SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 14, 2 April 1892, Page 324

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

FALSE HONEY. A KIND of artificial honey, which has lately been produced, seems likely to become a formidable rival of natural honey. It is called * sugar honey,’ and consists of water, sugar, a small proportion of mineral salts and a free acid, and the taste and smell resemble those of the genuine aiticle. HOME MADE COUGH MIXTURE. Here are some recipes for people who catch old fashioned colds and develop «oughs, which have no affinity whatsoever with the dreaded influenza. One very simple remedy is to boil half a cupful of treacle with a lump of butter about the size of a walnut, to which is afterwards added the juice of a large lemon. This mixture will be found soothing for an ordinary uncomplicated cough. For children the following is good :—Take half an ounce of syrup of tolu, and the same quantity of oxymel of squills, one ounce cf mucilage, and three ounces ipecacuanha wine, and mix with two ounces of water. The dose for a child of about one year old is one teaspoonful, and a tablespoouful for one of five years, when the cough is troublesome. Another mixture for adults is equal parts of oxymel of squills, simple oxymel, and syrup of poppies, mixed. Of this simple remedy a teaspoonful may be taken when the cough is troublesome. A MOVING SIDEWALK. The moving sidewalk at the World’s Fair grounds was opened to the public on November 25. About 300 representative men went by special train from Chicago to inspect this novelty. One of the criticisms made of this means of transportation was with reference to the danger to old men, ladies, and children, but experience from a week’s use of the road shows that there is no trouble in this respect. The speed is so slow that there is no difficulty in getting on or off. This exhibit is on a wooden trestle 25ft. high, the sharpest curve having a radius of 75ft. The sidewalk is 900 ft. long having 360 deg. of curvature in that length. When hauling about 350 passengers, which is about onethird of the capacity of this experimental line, the additional power expended is about above that necessary to move the walk. The Railroad Gazette says : ‘ Road is now in full operation and is carrying a large number of passengers. A full view of the World’s Fair Grounds is obtained from the seats of the cars.’ A NEW REMEDY FOR DOG BITES. A lady writes giving a novel remedy for the bites of dogs and other animals: —‘ I have been bitten by dogs repeatedly,’ she says, ‘ once severely. A pet dog of a neighbour’s was very sick, and I was attempting to relieve it. It bit me in the left thumb, just below the nail. The member became black as far down as the wrist. It remained so until the nail came off. The owner talked of hydrophobia, and said that the dog had not tasted water for two weeks. Had I been afraid I should, no doubt, have taken nervous fits and died. The verdict would have been “ hydrophobia.” But I simply applied a solution of salt and vinegar, a little more vinegar than salt, washed the wound with it, then tied a clean rag around the thumb, keeping it saturated well with the solution, and moved the rag so that a fresh part covered the wound at intervals. This remedy was one applied to my wrist by a coloured woman in the South for a snake bite. My arm was then black, hard, and painful. The remedy acted like a charm. Tn two hours the discolourations had disappeared, and with it the pain, and only the needle mark where the fang had entered was visible.' THE RELATION OF HEIGHT TO DISEASE. The doctors are always discovering something new to scare simple folk. The latest of these finds is that to be very tall is to be on the high road to a disease called Megalacria. In itself this sesquipedalian malady is sufficiently awe inspiring. But Dr. Cunningham, the Dublin anatomist, has just published in the memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy a paper in which he concludes that nearly all the giants of whom any records have been kept came into this category of * megalacriacs.’ This stature is the result of a morbid growth, which may affect only the feet and hands and under jaw, or may include the entire body, soft parts as well as bones. Magrath, the Irish giant, was a victim of this hypertrophy, though Dr. Cunningham declaies that instead of his being eight feet four inches in height, a study of his skeleton in Trinity College shows that he was in all likelihood not more than seven feet two and a half or three inches high, though there are records of people who have shot up to eight feet four and a half inches. It is. however, consolatory to find that though most Anaks have been megalacrious it does not necessarily follow, even though they are notoriously short-lived, that they are afflicted with this malady—great feet and a huge lower jaw being its leading characteristics. WATER. The human body, says a writer in Hall’s Journal of Health, is constantly undergoing tissue change. Water has the power of increasing these tissue changes, which multiply the waste products, but at the same time they are renewed by its agency, giving rise to increased appetite, which in turn provides fresh nutriment. Persons but little accustomed to drink water are liable to have the waste products formed faster than they are removed. Any obstruction to the free working of natural laws at once produces disease. People accustomed to rise in the morning weak and languid will find the cause in the imperfect secretion of wastes, which many times may be remedied by drinking a full tumble! of water before retiring. This very materially assists in the process during the night, and leaves the tissues fresh and strong, ready for the active work of the day. Hot water is one of our best remedial agents. A hot bath on going to bed, even in the hot nights of summer, is a better reliever of insomnia than many drugs. Inflated parts will subside under the continued poulticing of real hot water. Very hot water, as we all know, is a prompt checker of bleeding, and besides, if it is clean, as it should be, it aids in sterilizing our wound. A riotous stomach will nearly always gratefully receive a glass of hot water.