# Science (journal)/Volume 47 New Series/No. 1201/The Medallists of the Royal Society

DOI: 10.1126/science.47.1201.15, pages 15-16
THE MEDALLISTS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society on November 30, the president, Sir J. J. Thomson, conferred the medals of the society. The work of the recipients was thus characterized:
Copley Medal.—M. Emile Roux, Pasteur's chief collaborator, succeeded him as the director of the Institut Pasteur, which he has successfully developed and maintained as the foremost school of bacteriology, both for teaching and for research. From the early eighties, when he was associated with Pasteur and Chamberland in the study of anthrax and the production of vaccines against this disease, he has played a leading part in the development of our knowledge of the processes of immunity. His work with the distinguished veterinarian Nocard upon the contagious pleuro-pneumonia of cattle was the first demonstration of the existence of "ultra-microscopic," or, as they are now termed, filterable viruses as disease-producing agencies; his work with Yersin, the first full study of the bacillus of diphtheria and of its toxins. He shares with the late Professor Behring, of Marburg, in the introduction of diphtheria antitoxin as a practical means of prophylaxis and cure, and with him as cofounder of serum therapeutics was awarded the Nobel prize. All the leading French bacteriologists of our generation have been his pupils.
Royal Medals.—Dr. Aiken is distinguished for his lifelong researches on the nuclei of cloudy condensation, embodied in a series of memoirs communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The latest of these appeared in the present year. Dr. Aitken's discoveries opened up a new field of investigation in physics, and constitute a chapter of knowledge of great importance intrinsically and in their relation to the physics of meteorology. Dr. Aitken, who has pursued his work as an amateur, has displayed great experimental ingenuity, and his remarkable construction of the "dust-counter" has provided a permanent scientific appurtenance of precision to the physicist and climatologist. Among other contributions to science, Dr. Aitken has made important advances in our knowledge of the formation of dew.
Dr. Smith Woodward has been for many years keeper of the department of geology in the British Museum, and has published a very large number of valuable memoirs on fossil vertebrates, especially fishes. He has also published an important "Catalogue of Fossil Fishes in the British Museum," and his "Outlines of Vertebrate Paleontology," published in 1898, is a standard text-book on the subject. Dr. Smith Woodward's original memoirs are too numerous to mention, but they have secured for him a world-wide reputation, and he is universally regarded as one of the highest authorities on vertebrate paleontology.
Davy Medal.—M. Albin Haller, professor of organic chemistry at the Sorbonne, Paris, founder and first president of the International Association of Chemical Societies, and at the present time the most representative chemist of France, is distinguished for his many and important contributions to chemical science during the past forty years. His investigations have covered a very wide field in the domain of organic chemistry, the most important being those dealing with compounds belonging to the camphor group. He has maintained over a long period of years the reputation of the Sorbonne School of Chemical Research, created by Dumas and Wurtz, his predecessors in the chair.
Buchanan Medal.—Sir Almroth Edward Wright was the first (1896) to apply laboratory knowledge on typhoid immunity to the protection of human beings against enteric fever. Against formidable opposition he carried out a long series of observaions with the highest scientific acumen and unsurpassed technique, and laid the foundations for the effective elimination of enteric fever from the armies of the world. Nothing of importance has been added to his work down to the present time.
Hughes Medal.—Professor C. G. Barkla's investigations have mainly dealt with X-rays, and ​their absorption and secondary emission by solid substances. He showed that secondary emission of X-rays was of two varieties. In one of these the X-rays are scattered, without change of quality. The scattered rays were shown by examining tertiary emission to be polarized, and this was a fundamental result for the classification of X-rays with ordinary radiation, at that time doubtful. Professor Barkla's other kind of secondary emission is characteristic of the secondary radiator, and is accompanied by selective absorption of the primary rays. He showed that each chemical element emitted more than one definite kind of secondary fluorescent radiation. Concentrating attention on, say, the less penetrating kind, it was found to vary in quality by definite steps with the atomic weight of the secondary radiator.
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