100 YEARS AGO

An interesting pamphlet upon the temperance question, from the pen of Dr Archdall Reid, has just reached us. ⃛ According to Dr Reid the longer a race has had alcohol, and the easier and more abundant the supply, the more sober it is. For instance, the grape-growing southern Europeans are at the present time more sober than the races of northern Europe, where alcohol is more difficult to obtain, although formerly they were quite as drunken. ⃛ According to Dr Reid this diminution of the craving for alcohol has been produced by the action of natural selection working in the presence of an abundant supply of the harmful substance in question. Any cause which reduces the supply of alcohol, or in any way increases the difficulty of obtaining it, in that it hampers the action of natural selection, tends to perpetuate drunkenness ⃛. This truly dreadful picture of the world, or rather all races not yet immune becoming “thoroughly drunken before they can hope to become thoroughly sober,” can, to some extent, be mitigated by artificial selection. The innate drunkard, when found out by letting everybody have free access to alcohol, must be treated as a lunatic, and above all not be allowed to procreate. By this means the alcohol tainted “germ plasm” will finally be eliminated, and the race will become immune to alcohol.

From Nature 10November 1898.

50 YEARS AGO

A dytiscid beetle which fell about three feet off the laboratory bench to the floor of the old malaria Bureau, Kuala Lumpur, displayed a unique type of bioluminescence. The beetle appeared to emit bright flashes of white light, three or four at a time, from its eyes. The fluorescent type of bioluminescence is invisible even in weak light; but these flashes were conspicuous in competition with the light from a fairly bright electric bulb on the laboratory bench. ⃛ Mr Williamson tentatively suggests that the flashes from the beetle's eyes were caused by the reversal of the normal process of vision, energy in the form of light having been emitted instead of being absorbed by retinal pigment, as the result of intermittent outwardly directed nervous impulses due to shock.

From Nature 13 November 1948.