Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Transport, Machinery, Technology, Railways, Agriculture, Government

    Reports that the 'Light Railways Bill and the measure legalising the use of motor carriages on highways, both of which will be passed into law this month, are two measures which will probably have much greater influence upon the prosperity of our rural districts than the Agricultural Rating Bill' (109).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Cornish 1896, Cornish, Charles John 1896. Animals at Work and Play: Their Activities and Emotions, London: Seeley & Co.
Close   View the register entry >> Lubbock 1896, Lubbock, John 1896. The Scenery of Switzerland and the Causes to Which It is Due, London: Macmillan & Co.
Close   View the register entry >> Lydekker 1896 Lydekker, Richard 1896. A Geographical History of Mammals, Cambridge Geographical Series, Cambridge: at the University Press
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Subjects:

Natural History, Animal Behaviour, Geology, Glaciology, Biogeography

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Relevant illustrations:

map [2]; eng. [2]

Subjects:

Government, Sex, Hygiene, Public Health, Morality, Imperialism, Sanitation, Imposture, Vaccination, Gender, Crime, Mental Illness, Statistics, Error, Exploration, Physical Geography, Navigation, Heroism, Climatology

Institutions mentioned:

Army Army
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    Responds to 'an unwelcome rumour that the oft defeated medical police are dreaming of utilising the ascendancy of the present [Conservative] Government to restore the C. D. Acts for the benefit of the Indian Army', by maintaining a stern opposition to 'the sacred cause of State-patronised prostitution' (199–200). Although George F Hamilton Hamilton, Lord George Francis (1845–1927) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, the Secretary of State for India, seeks 'by means of cooked statistics to prove that a sanitary millennium will be attained when Her Majesty provides one medically-certified native subject of hers and sisters of ours as the communal wife of each score or hundred soldiers maintained in India', he must come to recognize that '"No Thoroughfare" has been posted up once and for all by the British public across the road which they persist in trying to re-open'. Also reports that the 'zealots of sanitation who would immolate with indifference the principle of liberty and the obligations of morality for the off-chance of an infinitesimal improvement in the mortality returns, have just received a damaging blow from the report Final Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination: Final Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Subject of Vaccination, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Session 1896 [C.8270], 47, 889–1115
Close   View the register entry >> of the Vaccination Commission Royal Commission on Vaccination
Close   View the register entry >>'. The fifteen members of the commission led by Farrer Herschell Herschell, Farrer, 1st Baron Herschell (1837–99) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, 'with never a woman among them, after the usual non-human custom in this country', have, while 'strongly affirming the advantages of vaccination, [...] unanimously condemn[ed] the present practice of sending to gaol parents who have conscientious objections to the vaccinations of their children, or even of subjecting them to fines for non-compliance with the Act'. Observes that the 'Jubilee report Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy: Fiftieth Annual Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord Chancellor, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Session 1896 (304), 39, pt 1, 1–473
Close   View the register entry >> of the Commissioners of Lunacy Commissioners in Lunacy
Close   View the register entry >> records an unprecedented increase in the numbers of officially certified lunatics', although noting that 'Of those not so certified—including, it is to be feared, no small proportion of the officials themselves—no record exists'. Objects that from 'these figures some misleading conclusions have been drawn. It is extremely doubtful whether lunacy is really increasing amongst us. What is increasing is the disposition on the part of poor people to send their insane relatives to an asylum', and this 'decay of irrational prejudice on the part of our poor' is surely an 'indication [...] of increasing sanity' in spite of the official statistics. (200) Also reports the heroic failure of the Arctic expedition of Fridtjof Nansen Nansen, Fridtjof (1861–1930) DSB
Close   View the register entry >>, who 'has done better than any who preceded him. But the North Pole remains to this day undiscovered' (204). Describes the terrible heat wave currently afflicting the eastern half of the United States of America, the 'most trying and disastrous experience of a climatic sort with which the country has been visited in our generation' (206).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Engineering, Steamships, Antiseptics, Surgery, Popularization, Specialization

