Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Mining, Accidents, Bacteriology, Disease, Sanitation, Imagination

    Reports a 'frightful colliery explosion in South Wales, which cost the lives of some 250 miners', although acknowledging that 'in coal mines there exist a certain number of explosive elements. Against these we must take such precautions as science and experience suggest, but it seems to be only too certain that what ever we do there are sure to be flaws now and then, and [...] colliery explosions, will occasionally take place'. Indeed, the actual 'miners regard the risk of explosion' with a creditably 'vigilant nonchalance' and 'cool-headedness'. (7) Following the murder of the French president Marie F S Carnot Carnot, Marie François Sadi (1837–94) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> by an Italian anarchist, suggests that the 'risk that rulers run from the microbe of assassination is increasing, but it is still comparatively infinitesimal compared with the risk they face unconcernedly from the microbe bred in the sewers. If anyone doubt it, let him ask any insurance office the difference between the premium which they would charge for insuring M. Casimir-Périer Casmir-Périer, Jean Pierre Paul (1847–1907) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> [the new president] against assassination and against zymotic disease. Assassination impresses the imagination more than typhoid fever, but it is not half so deadly' (9).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Kenealy [1893], Kenealy, Arabella [1893]. Dr. Janet of Harley Street, London: Digby & Long
Close   View the register entry >> [Brooke] 1894 [Brooke, Emma Frances] 1894. A Superfluous Woman: A Novel, 3 vols, London: William Heinemann
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Subjects:

Gender, Physiology, Vitalism, Heredity, Sex, Disease, Degeneration

    Explains that Arabella Kenealy's Kenealy, Arabella Madonna (1858–1938) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> new novel argues 'with the maternal instincts of her sex, reinforced by the studies of a physiologist, that it [is] a grave mistake for women who hope some day to be mothers, to spend in study or labour the physical and nervous vitality which should be stored up as a kind of natural banking account to the credit of their children. Every woman [...] who uses up her natural vitality in a profession or business, or in study, will bear feeble, rickety children, and is in fact spending her infant's inheritance on herself. Mrs. Fawcett's Fawcett, Dame Millicent Garrett (1847–1929) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> portrait gallery of infants born by Newnham Newnham College, Cambridge
Close   View the register entry >> and Girton Girton College, Cambridge
Close   View the register entry >> graduates may be quoted on the other side, but that does not prove Dr. Kenealy is wrong' (67). Another recent novel, written anonymously by Emma F Brooke Brooke, Emma Frances (pseud E Fairfax Byrrne) (1844–1926) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, features a woman who is 'doomed to experience the horror of becoming a mother of a syphilitic child by a reprobate husband', allowing herself 'with her eyes open, to become particeps criminis in this mutual outrage on posterity' and 'the agent for the perpetuation of a scrofulous and degenerated stock' (68).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Lang 1894 Lang, Andrew 1894. Cock Lane and Common-Sense, New York and London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
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Subjects:

Spiritualism, Psychical Research

    Commends Andrew Lang Lang, Andrew (1844–1912) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> for having 'sufficient of the sixth sense to see that there is more in Borderland Borderland (1893–97) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >> than is the fashion among most men of his set' (75).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Zola 1894 Zola, Émile 1894. Lourdes, Trois villes [no. 1], Paris: G. Charpentier et E. Fasquelle
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Subjects:

Psychical Research, Miracle, Christianity

    Remarks that the 'Psychical Research Society Society for Psychical Research
Close   View the register entry >> recently published a report Myers, Frederick William Henry 1893. 'The Subliminal Consciousness', Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 9, 3–128
Close   View the register entry >> on the reported cures at Lourdes, arriving at a somewhat negative or Podmorian conclusion. But as they would arrive at exactly the same conclusions concerning the miracles recorded in Holy Writ, the faithful take little stock in the conclusions of Mr. Podmore Podmore, Frank (1856–1910) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>' (186).

Genre:

Editorial

Subjects:

Specialization, Publishing, Science Communication, Periodicals, Societies

Publications cited:

Blake 1891–94, Blake, John Frederick ed. 1891–94. Annals of British Geology: A Digest of the Books and Papers Published During the Year; With Occasional Notes, 4 vols, London: Dulau and Co.
Close   View the register entry >> Official Year-Book of the Scientific and Learned Societies of Great Britain and Ireland, Official Year-Book of the Scientific and Learned Societies of Great Britain and Ireland (1884–1900+) Waterloo Directory
Close   View the register entry >> Index Medicus Index Medicus: A Quarterly Classified Record of the Current Medical Literature of the World (1879–99) Bibliographica Medica (1899–1902) Index Medicus (1902+) BUCOP
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    Reports that 'Scientific workers are complaining of the ever-increasing difficulty of keeping abreast of current scientific literature, even the literature of one particular science. As Dr. Armstrong Armstrong, Henry Edward (1848–1937) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> said, in a recent address to the Chemical Society Chemical Society
Close   View the register entry >>, even the specialist can never be certain that some one whom he had never heard of had years before thought his thoughts, made his experiments, and arrived at his conclusions. Yet no one has invented a Scientific Review of Reviews, and those devoted to science are compelled to make shift as best they may with such Year-Books and "Transactions" of societies as are published from time to time'. Surveys the inadequate attempts that have been made to provide an index of scientific work, noting that the 'Catalogue RSCSP: Catalogue of Scientific Papers (1800-1900). Compiled and published by the Royal Society of London, 19 vols, London: Royal Society of London; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1867–1925
Close   View the register entry >> of the Royal Society Royal Society of London
Close   View the register entry >>, too, must have turned out very incomplete and unsatisfactory, judging by the circular letter of March 22, 1894, on the question of an International Catalogue of Scientific Publications
Close   View the register entry >>, stating that the Society had appointed a committee to inquire into and report upon its feasibility through international co-operation, and that the proposed new catalogue would not commence till January 1, 1900'.

