100 YEARS AGO

Only a few decades ago the real nature of tuberculosis was unknown to us: it was regarded as a consequence, as the expression, so to speak, of social misery, and, as this supposed cause could not be got rid of by simple means, people relied on the probable gradual improvement of social conditions, and did nothing. All this is altered now. We know that social misery does indeed go far to foster tuberculosis, but the real cause of the disease is a parasite — that is, a visible and palpable enemy, which we can pursue and annihilate... Such a conflict requires the cooperation of many, if possible of all, medical men, shoulder to shoulder with the State and the whole population; but now the moment when such cooperation is possible seems to have come... If we are continually guided in this enterprise by the spirit of genuine preventive medical science, if we utilise the experience gained in conflict with other pestilences, and aim, with clear recognition of the purpose and resolute avoidance of wrong roads, at striking the evil at its root, then the battle against tuberculosis, which has been so energetically begun, cannot fail to have a victorious issue.

Robert Koch From Nature 25 July 1901.

50 YEARS AGO

The year 1950 was a good one for studying the movements of swifts (Apus apus), and during the year the movements of forty thousand birds were recorded: a report on the observations has been made by H. G. Hurrell and recently described in British Birds (44, No. 5; May 1951)... Swifts appear to penetrate the country from the south and work northwards. Arrivals over many years average a day or two earlier in the south than in the south-east. The east coast as a rule is reached rather late and usually in such small numbers that there is little to indicate any spring passage of swifts from the British Isles to other countries. It is difficult to say when the arrival period ends because movements which have a migratory appearance may take place at any time while swifts are in Britain. Large movements occur in June and early July. These are thought to be undertaken because unfavourable weather forces the swift to seek regions with more adequate food supplies; the food of the swift is adversely affected by the passage of a cyclone or depression.

From Nature 28 July 1951.