50 Years ago

In order to study the influence of the fat content of food on the occurrence of thrombosis in the arterial and venous system, a group of 133 hospital patients aged 65–90 years were treated with a diet in which butterfat, margarine and lard were replaced by vegetable oils (unhydrogenated corn oil and soybean oil) ... For comparison, a control group of the same size and composition who received an ordinary hospital diet containing about 80 gm. animal fats (including about 40 gm. butterfat, margarine and lard) was used ... In the treated group only 4 cases of thromboembolism were observed ... In the control group 15 cases of thrombosis were observed.

From Nature 30 January 1960.

100 Years ago

The special quest of Dr. Sven Hedin in his last and greatest journey of geographical exploration in Tibet was that hitherto unexplored range of mountains, which was believed to rise within the unsurveyed white patch of desert on the “Roof of the World” to the further side of the Tsangpo or Brahmaputra, behind the Himalayas. Although this immense chain, stretching for about 600 miles, is one of the mighty mountain ranges of the earth ... its very existence, even, was largely the subject of conjecture ... This, then, is the range to which Dr. Hedin now assigns the appropriate name of “Trans-Himalaya” ... For the first time ... he has been able to penetrate beyond the desolate deserts and reach a portion of what he truly terms “Tibet proper, that is the part chiefly inhabited by a settled population.” For this good fortune and for the more friendly treatment generally which he experienced at the hands of the Tibetans he is indebted directly to the amicable relations established with Tibet by the British mission of 1904, none the less real and genuine though cultivated at the point of the bayonet.

From Nature 27 January 1910.