100 YEARS AGO

I have read with interest in your columns... a carefully compiled and instructive account of the discussions that have from time to time during the past 50 years broken out with regard to the naming of the highest measured point on the earth's surface, Peak XV of the Indian Survey. I have long maintained it to be a matter for regret that the monarch of mountains should be called after any individual, however eminent, and I am still of this opinion, which is shared by most mountaineers and mountain lovers. We should prefer that Peak XV should bear a Nepalese or a Tibetan name, even had one to be invented for it, as twenty years ago Alpine Clubmen, in accord with Russian surveyors, found or invented names for many of the great peaks of the Caucasus... Should [the Royal Geographical Society] resolve that, considering the length of time the title “Mount Everest” has been more or less in use in this country for Peak XV, the absence of any evidence that that individual peak is designated as, or included in the designation of Gaurisankar by the Nepalese, and the practical inconvenience (whether the name be authentic or not) of introducing a new Tibetan name such as Chomo- or Jamokangkar, it is expedient that the title Mount Everest should be generally accepted, I shall acquiesce.

Douglas W. Freshfield

From Nature 24 November 1904.

50 YEARS AGO

Studies on the pharmacology of extracts of Rauwolfia serpentina... reported that the alkaloid... had a marked hypotensive effect which was in part due to depression of central nervous system mechanisms... Our own studies have confirmed that [the Rauwolfia alkaloid] reserpine diminished reflex vasomotor responses, but have also demonstrated a direct effect on the peripheral vessels independent of its nervous activity... We have found that injections of reserpine into the systemic circulation of the rabbit produce an immediate fall in systemic blood pressure. This is accompanied by an immediate rise in limb perfusion pressure instead of a fall, as would have been expected were the fall of blood pressure mediated through the nervous system. Furthermore, injection of reserpine directly into the artery of the perfused hind-limb causes immediate diminution in vasomotor tone.

From Nature 27 November 1954.