100 YEARS AGO

The administration of chloroform is a subject that is of personal and direct interest to everyone in this present age of civilisation. Sooner or later either we ourselves or those dear to us gladly accept the relief from suffering that is offered, and that chloroform shall be given so that no unavoidable risk is run is a necessity that forces itself on our attention. That much remains to be done in the direction of safety is only too evident. We confess to perusing the diagram of the yearly increasing death-rate from chloroform... with a feeling of horror, and that is deepened when we read the instances given of such deaths, and supplemented by others which have come to our knowledge independently, where chloroform has been given for a trifling operation to an otherwise healthy patient, and where the phrase “Death from cardiac syncope” has acted as an anaesthetic to the conscience of the ignorant and careless anaesthetist.

From Nature 14 April 1904.

50 YEARS AGO

High Altitude Rocket Research. Men have long been attracted by the possibility of being able to carry out explorations far above the earth's surface. In 1784 Vincent Lunardi made the first balloon ascent from London, his achievement arousing great popular enthusiasm. Attention, too, was directed to the advances in knowledge which might be gained... When rather more than a century and a half later rockets began to fall on London they aroused different feelings; but men of science found some compensation in the recognition of the fact that a weapon of real use had been developed. During the early part of 1946, an important meeting was held in Washington, D.C., at which the exploitation of the German invention was discussed and a programme of fundamental research was formulated... A rapidly moving rocket does not, of course, provide an ideal platform on which to mount measuring instruments; but in spite of this many results have been derived. Perhaps the most valuable are those relating to the density and the temperature of the upper atmosphere, those relating to the electric current system causing the diurnal variation in the magnetic field, and those relating to the solar emission in the spectral range which cannot be observed from ground-level.

From Nature 17 April 1954.