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The needs of the research worker engaged in longer term research can be broadly divided into two categories. The first concerns the background and mental equipment of the research worker himself, and the second the particular problem upon which he is engaged. To some extent these two categories become merged and indistinguishable, but it is necessary to bear in mind that the worker's success will depend very largely upon his background and mental equipment and that this is not static, but grows with experience.

The Conference of the Scottish Branch of Aslib was held this year on 27th February at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, under the Chairmanship of Dr. D. G. Brown. The opening address was given by Sir Andrew McCance, Deputy Chairman and Joint Managing Director of Messrs. Colvilles, Ltd., and is reported in this issue. He was followed by Mr. M. C. Pottinger, Librarian of the Scottish Central Library, who surveyed Scottish resources of scientific and technical literature and information, and by Dr. C. Macrae who described the work of the Scottish Council. Both these papers are given in full. In the afternoon Mr. J. Revie, of the British Jute Trade Research Association, traced the steps by which a small special library could be set up, and Mr. E. N. Simons, of Messrs. Edgar Allen & Co., Ltd., spoke on the writing of English in abstracts and reports. Mr. Revie's paper is included in this issue; that by Mr. Simons was published in the May, 1953, number of Aslib Proceedings.

The attention of all concerned is drawn to the need for guarding against the effects of poisonous fumes when using chemical fire extinguishers of the types usually carried in civil aeroplanes. One of the dangers to be guarded against is that at low concentrations the fumes may have no smell, or such smell as there is may not be unpleasant, and may not suggest that breathing the air is in any way dangerous. Exposure for half an hour or so to such fumes may nevertheless produce subsequent ill effects, though none may be noticed until some hours after the exposure has ceased.

The following requirement will be included in due course in an amendment to Air Publication 1208.

Eating and swallowing are natural processes for sustaining life. Every occasion that we celebrate involves food. Swallowing is a complex and intricate process that involves the coordination of neural control, muscles, nerves, and respiration working together for normal swallowing to occur. When a traumatic event occurs that compromises those systems, swallowing will inevitably be affected. Children who have sustained traumatic events will have devastating effects on normal development and swallowing. Some may require feeding tubes as their primary source of nutrition while others may require the assistance of a speech-language pathologist. This chapter will provide insight in conditions that impact feeding and swallowing and the role of specialists working with learners who exhibit those problems.

MR. F. W. F. ARNAUD, the Public Analyst for the Borough of Portsmouth, delivered a lecture on this subject at the Town Hall on April 27. The lecturer commenced his address by stating that many of the objections to the use of certain preservatives which he might have occasion to put forward were not necessarily his own individual objections, but were the objections of many scientific men who had dealt with all sides of this difficult subject. There was a tendency on the part of some people to regard preservatives as disinfectants, but disinfectants and antiseptics were two different things. A disinfectant not only retarded the growth of microbes, but actually killed them, while an antiseptic preservative merely retarded their growth or formation. Two common antiseptics were sugar and salt. It had been contended that a small dose of a chemical preservative was preferable to a dose of microbes. The effect of a preservative was not to kill the life already present, but to prevent the free multiplication of the organisms present, and the swallowing of a dose of preservative did not necessarily prevent the swallowing of a dose of microbes. There were many old forms of preserving food, such as the use of sugar for fruit and condensed milk; of vinegar for vegetables; and the process of smoking for bacon and fish, smoke being very destructive to microbes; but the oldest form of preservation was the process of salting meat and fish. Another form of preservation was the method of preventing the access of air to perishable articles, as in the cases of eggs and lard. Then there was drying, as in the case of fruit, and chilling, or freezing, as in the cases of meat, milk, poultry, and fish. The temperatures employed for freezing food varied considerably, and depended chiefly upon the length of time during which storage was necessary. If it were only desired to keep meat for a week or two, a low temperature was not necessary, but one of 40 deg. F. was sufficient. Any cooling process was equivalent to the use of a great deal of chemical preservative. A cooling to 50 deg. P. was equivalent to the addition of boric acid to the extent of .05 per cent. At a normal summer temperature of 70 deg. P., two microbes would produce 62,100 in the course of twenty‐four hours; hence the necessity for cooling articles of food. The drawback to most of these methods of preservation was that sugar, salt, and cold were not applicable in every case. Exclusion of air and subsequent sterilisation had their drawbacks also. When sterilisation was complete and the air was exhausted, no putrefaction could take place, and the food should remain indefinitely unchanged. In the matter of tinned meat, the drawback lay chiefly in the failure to ensure complete sterilisation, and in the dissolving of tin, and occasionally lead, from the metal enclosing the food. In the case of tinned meat putrefaction to any considerable extent could be easily recognised by the blown condition of the tin and an absence of the inrush of air when the tin was pierced. Such food was a source of great danger, and if eaten the meat was liable to give rise to ptomaine poisoning—which was occasioned by eating the poisonous products produced by various bacteria. The danger of metallic poisoning could be largely overcome by the use of glass or earthenware vessels. Preservatives in use at the present time were: Benzoates, fluorides, formalin, salicylic acid, sulphites, saccharin, and beta naphthol, generally used singly, though there were some very complicated preservatives on the market. With reference to the use of salt and sugar as preservatives, little or nothing could be said against their use, for sugar was in itself a food and had a well‐known food value. Salt, too, was an essential constituent of our food, for without the elements of which it was composed we could not exist. Naturally, the assimilation of a large quantity of salt was not desirable, but it could not be urged, as, for instance, in the case of boric acid, that it was a substance foreign to the constituents of the human organism, for it was indispensable. Boric acid, however, played no part in any of the essential life processes.

