs. A. PINEY and W. T. HILLIER (Birmingham)pointed out that when the marrow enlarges botherythroblastic and leucoblastic tissues are involved,though the change may essentially (e.g., perniciousanaemia, leukaemia) involve only one of them. As theresult of inquiries over an extensive zoological field,they put forward the proposition that the commonstem cell is the vascular endothelium, erythroblastsdeveloping in the blood on one side and leucoblasts inthe tissues on the other.

Dr. S. P. BEDSON (London) recalled that it had beenshown by Ledingham and Woodcock that the nucleatedthrombocytes of birds’ blood were functionally equiva-lent to the non-nucleated mammalian platelet. Hehad now found that during the active regeneration ofplatelets nucleated forms were present in the blood ofguinea-pigs and could normally be found in the marrow.Dr. Bedson had also found that the immunity whichcan be produced to anti-platelet serum is not due to ananti-antibody ; normal sera are often effective.

Prof. J. LORRAIN SMITH and Dr. T. RETTIE(Edinburgh) had found that condensed acetaldehydewould not mordant store fat for haematoxylin, butacted quickly on the lipoids of fatty degeneration.Myelin can often be demonstrated by teasing up apiece of tissue in glycerine when frozen sections givenegative results.

Prof. E. EMRYS-ROBERTS and Dr. H. A. HAIG(Cardiff) described a remarkable development of aninsoluble brown pigment round the lipoid globules infatty degeneration of heart muscle in diphtheria anda few other cases.

Prof. H. R. DEAN and Dr. R. A. WEBB (Manchester)in anaphylactic shock in dogs found a rapid concen-tration of the blood, a large fall in the polynuclear,leucocytes and an outflow of nucleated red cells fromthe marrow ; in the liver an intense engorgement withoedema of portal canals and central necrosis of livercells ; haemorrhages in the lung and in the myocardiumin one instance involving His’s bundle.

Dr. A. HAWORTH (Manchester) in the same animalsfound a large temporary increase in blood-sugar.

Drs. C. H. KELLAWAY and S. J. COWELL (London)in experiments on the whole animal and the isolateduterus found that a dose of normal guinea-pig serumwould desensitise a guinea-pig sensitised to crystallinehorse serum albumin for one to four hours.

1 THE LANCET, July 1st, p. 7.

181REVIKWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS.

Prof. W. E. DixoN (Cambridge) described the actionof acetyl tellurium in producing fatal inflammatorycedema of the lungs by increasing the action of theright heart.

Dr. C. DE FANO (London) described the changes inthe encephalitis of rabbits following the cerebral ornasal inoculation by Dr. Perdrau of the contents ofherpetic vesicles, and gave a very objective denion-stration of the histology and of the minute stainablebodies, some inside nerve cells, which he is inclined to connect with the virus and which resemble those foundby him in human lethargic encephalitis. ,

Mr. C. BENNETT, Dr. J. W. S. BLACKLOCK, and Prof. BROWNING (Glasgow) showed that the granulationtissue of healing wounds treated with acriflavine isquite normal in character.

Prof. GLYNN demonstrated hypertrophy of thethyroid and atrophy of the ovaries in a dog fed onadrenal glands and correlated the changes with theassumption of male secondary sexual characters inwomen with cortical adrenal tumours.

Drs. W. E. GYE and E. H. KETTLE (London)showed that silica assists the growth of the tuberclebacillus by its poisonous action on the tissues providing

an avascular necrotic area in which the bacilli rnultiply,affording an explanation of the association of miner’sphthisis with silica-containing dust,. They alsocommented on the silica content of beer, and on its-recent deterioration.

Dr. A. LEITCH (London) found that if the applica-tion of tar to mice is stopped when the skin is stillnormal, tumours may subsequently develop as theydo in shale workers and chimney sweeps who have-changed their occupations.

Prof. BOYCOTT and Dr. V. R. KHANOLKAR (London)-described a fairly simple method of enumeratingkidney glomeruli by the use of very thicksections.

Dr. H. W. CROWE (IIarrogate) demonstrated the-differentiation of streptococci on his chocolate medium;Prof. EMRYS-ROBERTS, a plate method for showinghamiolytic effects ; Dr. B. R. 0. RUSSELL (London),tar sarcoma in the rat ; Dr. N. S. LucAS (London), aninteresting series of pathological specimens from theZoological Gardens ; Mr. T. W. P. LAWRENCE (London),a number of organs of pathological interest; and Dr..P. L. SUTHERLAND (Wakefield), the lesions in the:silicosis of ganister miners.

reviews and Notices of Books.THE POPULATION PROBLEM.A Study in Human Evolution. By A. M. CARR-SAUNDERS. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1922.Pp. 516. 21s.