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

photo.

Subjects:

Christianity, Military Technology, War, Aeronautics, Anti-Scientism, Sociology, Institutions

    Reflects that it is 'Christendom that is perfecting its instruments of slaughter, building pneumatic guns which will hurl heavy charges of dynamite a couple of miles, and that is perfecting the Maxim Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens (1840–1916) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> flying machine, which is to extend the area of slaughter, already coterminous with earth and sea, to the air above' (212). Records that Oxford has 'welcomed the British Association British Association for the Advancement of Science
Close   View the register entry >> to its ancient halls. Lord Salisbury Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, as Chancellor of the University University of Oxford
Close   View the register entry >> and President for the year, delivered the inaugural, which, as is usual with him, had as its sub note the old refrain of the vanity of all things human [....] what do we know?—next to nothing, and we do not even know that;—is no doubt a good doctrine to preach to those wiseacres who are puffed up with their own conceit as with the east wind' (220). Comments that 'talking of Holiday Parliaments, has the time not fully come for reviving the Social Science Congress Social Science Congress
Close   View the register entry >> on a new, extended, and more practical scale? It was odd that it should have expired just when public interest in sociology began to be so widespread and intense' (220–21).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Lydekker 1893[–96], Lydekker, Richard, ed. 1893–96. The Royal Natural History, with pref. by P. L. Sclater, 6 vols, London and New York: Frederick Warne
Close   View the register entry >> Sharpe 1894[–97], Sharpe, Richard Bowdler 1894–97. A Hand-Book to the Birds of Great Britain, Allen's Naturalist's Library, 4 vols, London: Allen
Close   View the register entry >> Macpherson, Stuart-Wortley and Saintsbury 1894, Macpherson, Hugh Alexander, Stuart-Wortley, Archibald John and Saintsbury, George Edward Bateman 1894. The Grouse: Natural History; Shooting; Cookery, Fur and Feather Series, London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Close   View the register entry >> Huxley 1894 Huxley, Thomas Henry 1894. Evolution & Ethics and Other Essays, Collected Essays by T. H. Huxley (The Eversley Series) 9, London: Macmillan & Co.
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Subjects:

Monographs, Publishing, Natural History, Ornithology, Hunting, Evolution, Ethics

    Comments that 'Mr. A. E. T. Watson's Watson, Alfred Edward Thomas (1849–1922) WBI
Close   View the register entry >> Fur and Feather series [...] is by no means purely scientific. The programme of his series embraces not only the natural history, but the shooting and cooking of the animals described [....] This series is an odd idea, but it is well carried out, and the volumes should be useful' (285).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Disease, Discovery, Medical Treatment, Vaccination

    Reports that at 'the International Health Congress International Health Congress (1894), Budapest
Close   View the register entry >>, which has been sitting at Buda-Pesth, considerable excitement was occasioned by the announcement of a cure for diphtheria, which is at present one of the most unmanageable of diseases. By this method it is brought under control by inoculating the patient with serum'. Adds that 'the announcement of the discovery created no small excitement, which was not confined to the medical faculty alone'. (326)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Biography

Relevant illustrations:

photo.

Subjects:

Gender, Vivisection, Experiment, Controversy, Publishing, Darwinism, Descent, Morality

Publications cited:

Cobbe 1894 Cobbe, Frances Power 1894. Life of Frances Power Cobbe: By Herself, 2 vols, London: R. Bentley
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    Notes that Frances P Cobbe's Cobbe, Frances Power (1822–1904) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> 'campaign against vivisection has lasted many times the duration of the siege of Troy', and portrays her as 'the paladin and knight-errant of dumb creatures' (329). The campaign began in 1863 when 'her attention was drawn to the diabolical tortures inflicted by the vivisectionists of the Continent upon helpless animals, not for purposes of research, but solely for purposes of demonstration and experiment' (334). Suggests that 'Some idea may be formed of the activity with which Miss Cobbe has prosecuted this campaign from the fact that in the six years ending November, 1892, no fewer than 320 books, pamphlets and leaflets were issued by the Victoria Street Society Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection
Close   View the register entry >>, of which 271,351 copies were printed. Miss Cobbe wrote 173 of these papers herself' (335). Also observes that 'Darwin's Darwin, Charles Robert (1809–82) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> "Descent of Man" Darwin, Charles Robert 1871a. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, London: John Murray
Close   View the register entry >>, with its theory of the nature and origin of Sense, seems to her of absolutely fateful import, but she did not quarrel with him until he became a chief priest of the vivisectors' (337).