SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2111, 9 August 1894, Page 49

SCIENCE NOTES.

— Mr Work Dodd has discovered a strange relation between errors of refraction and epilepsy. The former, given a certain condition of instability of the nervous system, may excite the latter. In other words, the relation that errors of refraction and epilepsy hold toward each other is that of cause and effect. This is a most useful argument to be used in most cases where people are either too thoughtless or too indolent to have their visual refraction corrected when necessary. Mr Dodd points out, in addition to the foregoing, that the correction of the errors of refraction will, in combination with other treatment, in many cases cure or relieve the epileptic condition, and that, although in some cases, when the refraction error has been corrected, the epilepsy will continue, it will only be in a modified form, in consequence of other irritation, even though the error of refraction may have been the exciting cause of the fits in the first instance. Mr Dodd is strongly of opinion that in every ca&e of epilepsy the eyeß should be carefully examined, with a view of correcting any error of refraction that may exist by the use of proper spec- ' tacles.

— There appears to be differing testimony as to the number of bones in the. human body. Eminent specialists vary from 206 to 260, which is a most remarkable difference. The cranium consists of eight different bones. There 'are 14 bone& of the face, besides 32 teeth. There are four very small bones in each ear and one at the root of the tongue. Head, above neck, 63. The spine contains 24 pieces, called vertebrae, and between these and the lower extremities are four bones more. There are 24 ribs and a breastbone or sternum down the middle of the front. That which is commonly called the body, 53. The upper extremity, including hands, arms, collarbone, and shoulder blade, consists of 32 pieces on each side, and each lower extremity includes 30 bones, equal to 124 ; total, 240. — The uee of poisonous or corrosive salts as fungicides or insect destroyers on plants is found to be almost as bad as the disease in some instances where the application has been made in a rather careless manner. Sulphate of copper should be applied only in a weak solution to the foliage, and then only when mixed with lime. In various parts — America and India — potatoes have been practically destroyed by the strong remedy, and in the reports of the State Agricultural College, Michigan, it is reported that the poisons used ia spraying, such as the salts of copper and of arssnic, were found in the fruits — in small quantities only, of course. Dr Kedzie, who made the analyses at the Michigan College, considers that the quantity of poison used is much in excess of the amount needed to act as a fungicide, and poisonous salts should not be used at all when the fruit is ripening.

— Accofding to a German ■ scientific journal, a material called " flexible glass " is made by dissolving four to eight parts of gun cotton in one part of ether or alcohol, and adding to the solution two to four parts of a non-resinous oil, and four to ten parts of Canada balsam. The mixture is spread on a plate of glass, and dried in a current of air at a temperature of 50deg. The residuum is a hard, flexible, transparent mass, resisting alike acids, alkalies, and salts. It is odourless, and its inflammability can be reduced by adding chloride of magnesium, while zino white gives it an ivory tint.

— Chemistry has already solved in principle the manufacture of food. It has analysed and can practically reproduce the fats and oils of commerce ; it is making great headway with the sugars and hydrates; and even the nitrogenous bodies are by no means hopeless. We take carbon from carbonic acid, oxygen and hydrogen from water, nitrogen from the air, and there we have in outline the solution of the food problem. In the year 2000 a.d. we shall waste no time on meals. Nitrogenous foodstuff in tabloids, fatty substances in pills, tiny crumbs of starch and sugar : these will be our methods of sustaining existence.

— According to Die Glashutte, the beautiful colouring of certain varieties of glass now produced in Germany, and which far excels some of the most noted French specimens, is an art practised by the glassblowers at the furnace, by means of an apparatus consisting of a sheet iron cylinder, 20in long and Bin diameter, standing vertically, and having a similar cylinder riveted across the top, thus forming a T-shaped muffle. In the lower cylinder is an opening into which an iron ladle can pass, and the horizontal cylinder is provided with doors at either end, the one nearest the operator being so arranged that the blowpipes can be supported, when the door is closed, in a horizontal split running to its middle, the object to be treated being held inside. While the glass-blower is reheating hia work for the last time in the furnace, an attendant takes the long-bandied iron ladle, which has been heated red hot, shakes into it about a spoonful of a specially-prepared chemical mixture, and places the bowl of the ladle quickly in the opening provided for it in the vertical cylinder. The mixture immediately gives off vapour, which rises to the horizontal cylinders, where meanwhile the blower has placed bis work, supported by the blowpipe, and heated to an even red, turning it -rapidly in the vapour ; in a short time the object is covered with a changeable lustre, is removed from the pipe and tempered like other ware in an ordinary oven, then cut, engravad, painted or gilded, as desired.

— No science can claim, so many disciples as meteorology. There is scarcely a corner of the world inhabited by civilised man in which the temperature is not recorded and the rainfall measured. Indeed, the thermometer and the rain-gauge are the instruments by means of which the first continuous scientific observations are made in most parts of our globe. Meteorological observations, therefore, rapidly accumulate, and the volumes containing them have almost become unmanageable, both as regards number and size.

— We have received an explanatory circular relating to Oolonel Julier's system of smoke absorption, which, it is said, can be applied to a factory furnace or a kitchen range with very beneficial results. The apparatus consists of an ascending flue made of fire-brick, in which the products of com-

bastion first enter, being helped in their passage by a jet of steam, which saturates the mineral dnst with water vapour. The smoke- laden gages then enter the descending flue, which is made of steel plates, and which is connected with a tank and drain to carry off the residues. At the top of this last flue is a fine spray of water, by which the soot and dust are precipitated. It is asserted that the filtering of the smoke is so thorough under this system that it is rendered clean, and that a large proportion of the sulphur compounds from the fuel are arrested. If this method could be so far modified that the chimneys of an entire row of houses could be connected with one apparatus, the problem of smoke abatement in our towns would be partly solved.

— Experiments have been made by Dr Abbe on animals, and the results obtained are of great interest. After cutting across the femorals in a dog he inserted smooth sterilised glass tubes, slightly constrioted to an hour-glass Bhape, tied each end of the vessel over the tube by fine silk thread, and then brought the thread ends together. Primary union took place, and the limb was as well nourished as ever ; but in order to determine whether this was not due to collateral circulation Dr Abbe cut out one of the tubes and found the lower end of the vessel occluded by slow endarteritis. To eliminate the element of collateral circulation he tied into the aorta of a cat an inch of very thin glass tube sterilised by boiling, and filled with water before inserting to prevent air emboli. This animal also recovered perfectly. A still more radical procedure was then practised. After disseoting out the brachial artery and vein near the axilla of a dog's forelimb, and holding these apart, he amputated the limb through the shoulder muscles and sawed through the bone, leaving the limb attached only by the vessels. He then sutured the bone with silver wire, the nerves with fine Bilk, and each muscle by itself, making a separate series of continuous suturing of the fascia lata and skin. Perfect union and restoration of function also took place in this instance. This experiment demonstrates that a limb will survive division of all its structures if an artery be left ; and further, the author points out that *if an arterial supply ''can be restored to a ccmpletely amputated limb, that limb also may be grafted back to its original or a corresponding stump. Should Dr Abbe's investigations — as yet incomplete — sbow that it is possible to do this in animals, an important contribution will have been made to the subject of reparative surgery. The tissues of animals, however, possess bo much higher reparative power than those of human beings that it is difficult to predict the possibilities of this fin do sieola method of grafting. — International Journal of Surgery.