THE MANUFACTURE OF SKELETONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 761, 1 October 1886, Page 4

THE MANUFACTURE OF SKELETONS.

Medical Press.

The other day, being in Paris, it occurred to me that it would be an excellent opportunity of obtaining some really good osteological preparations which I had heard were to be had at a more reasonable figure than the fancy prices asked for them in England. One day while assisting at the clinique of a well-known physician, one of the patients, on being asked her profession, said she ‘ les squelettes,’ which on enquiry I ascertained to mean a * bone peeler.’ I at once interested myself in her condition, which was one of chlorosis, and ingratiated myself with her so that a week or two later she acceeded, though reluctantly, to my request, to take me to the fabrique where the specimens were prepared. It was a long journey, right away into one of the desert plains bristling with chimney stacks ( which bound Paris on the north side. The building to which she conducted me was an immense wooden construction subdivided into a main atelier and outhouses. The larger room was occupied by a series of large cauldrons, the emanations from which were, even to one accustomed to the suave odour of the dissecting room, nauseating in the extreme, and the blend formed with that of various crude antiseptics was more peculiar than fascinating. The disarticulation of skulls is carried on separately, as it is a branch requiring greater skill and nicety in its manipulation. It is effected on the skulls of young adults or children by the ingenious plan of filling the emptied cranial cavity with dried peas, which are then steeped. in water, and in swelling compel the disjunction more delicately than could be done in any other way. Some of the cauldrons contained the bodies of animals whose skeletons, if not as valuable as those of human beings, are still indispensible for the study of natural history, and are forwarded in large numbers to the various collegiate establishments in France and abroad. After prolonged boiling the limbs are placed on the table and the adhering tissues carefully removed, each w’orkmaD or workwoman having his or her own speciality. I saw some men at work on frogs, lizards, etc., to obtain a satisfactory preparation of which requires a special and highly remunerated dexterity. The grease which collected at the top of the vats was

scooped off and consigned to a receptacle in the corner of the room, but its ultimate destination I was unable to ascertain. The bones are then bleached, the cheaper varieties simply by means of chloride of lime, the better ones in the sun, and they ultimately pass into the finishing room where they are titivated, assorted, and converted as far as may be into ‘articulated skeletons.’ It requires no small amount of ingenuity and knowledge of this particular department to be able to choose out of the miscellaneous collection of bones wherewithal to construct a skeleton which shall pass muster for that of a single individual, and only the best bones are so adapted, the remainder going to make up the disarticulated and half skeletons which have to answer the purposes of study for the more economically disposed students. Curious’y enough the sex appeared to have a distinct influence on the value of the skeleton, the female skeleton possessing a value many francs higher than that of the corresponding male. In another tank, awaiting treatment, were a number of infant bodies, varying from minus four months to plus several days. In the show rooms they were arranged in a graduated scale (dchelle montante), from the diminutive little ex-mortal, whose height did not exceed four inches, to the adult baby measuring from eighteen to twenty, all being in the attitude known in the military world as that of attention. These have a special value of their own, far greater in proportion to their size than that of their bigger brethren. I naturally wondered where all the bodies came from. I was told that the dissecting rooms and hospitals furnished a large proportion, and that the proprietor of the establishment took care to monopolise the supply which was always short of the demand. The convict establishments also contribute a share, and my guide told me that on one occasion during the very hot weather a cargo of these ghastly debris was left at the station by mistake until, warned by the smell, the porters fetched the Commissaire of Police who opined for a wholesale butchery, and commenced an inquest. It turned up right in the end, moyennant finance, but this untoward circumstance hampered the supply for a while. The relative cheapness and abundance of the supply from Vienna since the RussoTurkish war had somewhat depressed the trade, but it seemed to flourish all the same, unaffected by the crise commerciale, which had brought so many other neighboring industries almost to a standstill. I obtained what I wished in the way of specimens, and this at an extremely moderate rate, but I could not forbear the remark on leaving, un drole de metier tout de meme. RICE THROWING AT WEDDINGSOrigin and Meaning of a Singular Custom. Opinions differ among the learned as to why rice, of all things, is thrown at ‘ two young lovers lately wed.’ Some regard it as a feigned hostile attack, in which light they also regard the throwing of old shoes. But there is evidence to show that old shoes are thrown on other occasions, merely for * luck,’ and when there is no survival of an attack. Thus it is recorded in ‘ Great Expectations ’ that Joe and Biddy threw an old shoe after Pip when he left them to seek his fortune. As to rice-throwing, again, the custom cannot be earlier than the U3e of rice in this country. Now, the author of a French work on ‘ The Kingdom of Macassar, published at the end of the seventeenth century, found that rice was thrown out of the back windows of the house all day during a marriage in Macassar. The bride and bridegroom were not pelted ; the object was to distract the attention of the envious •vil spirits. Left to their own devices, the evil spirits might have played all sorts of practical jokes : might have carried the bridegroom off bodily to the chamber of the Princess of Persia, or conveyed the bride to the arms of the Prince of Bagdad, or of a hump backed groom. How the rice affected the demons is not very obvious. An acute observer has divided the practices of savage religion into * spirit-scaring’ and * spiritsquaring.’ Were the Macassar bogies scared or squared, frightened or bribed, by the showers of rice ? That is a question for Herbert Spencer ; but either hypothesis is more plausible than the common idea that rice is an emblem of fruitfulness and secures an abundant crop of olive branches. •Symbols and ceremonies are apt to glide into realities, and realities into symbols. The symbolic rice in Bethral Green was lately thrown with such hearty good will that it nearly put out the eye of one of the bridegrooms. ‘He was led to a surgery adjacent, and.will now have to pass in the ward of a hospital what would otherwise have been his honeymoon.’ Perhaps this welldirected and galling fire of rice was kept up by an unsuccessful rival, who may be congratulated on the ingenuity of a device which has hitherto escaped even the villain of fiction. It must become plain, however, even in the parish of St James the Less, that friendly congratulations may be better expressed than by a shower of dangerous missiles. We are sorry to harass any trade; but surely the local grocers may ask themselves whether it is well to keep parcels of rice ready packed for the occasion,’ as they do at present. Distress is already prevalent enough at the East End; it cannot be mitigated by encouraging weddings among amorists who are unable or unwilling even to pay the entrance fees. Possibly the ricethrowing has a local explanation. It may he intended to counteract the well-meant kindness of the vicar, and to discourage those whom his expansive generosity allures into marriages of improvidence. —London Saturday Review.

