100 YEARS AGO

A correspondent of the Times directs attention to a supposed cure for the mysterious malady known as mountain sickness. The discoverer of the specific is a Russian topographer named Passtoukhof, who, for some years past, has been making ascents in the Caucasus where he has climbed the Grand Ararat, Mount Kasbek, and Mount Elbruz. At such high altitudes as these it is easy to understand that the question of mountain sickness becomes a serious one, and on more than one occasion M. Passtoukhof has found not only himself, but all the other members of his expedition, completely prostrated by it. On one of these occasions it occurred to him to try the experiment of lighting his spirit lamp and making some tea, which he administered to himself and his companions in an almost boiling condition, with a result that far exceeded his expectations. Almost immediately the more serious symptoms disappeared...

From Nature 27 August 1903.

50 YEARS AGO

Christianity in an Age of Science. The problem of the relation of religion and science is not dead, as we are often told, but has been made obscure because it has become difficult to define the issue clearly... It is one of the many merits of Prof. Coulson's recent book that he is quite clear on what he is talking about... This little book, consisting of three lectures given under the Riddell Memorial foundation, contains more sound sense on the subject than most works five times its size, for it deals with the ultimate issues and keeps to the point. The challenge of the two universes and two systems of knowledge — the scientific and the religious — is always before his mind. He rejects any theory which would vindicate religion by somehow inserting it into the scientific universe, finding a place for it either in the yet unexplored territory or in the incoherences which can be discovered in scientific conclusions. Perhaps he is a little too hard on theologians who find something of interest to them in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, for if determinism breaks down in one part of Nature, it may well be only an appearance, or a useful fiction, elsewhere; but undoubtedly he is splendidly right when he says, “If God is here at all, it must be at the beginning of science and right through it”.

From Nature 29 August 1953.