    Records the 'successful completion of the great engineering undertaking which has freed the Danube from its iron gates. A canal, five miles long, has been blasted out of the rocky bed of the river, rendering it possible for steamers to pass up and down with safety, where formerly the passage could only be made with the utmost difficulty and danger', and comments, 'What would it cost, I wonder, to have similar navigable canals through the cataracts of the Nile?' (293). Also notes that the Liverpool meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science British Association for the Advancement of Science
Close   View the register entry >> 'passed without notable or sensational incident. Sir Joseph Lister Lister, Joseph, 1st Baron Lister (1827–1912) DSB ODNB
Close   View the register entry >>, the president, devoted his address, as was right and natural, to a sketch of the progress made in medicine and surgery by the discovery of antiseptics—a discovery with which his own name is honourably associated. Mr. Flinders Petrie Petrie, Sir (William Matthew) Flinders (1853–1942) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> read a paradoxical paper maintaining that reading and writing, instead of being the great instruments of culture, were responsible for the crippling of the mind'. Also observes that 'the scientific picnic of the year has seldom yielded less amusement for the general public, and one feels more and more the lack of a lucid intelligible survey of the progress of scientific discovery in all fields. Science is so specialised and scientists tend to become such Brahmins that the ignorance of the average man seems likely to become denser the more minutely the field of knowledge is surveyed' (296).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Biography

Subjects:

Sex, Hygiene, Public Health, Morality, Government, Gender, Vivisection, Imperialism

Publications cited:

Butler 1896 Butler, Josephine Elizabeth 1896. Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade, London: Horace Marshall and Son
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    Remarks that the 'whole essence of the C. D. Acts and of the State regulation of prostitution is based upon the belief that womanhood perishes with virginity, unless the marriage ceremony has been performed', and once we 'deny the human nature of any section of the community [...] the door is opened to every excess of cruelty. If they are not human we can crimp them as cod, boil them as lobsters, bleed them slowly to death like calves, vivisect them as guineapigs, or, worse still, we can place them under the control of the police surgeons of prison houses of ill-fame licensed and patronised by the State'. Indeed, one 'enthusiastic French doctor' has suggested that 'all fallen women should be examined surgically every morning, as a kind of family worship to the goddess Hygeia', even though the women 'detest this degrading ordeal'. (300) Also notes that George F Hamilton Hamilton, Lord George Francis (1845–1927) ODNB
Close   View the register entry >> is hoping to 'discover some ingenious method of circumventing the repeatedly declared will of the nation [...] against the application of the hated slave system to the women of India', and reminds the Secretary of State for India of the 'passionate abhorrence the whole iniquity excites in the heart of all that is noblest and best in English womanhood' (306).

Genre:

Editorial

Subjects:

National Efficiency, Government, Declinism, Industry, Technology, Education, Schools

People mentioned:

Andrew Jamieson Jamieson, Andrew (b. 1849) WBI
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    Records the 'alarm that has been created by the ever accumulating evidence of the national peril to which we are exposed by the growth of German and foreign competition', and warns that the 'hare that has gone to sleep while the tortoise is creeping past must wake up. John Bull has been caught napping. The nation must pull itself together, brace its energies, and forge ahead with renewed energy, or it will be left behind' (348). Insists that 'Ignorance is the domestic Turk against whom the popular forces must be turned', and urges reformers to 'concentrate their attention on the question of raising the school age, improving school machinery in the rural districts, and carrying out the recommendations of the Commission Royal Commission on Technical Instruction
Close   View the register entry >> on Technical or, as it ought to be called, Practical Education' (349).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Roth 1896, Roth, Henry Ling 1896. The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo: Based Chiefly on the Mss. of the Late Hugh Brooke Low, Sarawak Governmental Service, 2 vols, London: Truslove & Hanson
Close   View the register entry >> Step 1896, Step, Edward 1896. By the Deep Sea: A Popular Introduction to the Wild Life of the British Shores, London: Jarrold & Sons
Close   View the register entry >> Stacpoole 1896, Stacpoole, Florence 1896. Every-Day Ailments, and How to Treat Them: With Hints on Accidents and Sudden Illnesses, London: Walter Scott
Close   View the register entry >> Gregory 1896 Gregory, William 1896. Animal Magnetism, or, Mesmerism and its Phenomena, 4th edn, London: G. Redway
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Subjects:

Anthropology, Ethnography, Natural History, Medical Treatment, Amateurism, Animal Magnetism, Mesmerism

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Caird 1896, Caird, Alice Mona 1896. Beyond the Pale: An Appeal on Behalf of the Victims of Vivisection, London: William Reeves
Close   View the register entry >> Hirsch 1896 Hirsch, William 1896. Genius and Degeneration: A Psychological Study, London: William Heinemann
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Subjects:

Vivisection, Degeneration, Genius, Mental Illness, Psychology

    Observes that William Hirsch Hirsch, William (fl. 1894–1912) RLIN
Close   View the register entry >> has 'gone over practically the same ground as Dr. Nordau Nordau, Max Simon (originally Südfeld) (1849–1923) CBD
Close   View the register entry >> in "Degeneration" Nordau, Max Simon 1895a. Degeneration, London: Heinemann
Close   View the register entry >>, and comes to an almost diametrically opposite conclusion. Rather more scientific in his method of treatment than the alarmist author of "Conventional Lies of Our Civilization" Nordau, Max Simon 1895b. The Conventional Lies of Our Civilization, London: William Heinemann
Close   View the register entry >>, it is encouraging to find Dr. Hirsch, after going thoroughly into the questions of art and insanity, and the psychology of genius, declaring that in his opinion "mankind is not in 'a black plague of degeneration'"' (471).

