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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 75, 22 October 1872, Page 3

Sr\STir.Ok'i:. Dr Horatio C. Wood, jun., has recently published in America an excellent paper on the subject of sunstroke, founded upon some observations and experiments undertaken by him with the view of elucidating the phenomena. 'YVe are indebted to the i'hiladelj>eia Medical Times for our information concerning this paper. After showing that in eases of sunstroke the blood undergoes no primary changes in its phsiological or chemical properties, Dr Wood's next, step was to ascertain why the heart and muscles are found so rigid after death from sunstroke, und what if is that really kills in this affection. By subject ing myosinc to different temperatures, he found that this substance coagulated with great rapidity from 108 deg. to 115 (leg. P., and the temperature of the body in eases of sunstroke often reaches 1 10 deg. at the time of death. But the heart is found to continue to beat in animals dead of sunstroke—-at any rule dead in the sense that they had ceased to respire. The rigidity of the cardiac muscles then is a post, and not an ante-mortem phenomenon. Assomecxporiments by Dr Wood proved t hat heat applied to a nerve trunk would not, desfroy its conducting power, his further investigation was directed to the action of heat on the nerve centres. By some ingenious appliances, hot, wafer was made to circulate over the surface of an animal's head, and if was found that, sudden insensibility, and ultimately death from asphyxia could alwi.ys be induced at certain temperatures. A brain temperature of from 112 deg. to 11 1 (leg. was fatal to a cat, and one of 114 deg. to 117 deg. to a rabbit. Owing to fie possession of a more highly organized brain, it is probable that in man a less degree of heat would produce the same set of symptoms. The mechanism of an at tank <f sunstroke then, according to Dr Wood, is t hat " under the influence of external heal the temperature of the body rises until at last a point is reached at which the heat, paralyzes, by overstimulation, the controlling centre regulating animal heal.; then a. sudden additional rise of temperature, with a corresponding increase in the severity of the symptoms occurs." Of course cold is the remedy, and cold water the readiest way of applying it,. If is a, great, mistake, says the Lancet, to suppose that these cases arc commonly due to the action of the direct rays of the sun, for in India, as in America, attacks are very frequent, at night,. One of tho main things to be attended to is, as we have said before, the function of tho skin by the daily use of the bath.

Reduced to figures I wonder what proportion of the populal ion 1 i:is loft London when (ho newspaper correspondent. pathetically complain that " everybody is out. of town." If they moan the people of fashion, can't wo jret, on very well without, having it so repoafodly impressed upon us that, a low wealthy or apparently wealthy people, moved by a spirit of slavish imitation, emigrate from the metropolis for on other reason than tluil it is (he correct and fashionable thing t.> do? Isn't the latent object of some of those paragraphs of pretended lamentation to impress upon vulgar colonial readers how fashionable and Hiiperliiie London correspondents are—how London society cherishes them—how much obliged wo to be to men who deny themselves the aijremms of a dinner with the Chancellor, a quadrille at vUmaek's, or a. reception by the wife of (lie frontier, in order to keep us fully advised of the activity of Tallernian and the price of preserved meal ? Despite the spice of snobbishness displayed at this season of the year, let us hope that the London correspondents will survive the dog days in the city and the torturing fact that my Lady and the Lord Knows Who arc out of town. —Jttflt'.s. I have lost my way amidst the millions and milliards. In sterling, 1 believe it would be preferable to have the latter. And of these vast aggressions, winch convey to the mind a vague impression of hugeness, rather than an exact and comprehensible indication of quantity, France lias been offered a dozen times as much money as slie desired to borrow. There is still European confidence in her honour and her power, despite her unparalleled disasters and the misconduct, of a ruthless section of the population of Paris. A Melbourne money-lender (who therefore knows all about national loans,) bantering another of Gorman extraction, expressed doubts whether, if Germany were in the market, as a borrower, she would lurvo so much money offered her. " For," said he, " what could she offer as security—Rhino scenery ; You can't put, llhino scenery in a Milner's safe."— Ibid. Pr Yogol contributes a letter to the Phil ad el phi an JVmlojjraphcr, in which he says: —"It is well known thas the interior of the human eye has been photographed. The experiment, is a somewhat, cruel one for a living subject, st'll there are victims who stand it. I know, lor instance, a very handsome young lady, whose brother is a physician, who patiently takes extract of belladonna until the pupil has become sufficiently enlarged; the interior of the eye is then illuminated with magnesium light and photographed. In a similar manner lias the ear been photographed, that is to say the tympanum only. A tube is inserted, in which is a mirror, inclined at ft certain angle. The mirror throws light into the interior of the ear. The mirror is also provided with a central hole, through which the illuminated tympan can be inspected. A system of lenses projects an image on the sensitive plate, and the picture is made in the ordinary manner. Photography lias done good service at Naples during the recent fearful eruptions. The photographer. Sommev, of Naples, has photographed the different phases, and we see plainly on tlie picture the smoking streams of lava descending the mountain, and the enormous column of smoke which rises to the elevation of twelve thousand feet. Much scope is given to the retoueli in pictures of this kind, and by it the awful spectacle is made still more so." Photography, as an instrumental aid in the education of youth, has not- yet been sufficiently made use of. B v means of it the study of seographv and natural history may be converted into a pastime, instead of being as it now is a weariness to the itesh. " I say Jim, what mechanical work did you first do?" said one darkey to another." " Why, why cut teeth, ob course," replied the other. "So you did, by gum!" Why was Blackstone like an Irish vegetable ? Because he was a common tat nr. On the Sunday after the defeat of Colonel Jonathan Peel, at the Norwich election, a clergyman theretook for his text, " I am grieved for thee, my brother Jonathan." What French number—Stratford-le-Bo French of course —is most useful in England ? Catherine (quatorze.) Why is a Judge's nose like the middle of the earth ? Because it is the centre of gravity.