At the present time when all kinds of adulterants are being employed by many bakers in the manufacture of bread, and the food rations, and bread rations in particular, are considerably reduced, it is of the utmost importance that the public should take what steps they can to obtain a bread which contains a relatively high percentage of assimilable proteins. Many of the “ war breads ” which have been manufactured of late cannot be characterised as satisfactory and desirable products especially in view of the cases of acute indigestion which have been directly attributed to the use of such bread. One of the “ Die Hard ” fallacies, which continues to be promulgated by some members of the Scientific and Medical professions with obstinate regularity, is that the protein content of a food is an absolute indication as to its nutritive value. Nothing could be much more misleading or erroneous. It is quite possible for a food to contain a high percentage of substances described as proteins and yet to possess very little or no nutritive value for the average person inasmuch as many of the substances described as proteins may be entirely indigestible or nearly so. The nutritive value of any food to any given person is largely dependent upon the idiosyncrasies of the person, the amount of available protein present in the food, and certain other factors.

The “greening” of preserved vegetables by addition of sulphate of copper can only be regarded as an abominable form of adulteration, and it is passing strange that in this year of grace 1904 it should still be necessary to endeavour to impress the fact, not only upon the public generally, but upon the Government authorities and upon those who are concerned in the administration of the Food Acts and in adjudicating under their provisions. It ought surely not to be necessary to insist upon the tolerably obvious fact that the admixture of poisons with food is a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, and that the deliberate preparation and sale of food thus treated should be visited with condign punishment. The salts of copper are highly poisonous, and articles of food to which sulphate of copper has been added are not only thereby rendered injurious to health, but may be extremely dangerous when swallowed by persons who happen to be specially susceptible to the effects of this poison. After a lengthy investigation, the Departmental Committee appointed by the Local Government Board to report on the treatment of food with preservatives and colouring matters condemned the practice of adding salts of copper to food and recommended that the use of these poisons for such purposes should be absolutely prohibited. Without any such investigation as that which was conducted by the Departmental Committee—and a most thorough and painstaking investigation it was—it should have been sufficiently plain that to allow or to excuse the practice in question are proceedings utterly at variance with common sense.

THE increasing speed of modern aircraft has brought to the forefront the necessity for making a careful drag analysis of all aircraft in order to separate out the essential drag, that is to say the drag that is unavoidable, from the non‐essential drag. Most designers, we believe, now do this in order to see what progress is being made in the streamlining of their products. By this means we are enabled to see the relative importance of the drag terms and to arrive at a figure of merit. The ideally‐streamline aeroplane, though not at present a precise proposition, is like other ideals unattainable. It is the standard to which designers may aspire, but which they cannot achieve.

There is an old saying to the effect that every one is destined to eat a peck of dirt before he dies. So much is probably inevitable, but by taking pains in the selection of our milkmen, butchers, bakers, and other purveyors, by refusing to buy jams, preserves, potted meats, and pickles manufactured by other than reputable firms, and above all by giving support to the various movements which have for their object the improvement of the law relating to adulteration of food, we can at least see that we are called upon to swallow no more than the maximum provided by the adage.