A SEWING MACHINE WITHOUT WHEELS. A remarkable step in advance in simplifying the sewing machine has been made by a German gentlemen, and the practical nature of the invention was recently demonstrated. The new machine has not a wheel in it, and may be described as the working parts of a good sewing machine deprived of all extraneous details and condensed within the smallest possible compass. It measures only eight inches high by about two inches wide and one inch deep. It is fitted at the foot with a screw clamp, by which it can be fixed to the edge of. a table and fairly worked by a

child. The working motion consists of a vertical plunger pressed downwards by the finger from the top, the plunger being removed into position for the next push by a spring. It makes a perfect lock stitch, and will sew all kings of fabrics, fine or coarse, within reasonable limits. Beyond its efficiency it possesses an advantage which appeals to all—namely, that of economy in price. So small is its cost that it can be purchased for about a day’s wage of a foreman mechanic. This will bring it well within the reach of the masses, whom it is specially intended to benefit. It is certainly a remarkably cheap and efficient machine, and is being introduced by a company having offices at 5S Coleman street, London.— London Times.

A RECEIPT FOR GOOD HEALTH AND GOOD LOOKS. Fraulein Lehman, a beautiful woman and great vocalist, attributes her nice complexion, fine physique and almost perfect health tu her simple mode of living. She says on the subject : ‘ In Germany opera commences at 5 or 6 o’clock, and I am able to get to bed and go to sleep at 10 the year round. I rise at 7, winter and summer, and breakfast on one cup of coffee and a piece of brown bread. I have nothing more to eat till 2 p.m. Then my dinner is my principal meal, and I have good soup always, and anything else—but no wine. I walk in the air, never less than two hours, and sometimes five, six, seven and eight. It is the walking that benefits me. In Germany we walk to save ourselves, but I hear that the American ladies save themselves in not walking. It is a mistaken idea of theirs,’

WHAT NEXT 1 A wealthy ironmaster in the North of England, whose house and works are dazzlingly illuminated by the electric light, has adopted an ingenious contrivance, by which he may glean some information as to what goes on during his not unfrequent absences from home. In several of his rooms, and in his offices, there is a concealed apparatus in the walls, consisting of a roll of Eastman paper and a train of clockwork. Every hour a shutter is silently opened by the machinery, and an instantaneous photograph is taken of all that is going on in the room. On the great man’s return, he delights to develop these pictures, and it is said that they have furnished some very strange information Indeed. One clerk, who received his dismissal somewhat unexpectedly, and boldly wanted to know the reason why, wa3 horrified when shown a photograph in which he was depicted lolling in an easy chair, with his feet upon the office desk, while the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to an hour at which he ought to have been at his busiest. The servants’ party in the best dining-room furnished another thrilling scene ! —Amateur Photographer.

