NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21029, 13 November 1931, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MYSTERY OF VIRUSES. Discussing the. biological nature of viruses which will pass through a filter and are now known or suspected to be the active cause of many diseases, Dr. H. H. Dale, F.R.S., said these are a group of agents the existence of which would certainly be unknown to us but for the changes produced by their presence in the bodies of higher animals and plants. They seem to have one properly at least of living organisms, in being capable, under appropriate conditions, of indefinite reproduction. We know nothing of their intrinsic metabolism; it has even been asserted that they have none. Few of them have yet been rendered visible by the microscope; it is. indeed, a question whether any of them have yet been seen or photographed. It is a. question again whether any of them, or all of them, consist of organised living units, cells of a si7e near to or beyond the lowest limits of microscopic visibility, or whether, as some hold, they are unorganised toxic or infective principles, which we can regard as living in a sense analogous to that in which wp speak of a living enzyme, with Jhe important addition that they can multiply themselves indefinitely. Some, however, would attribute this, not to actual sclfinultiplication, but to a coercion of the infected cells to reproduce the very agent of their own infection. Since nothing is known of their structure or their metabolism, these so-called viruses cannot yet, bo claimed as belonging either to the, kingdom of animals or to that of plants.

UNWISE SOCIAL SERVICES. The opinion that excessive State "charity" would produce racial degeneration, was expressed recently by Professor R. Ruggles Gates, of the University of London. He said it was a hallucination to believe that universal education could ever bring all men to the same level. In the elementary schools of England and Wales there were half-a-million dull and backward children, and another halfmillion so defective mentally or physically as to derive no reasonable benefit, from school, and some of the indirect effects of the school and State medical service were dvsgenie. "Our humanitarian legislation and charity, far exceeding that, of any other country, results in n steady decline in the eugenic fitness of the peoplp." he continued. "The least, endowed and most, defective individuals in the community are encouraged to reproduce their kind by artificial aid at, every stage of their career. And this is done at. the expense of those who have already been obliged to limit their offspring in order to pay the everincreasing demands arising from Socialistic legislation. If statesmen recognised the facts of organic inheritance and included in their purview the, future welfare of the race this hygienic legislation, such as the national insurance scheme (brought from Germany), would gradually be brought to an end." Selection, owing to the relative rates of multiplication of different racial stocks, was the chief means by which racial improvements or degeneration could take plai-p. the war much anti-eugenic legislation had been passed in the name of democracy, but without the faintest inkling of the disastrous consequences to the race.

ALLOTMENTS FOR, UNEMPLOYED. A scheme of allotment gardens for unemployed, which was established by the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of last year, has been extended throughout England and Wales, and according to a, recent report, some 64.000 unemployed are now being assisted to grow their own food. The, assistance comprises part, of the cost of a spade or a fork arid of seeds, seed potatoes and fertilisers. An illustration of the operation of the scheme is afforded by a. report, of the Sheffield committee, which expounded the original programme bv making a. second distribution of spades and seeds in the spring. Altogether 2185 men were provided with allotments, for which they paid a rent of twopence a week to the corporation. The cost of assistance was about £1.500, and the committee estimated that the. vegetables produced would be worth £15,000. ''Numbers of men who for years had been merely existing have been for months living healthy, contented lives in comparison with their former state. On small allotments they have grown the bulk of the vegetables required for their households," 6ays the report,. "The most, satisfactory feature of the movement, is the improved health of the men, both in body and in mind. Instead of an aimless existence in many cases, sick with hope deferred, healthy open-air lives are being led, full of interest in cultivating the ground and seeing things grow. . . . All who have made observations and taken an interest, look forward with hope to the extension of this idea to relieve the monotony of life and find a healthy occupation for tho leisure of large numbers of workers, be that leisure enforced by lack of employment or gained after hard work."