100 YEARS AGO

A few examples of the practical application of scientific education in Germany are given in the Journal of the Society of Arts. The sugar industry is the first illustration of the progress of industry through science. In 1840, 154,000 tons of beetroot were crushed, from which 8000 tons of raw sugar were produced, showing about 5½ per cent. of raw sugar extracted from the root. Twenty years later, 1,500,000 tons were treated which produced 128,000 tons of sugar, or about 8 per cent. Last year about 12,000,000 tons were crushed, which produced 1,500,000 tons of raw sugar, raising the percentage to 13. This advance is due entirely to scientific treatment. The production of dry colours, chemicals and dyes in Germany shows a corresponding increase in production and dividend-paying capacity... A great advance has also been made in the scientific instrument industry. The value of the exports from Germany of scientific instruments in the year 1898 was about 250,000l. — three times what it was in 1888 — and the work gave employment to 14,000 people.

From Nature 10 July 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

The Mitotic Cycle. By Dr. Arthur Hughes.

It is rightly emphasized on the dust-cover of this valuable monograph that the process of cell division presents one of the most difficult problems the experimental biologist has yet attempted to solve, and if this present account of the mitotic cycle is not an easily flowing and well-balanced narrative, the reflexion is not on the author but on the present state of our knowledge of the subject. There is a large and widely scattered literature of unequal relevance and of uneven quality. The lines of advance have been largely dictated by considerations of the materials and techniques available, and a strong medical bias is also evident. Thus we now have an extensive knowledge of the early cleavage of a certain few eggs, of the growth in culture media of a certain few tissues, of the methods of induction of cancerous growths, and of the methods of mitotic inhibition by a multitude of diverse substances. The obvious questions posed by the mitotic activity of normal animal and plant tissues have been almost entirely neglected, although very recently a start has been made towards their solution.

From Nature 12 July 1952.