695

has displayed. There are no sort of conditions

attached, there are no sort of stipulations.The donor knew that the scheme which he wasthus prepared splendidly to support was on rightscientific lines, and felt sure that its future couldbe arranged so that it should continue on those

lines; while the scientific work of his life madehim see that in these days a pathological instituteto work in harmony with the clinical labours ofhospital wards is absolutely needed in the causeof medical progress.

Annotations."Ne quid nimis."

THE LISTER MEMORIAL FUND.

THE committee of the Lister Memorial Fund hascommissioned Sir Thomas Brock, R.A., to executea medallion portrait of the late Lord Lister, to beplaced in Westminster Abbey. This will form partof the International Memorial to commemorate thepriceless services of Lord Lister to the cause ofscience and the alleviation of human suffering.Further subscriptions are required to enable the,committee to carry out adequately the proposed.scheme for the establishment of an InternationalLister Memorial Fund for the advancement of

surgery. Among the subscriptions recently receivedare the following: American Surgical Association,£135 ; received through Dr. W. W. Keen, of Phila-

delphia, C35 (second donation); committee of

surgeons in Holland, £125 ; Faculty of Medicine,University of Copenhagen, £109 ; members of themedical profession in Victoria (Australia), £91 ;medical and surgical societies in Japan, JE31; Unionof Swedish Hospital Surgeons, JE20; Newcastle-on-Tyne committee and members of the ClinicalSociety, £113 ; City of Belfast committee, ;S54.Donations may be sent to the honorary treasurersof the fund (Lord Rothschild and Sir Watson Cheyne)at the Royal Society, Burlington House, W.

THE SYNTHESIS OF FOODSTUFFS.

IT is noteworthy that while we hear on all sidesof the triumphs of synthesis in the manufacture ofcertain industrial products no practical success hasso far been obtained in producing foodstuffs bysynthetic means; and yet the elementary food-stuffs are less complex in composition than,say, rubber, indigo, or the numerous anilinederivatives, and a splitting up of food sub-stances into simpler compounds is easy. Starch,for example, the leading representative of the

carbohydrates, is readily converted into oxalicacid by oxidation methods, as by treatment withnitric acid, while sugar readily yields carbonand water when warmed with strong sulphuricacid. But the reverse processes are not known;starch has not been artificially built up fromoxalic acid or sugar from carbon and water.Certain attempts have been made to elaboratefoodstuffs out of the simple materials carbon,water, and nitrogen, but with results of no

practical significance. No laboratory has yet beenable to reproduce the synthetic methods of the plantor animal. With all his wonderful constructive

successes the chemist has not yet made breador any constituent of it on a commercial scalefrom the elements which compose it. Starches,proteins, and fats in significant quantities are so farexclusively the products of plant and animalactivities. Now and again it has been announcedthat a step forward towards synthetic foodstuffs hasbeen made by employing chemical or electricalagencies, but such experiments have led to no

practical development. Later it has been statedthat the synthesis of certain organic compounds canbe effected by photo energy. It is confidently assertedthat the sugars can be built up from carbonic acidgas and water by exposing these simple compoundsto the action of ultra-violet light. We have alreadyreferred to the interesting observation that theultra-violet rays are capable of starting chemicalchanges analogous to those produced by fermentsor enzymes. In this case it is clear that biologicalaction has been dispensed with, so that we need notbe without hope that the so-called vital agenciesmay prove after all not to be essential to the pro-duction of foodstuffs. It is further remarkable thatthe ultra-violet rays are capable of decomposingcarbonic acid, inasmuch as chlorophyll, under theinfluence of the sun’s rays, effects the same processin the plant. When we come to understand inmore definite terms the chemistry of the cell thechances of producing foodstuffs by synthesis willunquestionably be improved.

THE TREATMENT OF LEPROSY BY

CHAULMOOGRA OIL.

WE commented in THE LANCET of Sept. 27th,1913, on two cases of apparent cure of leprosy byinjections of chaulmoogra oil combined with

camphor and resorcin given hypodermically. Thesecases were reported by Dr. Victor G. Heiser, fromthe San Lazaro Leper Hospital, Manila. It wasthen stated that there were in the same hospital atthe time of writing " a number of other cases"under - treatment which had for varying periodspresented only negative evidence as regardsleprosy, though all of them exhibited typicallesions when the treatment with chaulmoograoil was begun. Dr. Heiser now 1 reports the

discharge of two of these cases after havingbeen free from leprosy for two years. Inthe first two cases reported the conclusionsto be drawn were somewhat obscured by thefact that immediately on their admission to

hospital both patients received vaccine treat-ment, so that it was impossible to determinewhat share, if any, this may have had on the sub-sequent improvement. The present cases, however,received no vaccine treatment. As in the former

instance, both cases were mild. In both therewere typical leprous macules and the diagnosiswas confirmed by microscopical examination. Thefirst patient began treatment with chaulmoogra oilby the mouth, in 10-drop doses three times a day, onJan. 7th, 1911, but owing to gastric intoleranceweekly hypodermic injections of the chaulmoograoil, camphor, and resorcin formula were substitutedon Feb. 15th. The dose began with 1 c.c. and wasincreased gradually to 10 c.c. by April 20th, when itwas gradually decreased to 1 c.c., to be again graduallyaugmented to the maximum dose. Treatment wasdiscontinued from Oct. 15th, 1911, when examinations

1 Public Health Reports of the U.S. Public Health Service, vol. xxix.No. 1, Jan, 2nd, 1914.