50 Years Ago

Natural History of Infectious Diseases. By Sir MacFarlane Burnet — It is a pleasure to review this, the third edition, of such a well-known work, which now presents an up-to-date account of the ramifications of an important subject ... Throughout it adopts a Darwinian attitude, often overstepping the realms of human pathology into all kinds of unexpected avenues ... In its ambit it presents a picture of the ravages by bacteria, protozoa and viruses ... He discredits the practical value of antityphoid inoculation and would rather attribute the favourable results obtained to military sanitation ... The readers will find here important information about such diverse subjects as myxomatosis in rabbits, the common cold, plague, German measles, poliomyelitis, the sweating sickness of the Middle Ages and Q. fever (from personal experience). An epilogue on new diseases and the rather bleak outlook for the future finds the author in a gloomy mood in an appraisal of bacteriological warfare.

From Nature 8 December 1962

100 Years Ago

Mr. E. G. Bryant ... asks a question regarding the effect of moonlight in “turning” fish. I have lived many years in South Africa, and have encountered the same belief, that moonlight will hasten the turning bad of fish ... It seems curious, at first sight, that moonlight, which has so little effect on meteorological instruments, should have this effect on fish. I have thought it probably due to insects or some low form of life which would be abroad, or be stimulated to action, on moonlit nights and not on dark nights. The action of moonlight in stimulating the rise of sap in trees is widely believed in by practical wood cutters in almost every quarter of the world.

From Nature 5 December 1912