The tannate of quinine has been substituted for the sulphate by Dr. Listach, of Bona, Algeria. Having employed the tannate in numerous cases, he found that it produced neither headache, nor deafness, nor singing in the ears, ordinarily produced by the sulphate. Unlike the latter, also, it possesses no bitter taste, nor does it cause over-excitement in nervous females.
M. Smith has written a paper, for the French Geological Society, on the carcasses of mammoths found in Siberia, with their flesh and integument preserved. He maintains that these animals were essentially arctic (like the musk-ox), that they found a grave in their native home, and that they were not drifted to Siberia by currents, as some have thought.
A new process for water-proofing leather consists in the exhaustion of the air from the pores of the leather, and then filling them up with a substance which unites with and adheres to the fibre, thereby strengthening without impairing the elasticity of the material, while at the same time it is rendered impervious to moisture.
In 1804, when Sir Humphrey Davy was but twenty-six years old, Dr. Dalton, the famed originator of the atomic theory, consulted him as to the best mode of preparing his lectures, and afterward described him as "a very agreeable and intelligent young man, the principal failing in whose character as a philosopher is that he does not smoke."
To distinguish benzole, which is made of coal-tar, from benzine, which is made from petroleum, Brandberg recommends that a small portion of the substance under examination be poured upon a little piece of pitch in a test-tube, when, if the liquid is benzole, it will immediately dissolve the pitch to a tar-like mass, while benzine will scarcely be colored.
A distinguished physiologist makes the assertion that about the heaviest tax on the memory is that imposed by the profession of the pianist. Rubenstein lately played by heart a piece which, according to actual count, contained but ten less than sixty-three thousand notes!
Bread made with sea-water is recommended for patients suffering from dyspepsia, phthisis, and scrofula. Those who have tried it testify that it is "extremely pleasant" to the taste.
The use of anaesthetics in veterinary practice is highly spoken of by an experienced veterinary surgeon of London.
An aching tooth has been extracted from the jaw of a member of the British Odontological Society, the dental canal cleansed, and the decayed portion cut away; and then the tooth was replaced in its socket, as in the case of artificial teeth. In two weeks, it is said, the tooth was serviceable.
M. Barety, member of the Biological Society of Paris, describes an interesting case of sweating, confined to the right side of the face. The curious phenomenon occurred at the outset of a fatal meningitis (inflammation of membranes covering brain and spinal cord), and lasted an hour.
During the last ten years, 2,778 photographs of the sun have been taken at the Kew Observatory. It is now announced that the almost continuous photographic record of the state of the sun's disk thus obtained is soon to be brought to a close.
Hallwachs has found that both green and red colored carpetings frequently contain arsenic. He asserts that the brilliant dark-red colors, now so popular, contain enormous quantities of this poisonous substance, burning with the blue flame of arsenic, and giving its characteristic garlic odor.
It has been found that the clothes fitted to new recruits in the English army soon become too small across the chest, and too tight around the neck, owing, it is stated, to the increased development given by gymnastic and military exercises.
Lithofracteur is rapidly replacing powder as a means of removing obstructing wrecks. Two charges of fifty pounds each recently accomplished on a sunken wreck what would have required tons of gunpowder, and much difficult labor.
In South America are found earthworms that oftentimes attain a length of 40 inches, and which have a circulatory system of great perfection. They are found to possess hearts composed, like those of the higher animals, of a soft auricle and of a very muscular ventricle.
The fossil horse is found among the tertiary and quaternary formations in Ecuador, showing that this continent possessed that animal previous to the Spanish settlement, though he became extinct.
At Chatham, England, there is a man who regularly refuses to have his children vaccinated, and will not pay the fines. The Anti-Vaccination Society support his wife and family while he is in prison.