M. Ferdinand Tommasi has invented what lie calls a hydro-cleotric submarine cable, which is likely to excite the attention of practical engineers, on account of its great novelty. His invention consists of a tube of copper containing a thread or column of water, which it is said will transmit every impulse communicated to it by mean* of pistons, and not only that, but it will transmit impulse* in opposite directions at the same time. He afFirms that he can obtain the following results: —1- A speed of transmission of G<>o signals per minute, even at 4000 kilometres distance (nearly 2500 miles English). 2. Simultaneous exchange of correspondence, any number of despatches being effected by the same cable. •I. An adaptability to any recording instrument whatever, quadrant, Morse, printing, &c., quite automatically. 4. Economy in first cost, durability, and increase in returns. If these statements arc not overdrawn we shall be able to dispense with electrioitv as a telegraphic agent, and to substitute for it mere mechanical force. It strikes ns that the chicf objection to the proposed method of telegraphing will be the difficulty of laying down continuous copper tubes at the bottoms of deep seas. A cable is more or less pliable, and can be laid down easily from a ship into the water, but a tube would be more or less rigid and would be apt to break if roughly handled. 'Mr Charles Peabody in his "Authors at Work, gives the following as'the value of contributions to British social literature. Speaking of tho Edinburgh llemew, Mr Peabody says At the commencement of the second year, Jeffrey was installed as editor, with a fee of £50 a number, and the scale of pay fixed at ten guineas a sheet. This, at the time, was thought very handsome. It represents now only the scale" of recond-rate publications. St Paul's and Mucmillan's, and the Corn kill, pay a guinea a page. Even publications, like Chambers's Journal, pay 15s a column ; Dickens's rate in All the lear Hound, I believe, was, like that of the Cornhill, a guinea a column. The Times varies m itsjmynient: for reviewers, from 50s a column to £5 ; but it lias frequently, it is said, p lid as much as ten guineas for an article ; and five guineas is the usual fee for leaders. The average scalc for contributions, with most of its contemporaries, rarely, however, runs beyond two guineas an article. One guinea was the scale of the S'lrrr, and that is still, I believe, the scale upon two or three other papers. At the outset of the ccntuiy, however, men like Scott and Southey, Goleiulgc and Hazlitt, Lockhart and Lamb, thought ten guineas a sheet of sixteen pages worth working for ; and that, for several years, was the scale of the Edinburgh and Quarterly. Charles Dickens offered his first sketches by Boz, to the editor of the New Monthly at 10s a page ; and this was the amount that Ihackeray received for most of his early contributions to Frazer, The Westminster was, I believe, the first to raise the amount. Sir John Bowring fixed the minimum pay of his staff at sixteen guineas a sheet. This was the rate too, of tin* London Jbiagazine, and of the Netv Monthly, under Lord Lytton. In both cases, however, special rates were paid to writers of acknowledged reputation for their articles. But till the establishment of the Quarterly, twenty guineas was the regular allowance to contributors of the first order, to the Smiths and Broughams and Murrays of the Jteview. Twenty to twenty-five guineas was the rate in ncarlv every case alter the establishment of the Quarterly, and Jeffrey estimates that the cost of the whole number to the publishers, during tho greater part of his editorship, wes nob less than twenty-five guineas a sheet. His own fee as editor, after the first five or six years, was £700 a-year ; but bv using his pen he could easily run this up to £1000, and generally did. lie had power to draw for £.4800 a year for contributions, that is, for £700 a number. 'Frogs ought to be very much obliged to Mr H. L. Smith for discovering a new method of observing the circulation of their blood by means of the microscope, an account of which he has published in the Microscopical Journal. Mr Smyth says that if we grasp a frog in the hand and then plunge it into water as hot as the hand can bear (about 120 degrees) the frog will become perfectly rigid and motionless, and may then be removed and laid upon a plate for dissection. Carefully opening or stretching the parts by pulling upon the fore-limbs gently, or even cutting the bones if necessary, the heart may be displayed, showing the contraction and expansion of that organ, and if now Ike animal is placed in warm water, the lungs will immediately float out and by a suitably contrived stage the circulation may be examined. Mr Smith gives minute directions as to the mode in which the circulation in the mesentery of the frog is to be observed, in order, to use his words, that the observer may be able to see this most magnificent exhibition of capillary circulation. Frogs submitted to this beautiful scientific operation are still living, and may, for ought that is known to the contrary, have a very pungent and lively experience of the pains and penalties which scientific curiosity too frequently inflicts on the lower animals.