50 years ago

Suspect Documents: Their Scientific Examination. By Dr. Wilson R. Harrison — The book under review is a very important contribution to the published knowledge on the examination of suspect documents ... Fraudulent documents have existed as long as genuine documents, and the problem of their detection has been of considerable importance to States and individuals. This problem existed before science was sufficiently advanced to assist in its solution and, therefore, there grew up a tradition of examination of documents based on superstitious credulity and with no scientific background whatsoever ... [T]he volume under review fills the gap from the British point of view ... and the book must therefore be read by all who are interested in these matters.

Also:

The control of diseases of livestock is an important feature in the general economy of most countries in improving animal production and in fostering international trade in livestock and animal products ... It is gratifying to learn in this connexion that one of the recent steps taken ... has been the establishment of a World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-Mouth Disease at the Research Institute (Animal Virus Diseases), Pirbright, Surrey.

From Nature 22 November 1958.

100 years ago

A common criticism of the methods of teaching science adopted in schools for girls is that they are too academic and have little or no bearing upon the duties the girls will be called upon to perform in after life. This weakness is, we are glad to know, becoming less common, and earnest efforts are being made in several centres to arrange courses of work in which elementary science and the home arts are taught together, the latter being treated largely as applications of the former.

From Nature 19 November 1908.