- Email: [email protected]
DEATH OF SIR EDWARD FRANKLAND.
501
physiological chemistry. In the former domain his experiments with Tyndall on the effect of high altitudes or diminished THE name of Sir Edward Frankland has during recent pressure upon flame, supported by subsequent experiments. years been so closely identified with the important question made in the laboratory, led him to the conclusions that of the purity of the metropolitan water-supply that his light was not always due to solid particles, since. these immense services to theoretical chemistry may possibly have were absent in many luminous flames, and that incanIt is indeed difficult to estimate the descence was due largely to density, luminosity increasing been overlooked. DEATH OF SIR EDWARD FRANKLAND.
the "fifties"" in bearing upon our present knowledge of the architecture of chemical compounds. Only those who have studied the history of chemistry closely can appreciate the fruit of Frankland’s labours, but the community should know that Frankland’s work has been largely responsible for placing this country in the high scientific position which it holds as a nation that has contributed more than any other to chemical knowledge and to the application of that knowledge to industrial pursuits. The death of Sir Edward Frankland, which took place on August 9th in Norway, removes in a word one of the most distinguished chemists of the time and one of the very few remaining who have had the privilege of almost witnessing the birth of chemistry as an exact science and its growth to the maturity of the present day. Frankland’s merit (such was his retiring disposition) was scantily recognised by his contemporaries and some even accredited themselves with having conceived certain doctrines in regard to the atomicity of the elements which were undoubtedly due to Frankland. His discovery of those curious compounds, metallic methyls and ethyls, placed him on pretty sure ground His later researches confor initiating this theory. firmed the idea which he had conceived and it was in 1852 that he announced before the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow in the following year, the doctrine of atomicity or the equivalence of the elements. In this monumental piece of original research he was with the famous chemist Kolbe, under whom he studied in Germany after a close association with the work of Liebig and Bunsen in the classic laboratories of Giessen and Martmrg. After such excellent training he left Germany and filled successively the chairs of chemistry in the Owens College, Manchester, and in the Royal School of Mines, London. He occupied the chair of chemistry also at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and was Faraday lecturer at the Royal Institution. He relinquished purely academic work an 1885 to take up seriously the question of the quality of the London water-supply, a matter in which his interest had been aroused as a member of the second Royal Commission On that occasion the Governon the Pollution of Rivers. ment provided him with a finely equipped laboratory in which the chemical qualities of water from various geo-. logical strata and from different sources of supply, the possibility of rendering water pure for domestic purposes, the propagation of disease by drinking water, the influence of hard water on health, the deterioration of water in mains and service pipes, and the quality of the London watersupply derived from the Thames received careful study and investigation. This work was begun before bacteriology became a science and before the specific organisms of water-borne diseases had been recognised. Frankland soon realised the importance of bacteriological discoveries in relation to water-supply and he has contributed in no small measure to our knowledge of the conditions under which the filter beds work best. From that time onward he was almost exclusively - engaged as the Official Examiner to the Local Government Board of the Metropolitan Water-Supply. With .great pains he elaborated, in association with Professor Armstrong, the somewhat tedious though extremely accurate - combustion process for the estimation of organic carbon and nitrogen in water residues. Frankland was also an investigator in the field of physical chemistry as well as
value their
of
Frankland’s
researches
in
with pressure.
In the latter domain he
participated
in
experiments on the relation of work to diet, showing that a large proportion of muscular force was due to the oxidation of non-nitrogenous substances. Sir Edward Frankland had bestowed upon him the degree of D.C.L. in 1873 by Oxford University and the degree of LL.D. in 1884 by Edinburgh University. His services to science were fittingly recognised by Her Majesty in 1897 when the honour of some
The scientific world will was conferred upon him. a brilliant the loss of mourn investigator and of one who his time to the furtherance of our devoted unselfishly of matter as well as to of the constitution knowledge and the present generation health questions, great public and those to come will recognise that his work bore abundant fruit. Sir Edward Frankland was born in 1825, so that at the time of his death he was 74 years of age.
K.C.B.