Birth-Control and Population. An Essay byColonel G. T. K. MAURICE, C.M.G., C.B.E.,A.M.S. (ret.). London : The Scientific Press, Ltd.1922. Pp. 56. 2s. 6d.

BOTH Colonel Maurice and Mr. A. M. Carr-Saundershave something to say about the problem of population,both have the good sense to descry in this problem thequantitative and the qualitative aspect, and both,when it comes to the solution, have a friendly inclina-tion towards the mechanical control of conception.But here the resemblance ends ; for while the firstwriter has prepared with an engaging simplicity onelittle round peg for every little round hole that neededfilling in his argument, the second has bent most of hisenergy to the construction of handicraft tools withwhich the reader may carve pegs and holes, round,square, or oblong at his will.

Colonel Maurice’s essay is no more, if no less, helpfulthan the majority of books and pamphlets which areappearing on this subject at the present time. Forhim the food-producer only of all mankind is " atbase self-sufficient." If the proportion of these agri-culturists is at present large enough to maintain theother inessential section of the community, the authorlooks forward to a time when the food will begin torun short and the hapless manufacturers will offerany number of goods to secure the almost pricelessproducts of the soil. Instead of foreseeing this endand organising a scientific reduction of the population,instead of adopting a wise and selective system ofbirth-control, the public positively stimulates anincreased birth-rate by " sentimental encouragementto procreation " as typified in the support of

" women,usually of a mentally poor type, who have been foolishor careless enough to become unmarried mothers."No practical remedies are proposed.Mr. Carr-Saunders’s study of human evolution is,

as we have hinted, a work of a very different order.The population problem is a real one, and there is stillneeded a great deal of scientific spade-work before itcan be solved. Mr. Carr-Saunders is to be congratulatedon the diligence with which he has applied himselfto this very necessary if unsensational task. His bookfalls into three parts : the first six chapters are intro-ductory, the next six chapters are concerned primarilywith problems of quantity, and the following nine

with problems of quality. In the last chapter we finda judicial summing-up. The subject is introduced byan admirable historical résumé crowded with facts.and useful references. Until the sixteenth century allwriters on this subject seem to have been in generalagreement with the author of Proverbs that " in themultitude of the people is the king’s glory ; but inthe want of people is the destruction of the prince " ;.or with Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes in a moredemocratic vein : Quae familia plus multiplicatur inprolem, amplius cedi,t ad firmamentum politiœ. Duringthe sixteenth century several writers showed a

remarkable interest in these questions, and amongmany who still took the orthodox view there were7some, especially in England, who, towards the century’sclose, began to express a dread of over-population.In the eighteenth century it had become common-place to discuss population in relation to food-supply,and Malthus’s famous essay was, in fact, anticipatedby more than one writer in this period. The Principleof Population was published in 1798, and though it mayhave been based on an unsound mathematical assump-tion and may have contained nothing that was reallynew, it still has a historical value, both for theremarkable controversy which it aroused and for itsinfluence on contemporary thought, not least upon thethought of Darwin and Wallace, who both haveadmitted their indebtedness. Thus both the moderninterest in eugenics and the neo-Malthusian movementcan properly be traced to the pleasant clergyman whocannot have foreseen the one and quite definitelydisapproved of the other.The next three chapters might have been consider-

ably condensed were the book intended for medicalreaders, but for the layman studying this questionan outline of the relevant facts in biology and socialpsychology is no doubt extremely valuable. Briefly,the writer contrasts man with " species in a state’ofnature," pointing out that in the former there is tobe remarked a varying difference between fertilityand fecundity, while in the latter reproduction is purelymechanical, and " the strength of fecundity in anyspecies is determined by the sum of all the dangers;to which the young of that species are exposed." The-writer then proceeds to investigate minutely the-factors which have led to this divergence in the-reproductive conditions of man from those of his;simian ancestry. Human fecundity is first considered’and a number of interesting conclusions arrived at ;.then through the long pre-history of man and in thehomes of the backward races the factors which have’influenced fertility are critically surveyed. Havingbeen introduced to the theory of an optimum densityof population-the modern successor of the Malthusianprinciple-the reader is then presented with a longarray of interesting data on the regulation of numbers