RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 115, 9 February 1938, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events (By Kickshaws.) —There is nothing definitely wrong with Germany, says a visitor. Just General trouble it seems. Touches of unreality, it seems, are noticeable in Hollywood. V ell, what can one expect among the stars? A visitor states that Gandhi is anything but an agitator. Gandhi? . . . Ob, yes! . . . We seem to remember the name. * * ♦ Regarding King Arthur's Round Table, “A Reader” says that he has seen the table at Winchester. It is not at the cathedral, but at the castle. This table is not the original, and is said to have been made in the reign of Queen Victoria. » * ♦ Now that an athlete has demonstrated that it is possible to run 60 yards at the rate of 30 feet a second, just over 20 miles an hour, man can almost chase the family cat with some hope of catching it. Yet the stag, the gazelle and the ostrich can touch 60 miles au hour. The jerboa, on the other hand, is smaller than the family cat, yet it can cover short distances at 40 miles an hour. Indeed, it is said that the Khiighiz jerboa is so fleet of foot that a man on horseback has no chance ot catching it up. Tests made in the United States of America show that many animals are only able to keep up their high speeds for a short period. A lion tested managed to get up to a sliced of 62 miles an hour, but it only maintained that speed for three seconds. In contrast a camel cannot touch more than 25 miles an hour a»l out. Yet a good riding camel can cover 100 miles a day and keep'lt up for seven days. When pressed a camel will produce 10 miles an hour and keep it up for 18 hours. # ♦ * Just exactly what it is that Colonel Lindbergh is doing with his artificial hearts and the like is not known, because he has surrounded his investigations with a secrecy only equalled by death ray enthusiasists, and quite foreign to medical technique. Nevertheless, it is a fact that many experiments have been made already on restoring life in apparently lifeless corpses, with a certain degree of success. Until comparatively recently death has been assumed when the heart stops beating, the individual stops breathing and normal bodily functions cease. Death, however, is not the sudden thing that was once imagined. When the heart stops the other organs may still live. The blood, for example, remains alive and germ free for at least eight hours after death. It may be that the time will come when it will be assumed that a sort of suspended animation takes place for the first 24 hours after death. There comes a time, of. course, beyond which vital portions of the body ha\e degenerated so much that life cannot be restored.

Experiments made within the last decade have demonstrated that me may be restored to dead bodies under certain limitations. In February, 1934, proof was given of this fact when a man dropped dead in a street in Moscow. He was certified as dead by three doctors. Professor Smtrnow, or Moscow University, also certified that i the man was dead. This professor, however, decided to resort to re “‘; nt * discoveries he had been testing. I lie heart of the dead man was opened up. - Ultra-short radio waves and injections were given the man. tn three-quarters of an hour the heart of the dead man had started to beat. Just over an hour afterward the man had been resurrected. A similar resurrection took place in Vienna, when a man who had been run over by a bus received very similar treatment. After a long convalescence the dead man recovered completely, and to-day enjoys good health. Many experts now distinguish between final and uon-final death. Provided the tissues have not been destroyed and the organic condition of the vital organs has not been impaired, life cun be restored.

Investigations into restoring life into dead bodies has been going oa simultaneously in various parts of the world for the last ten years or more. As long ago as 1929 Professor Audreiev, in Moscow, temporarily restored life into a corpse that had been dead fifteen minutes. Tests made on dead dogs showed, in fact, that a dog could be kept dead for several mouths am! revived, provided that the blood had received suitable treatment in the interval. a.s long ago as 1910, medical experts realised that this was possible, although the matter had not been brought to any degree of eertanitj. Nevertheless, text books published at that time declare, “Not only can the beat of the freshly-excised mammalian heart be long maintained by artificial circulation, but many hours, or eveu days after, somatic death pulsation may be restored by the perfusion of such a solution of inorganic salts as Locke’s through the coronary vessels. Kuliabko, in this way, was able to restore a rabbit’s heart which had been kept 44 hours in the ice chest.”

“M.M.” writes regarding female old Identities: “I have in mind an old lady of years ago, named Miss Cochrane. She' was a school teacher, and lived at Oriental Bay, iu a small cottage, and would walk to Thorndon. I think she taught, privately. Her dress was noticable. She must have been the original of 'The Lady in Blue.' Her dress was very plain and all blue, eveu to the hood, which was made of the same material as her dress. She was most respectable, but somewhat of a recluse. There was also a Mrs. Parker, of Thorndon. Another was a highly-edu-cated lady, a school mistress, who kept a ladles’ seminary at one time on Lambton Quay, at the rear of a wellknown store there. I refer to Mrs. Taiue, well known to old identities, an'd afterwards she carried on on The Terrace, at the top of Woodward Street. I would also refer to Mrs. Capper. Talking of fishermen, there was a Mr. Love, a fisherman, who travelled along Lambton Quay with bis barrow. A number of those mentioned by ‘Teti’ I knew: Mr. R. C. Knight, also Moxham (his father had Moxhani's farm, behind The Terrace). The -Wliiftler’, he was eccentric in his way, but once he occupied an important position in the city.”

“Is there an award wage for poultrygrit. workers? If not. is there any fixed wage at all? Is it legal for a boy of 15 to work in a grit factory? Is it healthy?” asks “Pipi.” [The Department of Labour has kindly provided the following answers: The rate is as is agreed upon, with a minimum of 15/- a week and halfyearly increments of 4/- a week until the end of the third year. A boy of 15 may lie employed in a factory provided he obtains from the inspector of factories a “certificate of fitness.” There is nothing to indicate that this industry is harmful to the health of youths, although probably, if the shells were allowed to become too dry or if old shell is being crushed, there would be a dust nuisance which might be harmful]