SKINNY MEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1875, 28 October 1887, Page 36

SKINNY MEN.

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— Most of our readers are familiar with the facts connected with the discovery of the planet Neptune — that its existence was predicted with the utmost confidence long before it was seen, from certain astro-

nomicai abberrations that could only be ac-

counted for bysome unknown disturbing body, the location of which was pointed but, and

which was finally found just where it was announced it should bp looked for. The discovery of the gigantic birds of New Zealand is another familiar illustration of the perfection to which scientific deduction has been carried. The discovery of the Dinornis by the illustrious zoologist Richard Owen, is famous as one of the most notable feats in the history of science. From a single imperfect bone — a femur broken at both ends— Owen deduced the fact that an enormous bird of the Struthious order, but

far exceeding the ostrich in size, formerly

inhabited New Zealand. This announcement, published in 1839, aroused much interest

and led to further inquiry. Four years later

Mr Owen was able to show, from the comparison of many fragments of skeletons which had reached him, that there had been at least six species of these gigantic birds. With additions in 1850, lie had increased the number of species to 11, classed in three genera and varying in size from a kind not over sft high to one— the Dinornis gigantcus—at least 10ft in height. Still later researches have shown that even this stature was in some instances surpassed, and that birds must have existed whose height attained fully 14ft, or twice that of the largest ostrich. — It is stated on the authority of a Cuban journal that since the sunflower has been cultivated in certain swampy districts on the banks of the River Potomac, malarial fever has aimost ceased to be endemic there. Similar beneficial results appear also to have followed the cultivation of this plant in the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Scheldt in Holland. The editor of the "Monthly

Journal of Pharmacy," who has been engaged

in observations on sunflowers, -found that during the month of June 1885 a quarter of an acre of sunflowers exhaled, with a mean

temperature of 70deg F. at mid-day, exactly 1950 gal of water in the form of vapour, or 65gal a day. He attributes the antimalarial action of the sunflower, therefore, not only to its properties of absorbing and destroying the malarial miasm and of emitting an abundance of pure oxygen, as taught by other writers, but also to its great capacity, owing to its rapid and vigorous vegetation, of absorbing and utilising the moisture of the. soil in districts which are unfit for human habitation. He likewise suggests that the aromatic odour of the flowers may perlniDs be possessed of antiseptic virtues. — The London Eoad Car Company is trying the experiment of lighting its omnibuses with the electric light. An " Eclipse " battery has been placed underneath the driver's seat of an omnibus running from Liverpool street to Victoria station, and supplies a current sufficiently strong to keep alight a small glow lamp of the Swan and Edison type. This gives a light far superior to anything usually seen in public conveyances, and it is said to cost only about Id per working night, but of how many hours is not stated. When the light is burnt continuously, the cells have to be refilled with the chemicals once every 16 hours.

— In 188G a commission was appointed by the British Government to report onjPasteur's

method of treating patients bitten by mad dogs in order to save them from hydrophobia, and also on his method of inoculating dogs and other animals to make them proof against rabies. After carefully repeating most of his main experiments for themselves, and testing all his claims completely, they

have just reported almost perfect verification of his statements. This comes opportunely for Pasteur, who has been virulently assailed by a small section of the Parisian medical profession. By producing

the dispassionate English report, signed with such names as those of Paget, Lister, Quain, Sanderson, and Bftmton, he has

been able to demolish the small but bitter opposition. The enormous importance of Pasteur's work lies not so much in its immediate results in connection with hydrophobia, of which the cases are never numerous, and from which Australia, for example, is free, as in the possibility which it demonstrates of a disease being fought with by inoculation after it has actually been contracted. At present inoculation is practised only to save people from taking a disease. But there is not much doubt that before many decades have passed all infectious diseases from slow consumption to rapid cholera will permit of the same treatment by inoculation. Smallpox, too, ought to prove tractable in a similar raannor, so that compulsory vaccination may be dis* pensed with. Pasteur's own theory of his method is that the virus of rabies being a bacterium produces in the act of nourishing itself a substance which is its own antidote,

just as yeast, when it has produced a certain amount of alcohol in a fluid, has its vitality arrested and can produce no more. He considers that the spinal cord of an animal which has died of rabies contains both the disease germ and its own .antidote which it

has produced there. By drying pieces of spinal cord before using them to inoculate with, Pasteur considers he weakens the virus more than the antidote. But this part of the question is really in total darkness. We can hardly imagine that when a person

ias had an infectious disease once he retains

in his system ever after a stock of antidote sufficient to prevent his taking the disease again.

— Herr Fokker, a German physiologist, has communicated to the Paris Academy of Sciences some observations which promise to open up a new and most interesting branch of inquiry. He finds that he can produce fermentation by means of the protoplasm in the flosh of newly killed animals without the assistance of bacteria of any sort. If a piece of any organ, such as the liver or pancreas or a piece of muscle, be cut with all the usual antiseptic precautions from a newly killed animal, and placed in a sterilised fluid, and then- kept at a suitable temperature, it changes the sugar of the fluid to acid, and the starch into sugar, although no microbes develop during the process. The process is slow, and if the acid as it forms is not neu-.

tralised, comes to a standstill; but if the acid is neutralised it may go on for months. The only difference between this process and fermentation by microbes is that the latter

multiply; whereas the protoplasm of flesh does not increase. It must be remembered that recent discoveries show that mere light can produce a very slow fermentation. Further researches in this direction will be awaited with eagerness. Meanwhile it may be permissible to make the paradoxical statement that dead flesh when placed in a nutritive fluid and protected from bacteria continues to live.