THE EXERCISE TREATMENT IN TABES DORSALIS. DR. ALFRED WIENER, Adjunct Professor of Nervous Diseases in the New York Policlinic, writes strongly of the value of what he calls compensatory gymnastics for the relief of ataxia in cases of tabes dorsalis. He thinks that in these exercises a method of treatment has been discovered by means of which ataxic patients can be so greatly benefited that they apparently recover their normal gait. He has been trying the system for some months past and has purposely chosen very severe casesHe gives the particulars of three of 10 in number. these in his paper read before the Section of Neurology and Psychiatry of the New York Academy of Medicine and published in the New York llledical Record of July 22nd, 1899. The ataxia in all was severe and associated with other symptoms of tabes which, however, he does not give in detail. This treatment has been chiefly worked out by Fraenkel of Weiden, Switzerland. But Dr. Wiener has not, like Fraenkel, employed any complicated apparatus, but only such means as may be found in any physician’s house or may be obtained or constructed by the patient himself. It is advisable in all severe cases to teach the patient to perform the various exercises on his back, at first with his eyes open and afterwards with his eyes shut. Each case will suggest to the physician the kinds of movement needed. When the patient has become an adept at performing movements in the recumbent posture he is to be got into a chair and taught to perform the various exercises prescribed for him. When this has been accomplished the third stage of exercise treatment has been reached-the patient learns to stand and walk and to perform difficult and complicated movements. The treatment of all cases begins in bed. Body and mind are strengthened by hydro-therapeutic procedures, diet, and general therapeutics. Monotony of exercise and movements is to be avoided. All has to be explained to the patient and he is to be encouraged to recognise improvements in his powers. Dr. Wiener is careful to point out that the treatment is in accordance with the pathology of tabes. There is no object of strengthening muscles, seeing that in pure tabes there is no paralysis, atrophy, or other muscular fault. The treatment consists in systematic exercise practised for the purpose of helping those patients to coordinate properly, to overcome their uncertainty, and to gain confidence in themselves. He endeavours to explain the good effect of the exercise treatment of tabes on the theory of the sensory
physiological chemistry. In the former domain his experiments with Tyndall on the effect of high altitudes or diminished THE name of Sir Edward Frankland has during recent pressure upon flame, supported by subsequent experiments. years been so closely identified with the important question made in the laboratory, led him to the conclusions that of the purity of the metropolitan water-supply that his light was not always due to solid particles, since. these immense services to theoretical chemistry may possibly have were absent in many luminous flames, and that incanIt is indeed difficult to estimate the descence was due largely to density, luminosity increasing been overlooked. DEATH OF SIR EDWARD FRANKLAND.
the "fifties"" in bearing upon our present knowledge of the architecture of chemical compounds. Only those who have studied the history of chemistry closely can appreciate the fruit of Frankland’s labours, but the community should know that Frankland’s work has been largely responsible for placing this country in the high scientific position which it holds as a nation that has contributed more than any other to chemical knowledge and to the application of that knowledge to industrial pursuits. The death of Sir Edward Frankland, which took place on August 9th in Norway, removes in a word one of the most distinguished chemists of the time and one of the very few remaining who have had the privilege of almost witnessing the birth of chemistry as an exact science and its growth to the maturity of the present day. Frankland’s merit (such was his retiring disposition) was scantily recognised by his contemporaries and some even accredited themselves with having conceived certain doctrines in regard to the atomicity of the elements which were undoubtedly due to Frankland. His discovery of those curious compounds, metallic methyls and ethyls, placed him on pretty sure ground His later researches confor initiating this theory. firmed the idea which he had conceived and it was in 1852 that he announced before the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow in the following year, the doctrine of atomicity or the equivalence of the elements. In this monumental piece of original research he was with the famous chemist Kolbe, under whom he studied in Germany after a close association with the work of Liebig and Bunsen in the classic laboratories of Giessen and Martmrg. After such excellent training he left Germany and filled successively the chairs of chemistry in the Owens College, Manchester, and in the Royal School of Mines, London. He occupied the