Genre:

Regular Feature, Biography

Relevant illustrations:

photo.

Subjects:

Imperialism, Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, Disease, Race, Entomology, Darwinism, Evolution, Population, National Efficiency, Industry, War, Light, Electromagnetism, Ether, Physics, Surgery, Popularization, Supernaturalism, Machinery, Technology, Transport, Invention

Publications cited:

Williams 1896 Williams, Ernest Edwin 1896. "Made in Germany", London: William Heinemann
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    In a review of the main events of the closing year, claims that the rinderpest has killed 'nine-tenths of the hoofed beasts, wild and tame, of the African Continent'. While cattle have been hit particularly badly by the 'subtle contagion', and 'out of 200,000 cattle in Rhodesia it has not left 15,000 alive', 'Nor were swift-footed antelope able to elude the swifter darts of the deadly archer. Three out of five species died like rotten sheep. The others, for some cause not yet discovered, seem to be immune'. (496). Notes that China has presented 'a spectacle of singular interest' in the present year. To 'our Western eyes that huge yellow ant-heap is almost as unknown as if its denizens were a colony of termites', but from 'the midst of that bewildering and multitudinous expanse of indistinguishable human cheese mites' has come Li Hong-Zhang Li Hong-Zhang (1823–1901) CBD
Close   View the register entry >>, who has 'familiarised the West with the personality' of the Chinese mandarin. (499) Observes that it is only through 'the war of extermination which is waged endlessly between the carnivores and the creatures upon which they dine [...] naturalists tell us, that the gazelle maintains its swiftness and symmetry, while the moment the sharp edge of the struggle for existence is dulled, your graceful carrier pigeon develops into an unwieldy Dodo', and comments that there 'seems little prospect at present of evolution Dodowards in a world in which the population daily becomes thicker upon the ground. England for so long has been such an easy first in the field of industry and commerce, that John Bull has been somewhat surly when roused this year to recognise the fact that unless he pulls himself together, there is every likelihood that he will be beaten even in his own markets by the foreigner'. This evolutionary 'combat of nations in Europe has fortunately been confined to industrial warfare', although 'the gates of the Temple of Janus have been by no means shut'. (505) Records that in 'popular science' the year will be 'chiefly famous on account of the discovery of the X rays. Professor Röntgen Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad (1845–1923) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> may or may not have laid the foundation for a revolution in surgical practice, but he has certainly rendered yeoman service in familiarising the public mind with the idea which all previous teaching had failed to do, that there is no reason in the nature of things why we should not be able to see through opaque substances. The X ray has not merely revealed the bones of the hand, it has rendered thinkable to many persons much that has hitherto been regarded as the wild fantasies of occultists'. Also records that 'the removal of the legislative restrictions which have heretofore barred the introduction of motor carriages on public highways has encouraged expectations and stimulated invention, for the fruit of which we shall have to wait until 1897'. (508)

Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Spencer 1893–96, Spencer, Herbert 1893–96. The Principles of Sociology, A System of Synthetic Philosophy 6–8, 3rd edn, rev. and enlarged, 3 vols, London: William and Norgate
Close   View the register entry >> Watkins 1896 Watkins, Morgan George 1896. Gleanings From the Natural History of the Ancients, London: E. Stock
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Subjects:

Sociology, Philosophy, Ancient Authorities, Natural History

    Declares that for many 'the conclusion of Mr. Spencer's Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903) DSB
Close   View the register entry >> life-work will be the most important literary production of the year'. Indeed, his System of Synthetic Philosophy 'has left its mark on its century, and its influence will continue, to whatever degree the conclusions of the Philosophy are accepted in centuries to come, just as long as earnest, reverent, and adequately-equipped research have use and honour among us' (560).

Genre:

Announcement, Editorial

Subjects:

Breeding, Population

    Announces the immediate cessation of the baby exchange system because of concerns over children who might be returned by their adoptive parents.