Evening star., 1935-04-22
Way Is Found Rotating
At Rate of 100000, 900 Years
Virginia U. Astronomers Report Find
ings on 10000, 900, ,OOO-Star Galaxy
to Academy of Sciences.
the problem Of the dynamics Of the

the problem Of the dynamics OF the
galaxy.
Up to the present it has been uni
versally believed that stars Of q given
apparent magnitude are. on the aver
age, further away II situated In the
Milky Way. But the secular paral-
lakes" or average reflex motions due
to the suns motion in space, as meas
ured at the Mccormick Observatory,
give sound evidence that stars Of ap-
parent magnitudes 10, II and IL are
at greater distances when Is degrees
on either side Of the Milky Way than
are stars Of similar brightness in the
Milky Way itself.
The suns motion in space. as de-
termined from the Virginia observa-
tions. gives the surprising result that
the direction differs IS degrees from
that found from the bright star meas
urements hitherto reported. To ex-
plain this anomaly II Is necessary to
assume that there Is q high percent
age Of high velocity stars among the
fainter stellar bodies.
A hitherto unknown human disease.
clinically almost identical with spinal
meningitis but caused by fllterable
virus, was described by DR.. Thomas M.
Rivers Of the Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research.
The dreaded Inflammation Of the
membranes Of the spine and brain
commonly known as cerebrospinal
meningitis-one Of the most serious Of
all the maladies which afiict men
Is ordinarily due to the invasion Of
various strains of meningococci. micro
scopic bacterial organisms. The dis
covery that q fllterable virus-sup-
posedly the most minute Of living
organisms, so small that 1t cannot be
seen under the most powerful micro
scope-causes the same effect is likely
to have q far-reaching influence on
the future medical attitude toward
the malady.
1t constitutes essentially an addi-
ton to the catalogue Of human dis
eases In the past it may have been
quite prevalent at times, but confused
with the ordinary meningitis. The
new disease stands beside the equally
dreaded poliomyeliti, or infantile
paralysis, and encephalitis. or sleeping
sickness, both Of which are affections
Of the nervous system caused by filter
able virus. DR.. Rivers and his asso-
ciates. DR.. T. F. McNair Scott Of
London, reported on two cases, both
adult males, who developed the char
acteristic spinal meningitis symptoms
Of severe headache. vomiting. stiff
neck and high cell count in the spinal
fluid. Both survived. making slow and
uneventful recoveries.
Suspecting that q filterable virus
was at work. spinal fluid from each
patient was inoculated into the brains
Of six white mice. The mice became
sick with much the same symptoms
reported for the men. From them the
f1lterable virus was isolated through
the filtering method. It Is effective
with mice, guinea pigs and monkeys.
The one great standby for phySi-
clans in dealing with filterable virus
diseases is convalescent serum made
from the blood Of persons recovering
from attacks. While seldom bringing
about q radical cure, this apparently
increases the resistance Of the patient
and has proved Of inestimable value
in treating cases Of poliomyelitis and
the dreaded parrot fever which was
epidemic . few years ago. It was
found this new virus works the same
way. Convalescent serum from the
human patients tended to neutralize
the action of the virus in the expert
mental animals.
These filterable viruSes seem to have