chair of chemistry also at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and was Faraday lecturer at the Royal Institution. He relinquished purely academic work an 1885 to take up seriously the question of the quality of the London water-supply, a matter in which his interest had been aroused as a member of the second Royal Commission On that occasion the Governon the Pollution of Rivers. ment provided him with a finely equipped laboratory in which the chemical qualities of water from various geo-. logical strata and from different sources of supply, the possibility of rendering water pure for domestic purposes, the propagation of disease by drinking water, the influence of hard water on health, the deterioration of water in mains and service pipes, and the quality of the London watersupply derived from the Thames received careful study and investigation. This work was begun before bacteriology became a science and before the specific organisms of water-borne diseases had been recognised. Frankland soon realised the importance of bacteriological discoveries in relation to water-supply and he has contributed in no small measure to our knowledge of the conditions under which the filter beds work best. From that time onward he was almost exclusively - engaged as the Official Examiner to the Local Government Board of the Metropolitan Water-Supply. With .great pains he elaborated, in association with Professor Armstrong, the somewhat tedious though extremely accurate - combustion process for the estimation of organic carbon and nitrogen in water residues. Frankland was also an investigator in the field of physical chemistry as well as
value their
of
Frankland’s
researches
in
with pressure.
In the latter domain he
participated
in
experiments on the relation of work to diet, showing that a large proportion of muscular force was due to the oxidation of non-nitrogenous substances. Sir Edward Frankland had bestowed upon him the degree of D.C.L. in 1873 by Oxford University and the degree of LL.D. in 1884 by Edinburgh University. His services to science were fittingly recognised by Her Majesty in 1897 when the honour of some
The scientific world will was conferred upon him. a brilliant the loss of mourn investigator and of one who his time to the furtherance of our devoted unselfishly of matter as well as to of the constitution knowledge and the present generation health questions, great public and those to come will recognise that his work bore abundant fruit. Sir Edward Frankland was born in 1825, so that at the time of his death he was 74 years of age.
K.C.B.
THE EXERCISE TREATMENT IN TABES DORSALIS. DR. ALFRED WIENER, Adjunct Professor of Nervous Diseases in the New York Policlinic, writes strongly of the value of what he calls compensatory gymnastics for the relief of ataxia in cases of tabes dorsalis. He thinks that in these exercises a method of treatment has been discovered by means of which ataxic patients can be so greatly benefited that they apparently recover their normal gait. He has been trying the system for some months past and has purposely chosen very severe casesHe gives the particulars of three of 10 in number. these in his paper read before the Section of Neurology and Psychiatry of the New York Academy of Medicine and published in the New York llledical Record of July 22nd, 1899. The ataxia in all was severe and associated with other symptoms of tabes which, however, he does not give in detail. This treatment has been chiefly worked out by Fraenkel of Weiden, Switzerland. But Dr. Wiener has not, like Fraenkel, employed any complicated apparatus, but only such means as may be found in any physician’s house or may be obtained or constructed by the patient himself. It is advisable in all severe cases to teach the patient to perform the various exercises on his back, at first with his eyes open and afterwards with his eyes shut. Each case will suggest to the physician the kinds of movement needed. When the patient has become an adept at performing movements in the recumbent posture he is to be got into a chair and taught to perform the various exercises prescribed for him. When this has been accomplished the third stage of exercise treatment has been reached-the patient learns to stand and walk and to perform difficult and complicated movements. The treatment of all cases begins in bed. Body and mind are strengthened by hydro-therapeutic procedures, diet, and general therapeutics. Monotony of exercise and movements is to be avoided. All has to be explained to the patient and he is to be encouraged to recognise improvements in his powers. Dr. Wiener is careful to point out that the treatment is in accordance with the pathology of tabes. There is no object of strengthening muscles, seeing that in pure tabes there is no paralysis, atrophy, or other muscular fault. The treatment consists in systematic exercise practised for the purpose of helping those patients to coordinate properly, to overcome their uncertainty, and to gain confidence in themselves. He endeavours to explain the good effect of the exercise treatment of tabes on the theory of the sensory