1869

THE DARWIN CENTENARY.

THE Centenary of Charles Darwin, which was inauguratedin his University of Cambridge on June 22nd, is a celebra-tion perhaps unique in the world. If it cannot be said thatmankind from China to Peru is united in honouring thememory of the protagonist of Natural Selection, yet a glanceat the list of delegates, as published in several of the

leading lay papers, shows that they come from countriesso far distant the one from the other as Japan and Chile.Darwin’s great work of course was not so much the state-ment of the doctrine of Evolution, for that doctrine hadoccurred to many minds previously, but the enunciation ofthe theory of Natural Selection, an explanation of the

working of evolution, the honours of which he sharedto some extent with Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace. Thecelebration lasted for three days and showed in a markedmanner that, despite the genuine importance attaching to

the recent developments of Mendelism, and the remark-able work of Bateson and de Vries, the scientific world

accepts the views enunciated by Charles Darwin and regardsthem as the foundation of modern biology, considering thatthe theory of evolution by natural selection is still the mostvaluable weapon with which the problems of biology can beattacked, an opinion that can be shared by many stalwartMendelians. The applause in the Cambridge SenateHouse with which the speeches of Lord Rayleigh, ProfessorTiertwig, M. Metchnikoff, Professor Osborn, and Sir EdwinRay Lankester were received, shows how firmly the greatDarwin is seated on his lofty pedestal., Tuesday was devoted to the reception of delegates andother invited guests by Lord Rayleigh, the Chancellor ofthe University. The formal reception at the Fitz-WilliamMuseum was of an imposing character, suitable to the

inagnificent building in which it was held. Lord Rayleigh,wearing his robes of office, scarlet and black, received theguests of the University, all of whom were wearing academicstress or uniforms and orders. The museum, rich in the

paintings of distinguished British and foreign artists,rapidly filled, and many of the guests streamed out into theadjoining gardens of Peterhouse, thrown open by the Masterand Fellows of the senior college. The famous lime-treeavenue and the gardens beyond were decorated with Chineselanterns, and the paths and flower-beds were bordered withfairy lights. The mixture of robes and uniforms and the,dresses of the ladies contributed to make the scene a

gorgeous pageant of academic life, linking up the knowledgeof to-day with the traditions that go back to the earliestbeginnings of the Middle Ages.Wednesday was occupied with the presentation of

addresses, visits of the delegates to various Colleges, thegreat banquet in the evening, and a garden party given bythe Master and Fellows of Christ’s College, of which Darwinwas a member. At an early hour the Senate House was filled,and the delegates-some 243 in all-were in their places tooffer to the University of Cambridge their eulogies of one ofher most famous sons. The galleries were occupied bygraduates and undergraduates, members of the University,and by ladies. At half-past ten the audience rose towelcome the Chancellor, who entered the building with theVice-Chancellor and the senior and junior proctors, and pre-needed by the mace of office.. Business opened with Lord Rayleigh’s address of greeting.After formally welcoming the delegates, he claimed thatCambridge was not held so fast in the bonds of mediævalismas some supposed, for the University was prepared to acceptthe result of all investigations scientifically undertaken.

Darwin, he contended, had made himself beloved by all whohad known his character, and was admired by all who hadeven a spark of scientific fire. He hoped that one outcomeof the centenary celebrations might be the founding of aSchool of Genetics, a subject closely connected with thework of Darwin and of his nephew, Dr. Francis Galton.- On the conclusion of the Chancellor’s speech the presenta-tion of addresses began, and the delegates as they came upwere received by the audience with applause. Naturallyenough, the members of the Darwin family present, SirGeorge Darwin, Dr. Francis Darwin, Mr. William ErasmusDarwin, and Major Leonard Darwin, were accorded anovation. Among others receiving special recognition were

Professor Bateson, Professor Seward, Professor E. van

Beneden, Professor Svante Arrhenius, Professor Höffding,Professor Metchnikoff, Prince Roland Bonaparte, Professorde Vries, Marchese di San Giuliano, Dr. H. P. Keatinge,Sir Richard Solomon, Dr. T. G. Brodie, Sir Robert Stout,Dr. E. Rutherford, Professor A. Sedgwick, Sir IsambardOwen, Sir Archibald Geikie, Sir William Turner, and Pro-fessor James Cossar Ewart. The whole ceremony was asuccession of brilliant military and diplomatic uniforms andacademic robes. The Austrian delegates were in General’suniforms, being given this status by the Austrian Govern-ment as a privilege of their position.The first of the four addresses was delivered by Professor

Dr. 0. HERTWIG, Director of the Anatomical Institute,Berlin. He pointed out that Darwin’s views were moredominant in Germany than in any other country, and showedhow they had been championed by Gegenbauer and Haeckel,and how they had formed the starting point for the re-

searches of the younger men, such as Strasburger, Dohrn,and others. He concluded by stating that the Cambridgecelebrations should be rightly the greatest of the celebrationsthroughout the world, for Darwin owed his introduction toscience to the friends whom he found at Cambridge.

