QUEER USE FOR A ROOSTER

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 16, 14 October 1907, Page 2

QUEER USE FOR A ROOSTER

Itoosters have their uses in chemical laboratory, for the testing of the strength , of concoctions of ergot, which has the property of blackening thoir combs. Professor R. K. Duncan, in "Harper's" has this reference to the matter:—"Thus there is ergot. A man's wifo goes bravely down to ;tho gates: of Death to pass through, or, if it'Wy hap, to come slowly back, bearing radiantly with her the flaming torch of another life. Ergot is required. Now ergot is a fungus'growing upon rye, whore it destroys and displacos the ovary of the plant. Incomes from Rus sia,.Austria, Spain, Sweden, and where not; its chemical analysis does. not ■ seem' to yield reliable information, for its active consti- ; tuouts are not definitely understood.' Finally, the physiological activity of the drug may bo. good, or little, or zero, just as it may chance, while after tho' lapso of a year it becomes'unfit for use. Yet'it-is this substance, so utterly variablo, that tho physician trusts to decide the question of tho woman and the : child. That ho , may do so depends upon this most curious and interesting fact, that ergot which is therapeutically active will blacken the cook's comb of a living fowl,' and that the degree of blackness may be so carefully adjusted by strengthening or weak-ening-the drug that a standard preparation may be prepared. Consequently in this laboratory there are kept certain redoubtable roosters that' continually function as staridardisers of-ergot," ' ■ . •