WATER TESTS. Test for hard or soft water.—Dissolve a small quantity of good soap in alcohol. Let a few drops fall into a glass of water. If it turns milky, it is hard; if not it is soft. Test for Earthy Matters or Alkali. —Take litmus paper dipped in vinegar, and if, on immersion, the paper returns to its true shade, the water does uot contain earthly matter or alkali. If a few drops of sirup be added to a water containing an earthly matter, it will turn green. Test for carbonic acid.—Take equal parts of water and clear lime water. If combined or free carbonic acid is present a precipitate is seen, to which, if a few drops of mnriatie acid be added, an effervescence commences. Test for magnesia.—Boil the water to a twentieth part of its weight, and then drop a few grains of neutral carbonate of ammonia into a glass of it, and a few drops of phosphate of soda. If magnesia be present it will fall to the bottom. Tests for iron.—l. Boii a little nut gall, and add to the water. If it turns grav or slate-black iron is present. 2. Dissolve a little prussiate of potash, and if iron is present, it will turn blue. Test for lime, —Into a glass of the water put two drops of oxalic aeid, and blow upon it ; if it gets milky, lime is present. Tests for aeid. —Take a piece of litmus paper. If it turn 3 red, there must be acid. If it precipitates on adding lime water, it is carbonic acid. If a blue sugar paper is turned red, it is a mineral acid.

COURTESY. It is not in relations with strangers that courtesy should be most thoughtful, nor in the ‘ salon ’ that it should be most delicate. It is in relations with our servants, with those who serve us—whether cooks or clerks, chambermaids or janitors, coachman or dressmakers ; with all those upon whom, rightly speaking, we are ‘dependent ’ —it is with these persons that we should give the most evident proofs of that sympathy .which results from the imaginative conception of the condition of others, and.of the savoirvivre which such conceptions, when true, bestow on us. The members of our households who are not members of our families should be treated by us with so constant and so sincere a kindliness of manner that the word ‘ courtesy ’ would not be amiss in describing it. It is consistent with entire simplicity to be as courteous in one s bearing toward an inferior as toward a superior; and there is no such barrier to insolence. Tel maitre, tel valet: and a mistress condemns herself when she complains of her servants. If they are not respectable we should not keep them with us ; if they are respectable we should turn them into friends by the openness and honesty of our good-will expressed by our good manners. In all these relations that we have been considering—of the old and young, of mutual strangers, of employers and employed—we are for the most part in the habit of allowing our manners to form themselves according to our individual temperaments, and to express the more or less good-will it chances to be our nature to feel towards various people, and the world in general. We do not recognise as clearly as we should, and we certainly have not taught our children, that good-will and good manners are mutually and alternately cause and effect, and that, to quote again the writer in the Reforme Sociale, ‘to abbreviate and neglect the forms of politeness is really to diminish the sentiments and the needs of the heart. As soon as one

ceases to express outwardly even the most essential sentiments, these sentiments become weakened to a certain degree in tho soul ; they lose something of their delicacy and of their energy.’ The cultivation of the forms of politeness must be begun in family life, between husbands and wives, parentsand children, brothers and sisters. Till courtesy is honored in the household it will not appear in the ‘salon.’ —Nation,

MODERN FRENCH MARRIAGES.. It has always hitherto been understood that, though English marriages were made in heaven, among our neighbors on the otherside of the Channel they were made in the notaries’ offices. But, though the former belief is as well grounded as ever, the latter appears to be based on a condition of things which is rapidly passing away. Modern French marriages—at any rate these of the Upper Ten Thousand are made throughthe advertisement columns of the Figaro. And, whatever the notaries may think of thechange, there can be no doubt it is for the better. No one notary could find among his clients the embarrass de choix that is offered* by the columns of this journal. In one day’s paper ladies are invited to ehoose between a- ‘ Protestant diplomatist, aged twenty-five, very well connected,’ ‘ a young man of historic nobility, with expectations,’ and ‘ayoung man of twenty-eight, of ancientFrench nobility, with vast colonial properties producing a good income.’ This latter gentlemon nngallantly stipulates that his* wife's dob shall be in hard cash. Nor are the ladies less eligible. There is one aged* twenty portionless, alas ! the mere enumeration of whose charms fills seven lines of print z she ‘ speaks English ’ and is ‘of Conservative opinions.’ Two other ladies can compress all their attractions into oneline, ‘ £120,000,’ * dowry up to ‘ £400,000. > It is much to be feared that this short catalogue of virtues will be long enough either for the Protestant diplomatist or for the historic nobleman.