Professor METCHNIKOFF emphasised the importance ofDarwin’s theory on disease. Darwin had made possible thefoundation of comparative pathology. The whole history ofinflammation and of the principle of immunity was Darwinian.After referring to the evolution of resistant strains of bacteria,Professor Metchnikoff made the following statement aboutcancer : ’’ Among the most difficult medical problems, that ofmalignant tumours occupies without doubt the first place.In the absence of clear bearings a directing idea is neededto guide one in so obscure a region. Biologists believed thatcancers arose from certain aberrant cells detached from

embryonic layers, and remaining latent years and decades forthe propitious moment to develop in excess. By taking ourstand on the theory of the evolution of organisms as

formulated by Darwin, the hypothesis to which I have justreferred must be rejected. It is well established thatembryonic layers were proper to inferior animals as well asto vertebrates and man, and the invertebrates never show the

presence of tumours other than those produced by agentsacting from without. It is therefore very probable that thecancers of man are also due to some cause foreign to thehuman organism, in fact, to some virus. This," concludedProfessor Metchnikoff, I I is being searched for with avidity,but has not yet been found."

Professor OSBORN of New York referred to the influencethat Cambridge has exerted on American thought throughthe Universities of Harvard, Yale, Princetown, and otheruniversities. A son of Harvard had just succeeded a son ofYale as President of the United States, and thus extendedthe influence of Cambridge through the Universities.

Referring to Darwin’s work, he said: "The image risesof a perfected optical instrument in which all personalequation, aberration, and refraction are eliminated, andthrough which, as it were, we gaze with a new vision into themarvellous forms and processes of the living world. Therewere some," he continued, ’’ impressed by Darwin’s grandeur,who thought that they would never get nearer the secret oflife than Darwin had done, but to accept this idea wouldmean the abandonment of the progressive leadership ofDarwin himself." He concluded by stating that he and hiscolleagues wished to present to the University a bronzeportrait of Charles Darwin that the undergraduates mighthave some impression of the rugged simplicity and intellectualgrandeur of the man they in America revered and honoured.

Sir EDWIN RAY LANKESTER delivered an address on behalfof the naturalists of the Empire, and contended that the onething most British naturalists would wish to proclaim with-out any qualification whatsoever would be that in their

judgment, after 50 years of testing and examination, thetheory of natural selection remained whole, sound, and con-vincing. No attempt to amend that theory had in any essentialparticular been successful. Referring to the theory of muta-tions, he reminded his hearers that the notion that variationswere large and sudden had been present in Darwin’s mind,but modern views which took this standpoint were not, thespeaker considered, supported by sufficiently accurate andcomprehensive experiments. The Mendelian experimentswould have interested Charles Darwin, but they did not tendto call in question his theory of natural selection. Sir Edwin

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Ray Lankester concluded by saying that while Darwin’s workremained one of the chief glories of Cambridge all mustfeel proud of the essentially English character of the man.

Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE presented on behalf of the RoyalSociety a special copy of the Darwin medal, struck in gold.He reminded Lord Rayleigh that he had been secretary ofthe Royal Society when the idea first originated, and saidthat it was with the greatest pleasure that he asked himpersonally to hand it over to the University for its

acceptance.A garden party was held in Christ’s College on Wednesday

afternoon, which was well attended despite the threateningweather.The banquet on Wednesday evening was given in the new

schools, where covers were laid for 500. The Chancellorwas in the chair, being supported by Lord Walsingham, thefamous entomologist (High Steward of the University), theDuke of Northumberland, Sir Edward Fry, and the variousdistinguished delegates.

After the loyal toasts had been duly honoured, Mr. A. J.BALFOUR proposed the "Memory of Darwin." Havingreferred to his own admiration for Darwin, whom he coupledwith those other Cambridge worthies, Newton, Young,Kelvin, Maxwell, and Stokes, he contended that the nine-teenth century had borne the heat and burden of the dayas far as science was concerned. Darwin’s work, he

said, was the intellectual heritage of every educatedman, no matter what his trade or occupation, and Darwinwould stand for all time as the man who had

brought about a great and beneficent revolution. He wasthe Newton of his own broad line of research. Hehad made greater strides than any predecessor or successorin the study of life, and quite; apart from the Origin ofSpecies he had won the first place in the study of naturalscience. He possessed the skill of an investigator and themind of a generaliser, and in each capacity had graspedthe problems that needed solution. As a man he wasnever uncharitable or embittered and never ceased to repre-sent fact as fact, despite the storm of obloquy to whichhis completely revolutionary conception of the world exposedhim for years.

Professor SVANTE ARRHENIUS also spoke to the toast andreferred to the antiquity of the idea of evolution and to thebeginnings of it in the nineteenth century. The patience andimpartiality of Darwin, however, had performed the epoch-making work, which extended in its construction over 30years. He fully realised the far-reaching importance of hisideas, and applied them widely to problems including thoseof anthropology. The great intellectual revolution due tothe introduction of evolution was the most important eventin the development of the human mind since the politicalmovement which began with the storming of the Bastille 120years ago. In conclusion, Professor Arrhenius said : ’’ Letme say that in thus venerating Darwin’s memory all men ofscience regard him not only as an ideal man of science butas a man of science whose power and influence have beenenhanced by his integrity and moral worth."

