1935-05-27 — Page 15

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, MAY 27, 1935.

I

MEDICAL RESEARCH

INFLUENZA AND INFECTION

EXPERIMENTS WITH MICE

The annual report of the Mu- dical Research Council for 1933- 34 was published recently. It covers the whole field of medical study and carrlos a step forward the researchos now proceeding in- to the mechanism of the nervous system, the action of vitamins. and the nature of influenza. Studies are foreshadowed of the relationship between inheritance and disease, of the chemistry of bacterial life, and of accidents on roads.

A committee hus been set up, in consultation with the Board of Control, to advise and assist on the best way of promoting research into mental disorders. The com mittee may inquire into the mental condition of the offspring of con- sanguinous marriages and into mental defects noted in twins. Its work ought to implement the study of the relationship between inheritance and disease which the Human Genetics Committee of the Council is undertaking.

HONI&SOLT:QUEMALSAR

The richest pageant of all the celebrations of the Royal Silver Jublise will be the assembly to be held in Windsor Castle on June 17 when 16 members of the Knights of the Garter will come together for the first time in 22 years. A service to be held in St. George's chapel will be the most colourful event of all the many to be witnessed in London for the next few months. The knights, many of them monarchs of foreign lands, will wear their picturesque robes of order, dark blue mantle, embroidered with the garter, and black velvet hats and white ostrich plumes. The procession will be handed by the King and Queen in the march from the castle to the chapel. The King's stall will be canopied with purple, velvet fringed with gold and above it will hang his banner as soverign of the order. The Queen. the only woman in the order, will sit on his right and will wear full robes of the order and the insignia set in diamonds presented to her by the Marys i

} in the kingdom. Among those who are knights of the Garter are shown in the above layout. Top, left to right, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy: King Gustav of Sweden; King George, Queen Mary, Emperor Hiphito of Japan and King Haakon of Norway. Lower row. Left to right, Earl of Athione, brother of Queen Mary; ex-King Alfonso of Spain, King Christian of Denmark; H.R.H. the Prince of Wales; Rt. Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain, the only commoner in the order, and the Duke of Connaught, probably the oldest member, All 36 members are expected to attend the brilliant ceremony of the most famous of chivalric orders.

The natural history of epidemics continues to engage attention, and Professor Topley's experiments BELGIAN BANK OPENS with colonies of mice are being continued. His achievement has made it possible to study epidemics In human communities from a new angle, and work is proceeding. Incidentally, the use of diphtherin toxin has been further investi- gated.

STUDY OF INFLUENZA

The study of influenza has been helped by the fact that mice as

LEADING FINANCIERS AT MANAGER'S RECEPTION The opening in Hongkong of a the Banque Beige pour branch of

Etranger was market by n gather ing of lending bankers and brokers! at No. 4A, Des Voeux Rond on Satur day, when the manager, M., Maurico Pirenne. held a reception at the Bank's

The

Bulge pour l'Etranger of the Societe Generni

well as ferrete can now be infected is up

Fes. 200,000,000 and a reserve of Belg. Fea. 130,000,000. It is known chiefly in the Orient in connection with the nancing of the Peiping-Hankow and the Lunghai railways.

with the disease. "The availa de Belgique, the oldest bank in bility of a second susceptible Belgium, and has a capital of Bolk. species," It is stated, "and especi- ally one so convenient for the pur

the pose as the mouse, extends possibilities of experiment and will be of great practical help in the work. It has already been shown that the disease can be transmitted not only from ferret to mouse, but also from mouse to mouse, and from mouse back to forret; the direct infection of mou-gestive in that, on the biological se from man has not yet heen side, some resemblance may per- attempted."

It fe parenthetically stated that the method of transmission is of crucial importance, and there in no evidence of natural spread of the disease from the infected rice to others living in contact with them. "Further," proceeds the report, it has been found that the infection can be neutralized for the mouse by the serum of a ferret recovered from the disease and subsequently rendered hyper-im- muno by repeated administration of virus. Thus, mice inoculated with mixtures of the virus and the serum do not contract the disease, while controls receiving virus alone regularly. do so. Cultural and filtration experiments have confirmed that the mouse disease is duo to дл ultra-microsepoic organism."

Clone touch had been maintain ed with the American workers on "hog influenza." A parallel serica of experiments with swine virus gives results closely similar to those obtained with the virus of human origin-as regards infection of the ferret and mouse, as regards immunity, and as regards filtra- tion so that the two viruses were certinly intimafely related. Com- menting on the progress of the investigations as a whole, the report states:-

The first branch in the Ene East was that opened in Shanghai in 1906, followed by braches at Tientsin in

1900 and Hankow In 1921.

