SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

Otago Witness, Issue 1861, 22 July 1887, Page 36

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

Scorpion Virus. — A letter to Nature, signed "J. Fayrer," says : — " Professor Bourne's experiments, related in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of January 6, 1887, seem to establish the fact that although the scorpion may be provoked to strike and wound itself or another scorpion, it is incapable, in either case, of causing any toxic action, however active the virus may prove in respect of other creatures. That it is, in short, with the scorpion as it is with the cobra or viper ; they poison other creature, but not themselves or each other. Some years ago an exhaustive series of experiments brought me to the conclusion that a cobra is not poisoned by cobra virus, whether inoculated by ifcs own fangs, by those of another cobra or by a hypodermic syringe. The same in the case of daboia and other viperine snakes. It seemed, however, that the bungarus, a less deadly snake than the cobra, occasionally is affected, though slowly, by the cobra virus, but that it escapes more frequently than it suffers ; and when it does suffer the effect of the poison is greatly diminished. On the other hand, nonvenomous snakes, lizards, frogs, fish, mollusca, and other low forms of life, all rapidly succumb to snake poison. The details of these experiments are to be found in the " Tbanatophidia of India," published in 1872, and in referring to them Professor Bourne remarks: — "They show conclusively that the cobra poison will not affect a cobra, and will not even affect the viperine ptyas." I would correct the latter part of the quotation so far as to say that, the pytas is a colubrine harmless snake, not a viperine snake, and that it rapidly succumbs to the cobra virus. Professor Bourne has helped to dispel another of the popular delusions which cling round venomous creatures." — Public Opinion.

In Washington territory, in the great salmon river, pigs have been seen to chase fish, diving for, them under water. Pigs are not naturally lively animals under water, but they are said to pick up dead salmon in ten feet of ■water by diving.

Mr Desmond Fitzgerald has been making researches on the growth of the sponge, S/>onf///i hicustriSt in waterpipes. Pieces of this plant, or rather animal, find their way into the pipes from lake sources of supply in America, and by their propagation and decay give what is described as a " cucumberJishy " taste to the water. Even large mains under a pressure of 100 ft have been filled up with masses of the sponge, which cannot be removed by flushing the pipes, but require the use of scrapers and wire brashes.

be either kept constant or raised very slowly and with absolutely steady precision. To carry out so very delicate an investigation, however, it would have to be prolonged for months, and even years, in order to imitate the immense deliberation with which Nature herself accomplishes every substantial change in her highest productions. Night and day, winter and summer, the patient gaze must be kept fixed on those merest specks of silvery life which had to be nursed into new conditions of existence. The slightest accident to the apparatus might in one moment render the whole experiment void, and leave the drop of water as lifeless as these islands would be if another glacial period suddenly arrived.

The only reward, on the other hand, for successful and almost inconceivable perseverance would be the discovery of truth and the re-inforcement of Darwin's sublime generalisation. But, for the sake of these, which always satisfy fche noble ardour of science, Dr Dallinger has given as many years of his life as was spent by the Greeks in the seige of Troy, and has apparently won a scientific victory, the value of which is as signal as his ingenuity and devotion are admirable.

Wo will endeavour very briefly to describe the method and the outcome of his most remarkable experiments. The group of microscopic monads were put under the lons in a well-fitted water-cell at their usual temperature of GOdeg Fahrenheit, the apartment, the apparatus, and all around being carefully kept in precise unison. The doctor then spent the first four months of his observation in raising the temperature time after time by stages less than one-sixth' of a degree until his swarm of protozoa had reached the now and advanced reading of 70deg Fahrenheit.

The change, nevertheless, had no more disturbed them than that experienced by a British family when it migrates from London to Cape Town ; the life history of each group remained unaltered ; they moved, gyrated, fed. and split themselves into new individuals in just the same manner and within much the same periods as before, When, however, three more degrees had been added to the 70, the monads showed signs of being decidedly inconvenienced. They were neither as lively nor as productive as formerly ; yet, by keeping them exactly at this range during two quiet months they regained their full vigour, and might be compared to emigrants who had become seasoned by surviving the first hot spell in a tropical country. They could now stand — by gradual steps of increase — the enhanced heat of 78deg, which was reached at the commencement of the 12th month.

Yet here, again, a long pause was found to be necessary ; the new generations of those silver specks of life under the glass were not all alike strong enough to live and thrive. What answers to sunstroke and fever with us had caused vacant spaces to appear in the water-drop, and it was only when the monads showed themselves once more lively and prolific by a long era of repose that the careful doctor administered a further dose of caloric.

During eight years and a-half did he thus slowly and unwearedly proceed in the same course, augmenting the heat of their s'urroutiding element now and then by slow and slights additions, pausing afterward for months to give the minute creatures time to accommodate themselves when signs were visible that they were under difficulties, and always going forward to new trials of endurance when they had recovered. In this manner, after all those years, Dr Dallinger brought his small patients to the astonishing range of 157deg Fahrenheit, at which the latest generation appeared as " jolly as sand boys."

It is not possible to say how much farther their tiny constitutions could have been trained to defy increasing warmth, because the research was at this point accidentally terminated ; but it will be seen that the doctor had brought the little people of his dropworld to sustain a heat nearly lOOdeg higher than the flourishing point of their ancestors, and species of which, if taken at the beginning, would have been completely and instantaneously kiUed in water of 140deg.

When we have added that these minute salamanders perished directly they were put back into their ancestral medium, or Gsdeg, it will be manifested that the indefatigable doctor had, by the magic of science, effected a miracle of Nature. — London Telegraph

He then put on a suit of old clothes, took a hand trowel, got down upon His knees, and dug in his garden in the city three or four hours a day, and in six weeks completely regained his health.

Another instance ; A young man left London a few years ago, and spent one year in travelling, reaching America in the spring of the year, but little better that when he started. He went on to a ranch and commenced work, when he was not able to use the hoe or spade more than two hours out of the 24 ; but he persevered, and in less than six weeks he was able to do a fair day's work. He returned to London a well man. Thousands of invalids might do the same thing if they would ; but to most invalids it is hard medicine to take, and they neglect it, oftentimes to become confirmed invalids, or to meet an untimely death. Exercise — not with dumb-bells, or in any way in the gymnasium, but in the open air, in the form of work,' turning up the soil, is the best promoter of health that can be devised.