Mr. W. E. DARWIN gave his personal recollections of thegreat naturalist, his father. He had, he said, an abhorrenceof oppression and cruelty, and especially of slavery.Politically he was a follower of John Stuart Mill andGladstone. Referring to Darwin’s neglect of poetry, he

deprecated a popular misunderstanding that had tended tocast disrepute on the credit of natural science. He claimedthat Charles Darwin could never have written either the

closing chapters of the "Origin of Species," or a certainletter to his wife if he had not felt fully the poetry of theworld and of life.

Professor E. B. POULTON proposed the toast of "Prosperityto the University of Cambridge," to which the Vice-Chancellorresponded.

Later a reception was given at Pembroke College, of whichthe present Vice-Chancellor is Master.On Thursday a Convocation for conferring honorary degrees

was held and the Rede lecture was delivered by SirArchibald Geikie, President of the Royal Society of London,the subject being "Darwin as a Biologist," while theafternoon was devoted to a garden party given at TrinityCollege by Mr. W. E. Darwin, Sir George and Lady Darwin,and other members of the Darwin family.A lasting memorial has been issued by the Cambridge Uni-

versity Press in the form of a collection of essays called

"Darwin and Modern Science," among the contributors towhich are the most eminent writers on biology in variouscountries. The centenary celebration is a curious and strikingreminder of the old saying, ’’ Magna est veritas et prsevalebit,"for some 50 years ago Darwin’s views were bitterly attacked,but, as in so many instances, that which was heresy is noworthodoxy, and the celebration this week held in the

university of that other great thinker, Newton, is a worthymemorial of one who threw a light upon the dark places oforganic life almost equal to that which Newton threw uponthe mechanism of the universe.

Obituary.FREDERICK NUTCOMBE HUME, M.R.C.S. ENG.,

L. R. C. P. LOND.

THE Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Territorial Forceshave lost a valuable officer in the death of Mr. F. N. Humeon June 14th, aged 58 years. He was the third son of theRev. C. N. Hume, who died just before becoming acentenarian, and was educated at Marlborough College, andthen studied for a time at Wadham College, Oxford, until hediverted his attention from the classics to the pursuit ofmedicine. In 1871 he entered as a student at St. Thomas’sHospital and later became clinical assistant at the VictoriaPark Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, obtaining his surgicalqualification in 1876. A week later, with a few chosen friends,mostly from his own hospital, the young surgeon found himselfat Belgrade and in another week, after surmounting the difn-culties of red-tapeism, the small band of English surgeons werein the midst of the Turko-Servian campaign, treating thewounded upon the field, often under the enemy’s fire. Whileso engaged they were absorbed by the National Aid Society,and Mr. Hume distinguished himself above his comrades bythe rapidity with which he mastered colloquially the Servianlanguage. At the end of the brief campaign he remainedfor some months to work in a Belgrade hospital, until lackof British funds caused it to be closed. In July, 1877, hewas despatched by the Stafford House Committee to theRusso-Turkish war, and arrived in Turkey in time to witnessthe defeat of Raouf Pasha’s army near Karabounar, and thento be present at the severe fighting of the Shipka Pass, whenSuleiman Pasha was hurling the flower of the Turkish

infantry against an impregnable position in the Balkans. Bythe official returns, which were certainly not overstated, 10,000wounded Turks passed through the ambulance tents duringthose eventful days, and though there were many doctors on theTurkish side, Mr. Hume and two friends were alone in beingcapable of performing any surgical operations. When a lull tookplace in the fighting Mr. Hume retreated with the last of thewounded to some of the hospitals, which were then a seethingmass of hospital gangrene, slightly in the rear of the position.But during the early days of 1878 he was back again atthe front to take his part in the retreat of the Turkish troopsacross the Rhodope mountains, on the staff of ValentineBaker Pasha, whose successful defence is well known to

military historians. The official report, written by theStafford House Chief Commissioner of the Turkish army(Sir V. Barrington-Kennett), states: "I I wish here to recordthe gallant conduct of Surgeon Hume, who, at great personaldanger, rejoined his ambulance at Philippopolis by means oftravelling along the railway line on a trolley at night, inclose proximity to the enemy. He was carrying instructionsand a considerable sum of money from Constantinople."

Mr. Hume settled down for some years in general practicein South Kensington, but was again employed by the NationalAid Society, in the short Servo-Bulgarian war of 1885, afterwhich he again acted as director of the English hospital inBelgrade. For his many services he received Turkish andServian decorations and war medals. Soon after his returnto England in 1886 he rejoined the service of the MetropolitanAsylums Board, for which he had already done some temporarywork. After serving as assistant medical officer in the South-Eastern Hospital he became superintendent of the NorthernHospital, and eventually held a similar post in the North-Western Hospital, where he obtained the reputation of beingone of the best administrators in the service of the board.For some years he was engaged in teaching the subject offevers to medical students, a work which was very near his