•

-

cancer are

haps be traced between the cell to the sex multiplication due hormone and the early singes of That is not malignant growth. to say that substances normally capable of causing netically derived from the hormone the apparent in the body, but relation between the two activites

clue of A

im- Obvious offers Portance which may lend in some new direction."

The report states that investigation is now in progress accidents. dealing with motor From a statistical examination of road accident records of the

of omnibus and four groups Private drivers, totalling 2,004 persone, it had been shown that in each group certain individuals were more liable to accidents than others. That held true for All those for accidents, including which the driver was not held to blame.

ac-

REDUCING ACCIDENTS. From a more intensive examin- ation of a group of 179 of these motor drivers it was found that those who sustained 411 undue number of one kind of road cident tended to sustain an undue number of other kinds of rond accident; that those who sustain- ed an unique number of accidents in one period tended to do so in "It is to be emphasized, how subsequent periods; and that the over, that the work does not give elimination (on "raper) of those any immediate prospect of who sustained an undue number practical applications to the con- of accidents in an initial period of trol of human influenza. What-exposure reduced the accident rate ever else may ultimately result shown by the remainder of the from this work. 4 much clearer group in the subsequent period, understanding of the disease may "As regards practical applien- at least be confidently expected; [tion." It is stated, "there are two in particular, it is likely to ways of preventing the accident- facilitate the distinction between prone from ongaging in specially true eqidemic influenza and the dangerous occupations. First, by many other conditions to which appropriate tests that will deter- the name is at present loosely mine beforehand who are applied."

likely to sustain accidents; second- CANCER and Sex Hormones ly, by removing those who in an

initial peridd of exposure sustafir: The apparent relation between an undue number of accidents."*| the substances normally capable Means would appear to be al

most

of causing cancer and sex ready available for giving trial hormones la discussed in the re- to this method, of accident

pre- port. The advance in understand-vention on a large scale. The. ing of the physiologien actions of records of insuranco companies SOX hormones. had been ac presumably contained all the companied by EL growth in material necessary for preparing knowledges of their chemical | tables which would give the aver nature.

age accident rate of different) "Work by Dr. J. W. Cook and classes of drivers, while a Professor E. C. Dodds at the parison of the records of drivers Cancer Hospital and Middlesex in two successive periods would Hospital, London," it is stated, provide the opportunity for a "has another important field. paper trial of the effect of re- Cortain compounds which are moving the small minority whose potent agents in the production contribution to the total number) of experimental tumours are close- of accidents la out of all propor- ly allied in chemical constitution tion.

com-

to the group of physiological "Tho novelty of the method," substancos Just mentioned. atatos the roport, "as compared Synthetic compounds of this typą, | with judiclal 'disqualification in It is stated, have indeed been pro- isolated cases as at present, lièg pared which possess the power in the fact that it makes use of both of inducing tumour growth

and of sex excitement.

This finding is the more aug

On Pacific island two miles long and one mile wide, the world's greatest eugenics'experiment is laking place. Out of two races, a third rate is being barn.

One hundred and forty-six years ago a mutineer look-out man on the commandeered British ship, Bounty, set up a shout of "Land ho." Fletcher Christian, lieutenant in the navy of George 111, led his men ashore on to the semi-tropical paradise that was named Pitcairn Island, There were nino English- men and twelve Tahitian women

From this group there have been 1,000 descendants, most of whom have migrated to other islands. The remaining 200 Rve an idyllic simple life close to nature on Pitcairn Island. They have become closely inbred throughout the years and everyone on the Island is related and at least a cousin. The inbreading has done no observable harm. A new white race is being evolved from the fusion of the white race and the Polynesian. The offspring are healthy and happy folk, bright and intelligent. They speak a mixture of English and Tahitian.

Head of the island's semi-communistic government is Parkin Christian (Inzet above) greatgrand. son of the founder.

The pictures were taken by the Templeton Crocker-American Museum Pacific expedition on the two masted schooner Zack. They show (top), three large row boats at the landing place in Bounty Bay. They are the common property of the community and are well filled when they go out to grest the seldom-anchored visiting mail ships. (Lower right), women and children of the island sitting on benches near the town hall."

Information provided by minor The Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company raceatly arranged this engine parade of the different types of

locomotives through the years. Loft, the "Tom Thumb" from 1829, right, the 1935 high-speed·locomotive.

accidents, and that it is dissociated

from any question of blame."

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