TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7383, 8 August 1889, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Sic Dillon Bell had the honor of receiving two very distinguished personages at the New Zealand Court of the Paris Exhibition. The first was President Carnot, and the second was his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The public will naturally be interested to knaw what those exalted visitors thought of our exhibits, but unfortunately there is very little to be told. It seems that the polite Parisians are a good deal worse than the less polished Londoners for "mobbing,"and both the Prince aud the President appear to have gone through the Court as if they were snatching a fearful joy, and might at any moment, in schoolboy parlance, have to " cut and run." President Carnot did manage to say something in admiration of our timber. He gazed at a fine piece of totara and said, " What magnificant timber you have in New Zealand." Sir Francis told him we had quantity as well as quality, and then they went on to the maps and plans of New Zealand which ornamented the walls of the Court. The President remarked that they were very well done —an opinion especially valuable in. view of the fact that M. Sadi-Carnofc is an able engineer. At this point the crowd, both before and behind the President was so great that it was impossible for him to make any careful inspection of the exhibits and so a minute .or two after his entry a move out was made. When he entered the South Australian Court a little later, an odd incident recurred. A young

Englishman was taking come. wine here, and as the President approached he put his glass behind his back, doubtless out of respect for the distinguished visitor. Some of the detectives who were on duty saw him standing thus, with his glass behind his back, and imagining that it was his intention to fling the contents over the Chief Magistrate, promptly took him in charge. Of course a scuffle and disturbance ensued and the unhappy President once more had to scurry away, his lot being all the sadder in this case because he was unable to taste any of the Australian wines, as he was expected to do. The Prince of Wales, who with the Princess of Wales and family visited the Exhibition a day or two later, fared no better. The Prince, we are told, was in excellent humor, and insisted on Sir F. D. 801 l covering himself. " Put on your hat, Sir Francis," he said. Then he looked round at the menacing crowd, and, like an old stager, took in the situation at once. Oil he started at a surprising pace to "do the Exhibitiju." Poor Sir Francis toiled after him in a panting condition, aud was hardly able to keep up with his Royal Highness. When they reached the principal entrance of the New Zealand Court, which the Prince was to visit, there was a large crowd assembled round a group of Maori figures, and the Prince " expressed his disinclination to enter." Then they rushed round to the Victoria front entrance, where the new gold arch is being put up, and the Prince asked a question abouc this. to which we suppose Sir Francis made a reply as well as he could in his gasping state. Finally, we are informed, " the Prince looked into the "Victorian and New New Zealand Courts, but made no allusion to them in any way." One feels after this that there are disadvantages connected with being an " exalted personage" if you want to see an Exhibition; on the other hand, it must be an excellent training for the wind to have to show many of them round. Unless a very distinguished scientist has turned babbler in his old age, the elixir of life has at length been discovered. This seems an audacious statement to make, but M. Brown-Sequard, one of the most distinguished physiologists in Europe, stood up before a meeting of the Biological Society in Pari3 recently to assert that he had made such a discovery, and was himself a living attestation of its potency and value. He stales that the experiments instituted by himself and others with respect to the transfusion of healthy young blood into the veins of invalids led him to reflect upon the possibility of transferring the living cells of a youthful and vigorous bein£ to the system of one who was neither. Atter a series of experiments with animals, h« found the time had arrived for testing the truth of his theory by applying it to the human being. He felt that it was hazardous, and therefore he operated upon himself. He took parcels of certain organs of very young guinea pigs, triturated them, while still palpitating, in a mortar, diluted them with distilled water, purified and clarified the liquid thus obtained, and injected it hypodermically with a syringe, like morphine, a cubic centimetre sufficing for a doso. The first experiment was made on the loth of May, and after the second injection, he felt himself entirely transformed. The report in the Figaro of his address continues : —" Up to this time half an hour's work standing in his laboratory completely knocked him up, Now he can continue for three hours at a stretch without experiencing the least fatigue. His appetite has improved, his sleep is calmer and more restorative, his stomach fulfils its functions more perfectly, he pursues his intellectual labors with remarkable facility and lucidity, and his dynamo-metric strength is greater than it was by 141b." The reporter himself avers that the voice of the venerable savant was stronger and clearer, and his countenance more animated than heretofore, and that under his thick white eyebrows his eyes seemed to glitter with the light of former years. " The emotion augmented around him, and the audience was speedily allured and convinced." M. Brown-Sequard, who is seventy-two years of age, concluded his address by declaring that the effect o£ the injections was equiva lent to the deduction of ten years from his ago"; and thunders of "applause greeted the declaration. What are we to make of all this ? It cannot be said that the alleged discovery is brought forward by a nobody. M. Brown-Seqaard has been Professor of the Physiolpjyjr and Pattiology of the Nervous System at Harvard "University, and Professor in the Ecole de Medepine at Paria. He his; received .several prizes from the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1878 was elected to the Chair of Medicine that body. He is, in facb, a physiologist of the highest' rank, and in some departments there is hardly auy name which carries greater authority. All we can say, pending; the result of further, investigatidns, which, we are told, are being made by other setenfcife " msa, is, that either this great man has become the subject of a delusion in'h'.s old age, or he has hie upon | the most surprising aiscowry yot recorded ■ in the annals of mudical science. I