100 YEARS AGO

The New York correspondent of the Lancet states that the Chicago Board of Education has established a department called “Child-study and Pedagogic Investigation”. The examination is undertaken for the purpose of determining the mental and physical status of the school-children. Examinations were at first limited to the determination in each pupil of the following points: Height, height sitting, weight, ergograph work, strength of grip right and left, hearing right and left, and acuity of vision. In addition to this, obvious developmental defects have been noted. The number of children examined down to the present time is 5636. The conclusions thus far reached are that there is a physical basis of precocity, that dull children are lighter and precocious children heavier than the average child, and that mediocrity of mind is associated with mediocrity of physique… This is the first instance of a municipal board in America appropriating money for research work, and its effect may be far-reaching.

From Nature 11 October 1900.

50 YEARS AGO

There has probably never been a time in the history of the oil industry when 'petrol', to use the colloquial term, has engaged so forcibly public attention in Great Britain and elsewhere. Once rationing is imposed on any commodity which has been taken for granted, as up to 1939 petrol certainly was and likewise food (water has always been), there is solid basis for the ordinarily complacent citizen to know the reason why and to bestir himself to the facts. Even to keep a ration going for vital needs in time of emergency and stress is a formidable task; had it not been for amazing advances in technique of producing motor fuels by processes developed during the Second World War and afterwards, one wonders whether, indeed, economic factors aside, the petrol ration would not be with us in Britain and in Europe generally for years to come. The explanation of these advances is, of course, highly technical; it rests on the extraordinary rate of evolution in refinery procedure during the past decade and on conversion of petroleum in the more or less raw state into motor fuels by specialized thermal and catalytic processes. Dr. A. N. Sachanen devotes his large book to this complex subject and to the technologist.

From Nature 14 October 1950.