100 and 50 years ago | Nature

An interesting memoir, by C. T. Mörner, has recently appeared in the Zeitschrift für physiologische Chemie, dealing with a method of preserving fish, much employed in northern Sweden. The

fish are washed, and placed in wooden casks, and are then covered with brine. The casks are then closed and made airtight, and placed in the open air in a sunny place, and allowed to remain

there for from five to six weeks. The process of fermentation, which soon ensues, is controlled by means of a small vent-hole, which is opened from time to time.… As soon as the requisite

stage in the process has been reached, the casks are opened, and the now-finished article is packed in smaller vessels for storage and distribution. This article of diet, known in Swedish as

“surfisk,” is eaten either raw or toasted.… As accounting for the disagreeable odour which characterises this preparation, Mörner found amongst the gases emitted during fermentation the

offensive-smelling methylmercaptan. Amongst the organic acids discovered in the “surfisk,” whilst absent in the fresh fish, succinic acid, butyric acid, formic, acetic, and valeric acids

were detected.… Curiously indol, skatol, phenol, putrescine and cadaverine, so characteristic of putrefactive processes in general, were absent in this preparation.

The Seventeenth International Physiological Congress was held in Oxford during July 21-25. It was attended by about 1,200 physiologists, including welcome delegates from the USSR and China.…

Perhaps the most important work reported has been in independent research, in which, after Prof. E. G. T. Liddell's phrase, after seven years, members were showing an active post-inhibitory

rebound. An outstanding paper was given by A. L. Hodgkin and A. F. Huxley, who suggested that during the rising phase of the action potential in nerve, the membrane becomes highly permeable

to sodium ions which then enter the cell. Potassium ions leave the cell during the falling phase and later restorative processes occur linked with energy-producing mechanisms. There was

considerable indirect evidence in favour of this view.

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