Science Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 44, 26 February 1897, Page 11

Science Notes.

BICYCLE BIDING AS A CURE FOR INSANITY. RiCYCLK riding as a cure for insanity is the latest novel idea of science. At the Asylum for Insane in Middletown, New York, there is the oldest bicycle school in existence, the riders in which are the most peculiar in the world, for all of them are demented people. Here is what the medical superintendent has to say of the new idea : That lunatics should be schooled in the art of bicycle riding may seem strange and even remarkable to persons who have not made a study of insane people. But to the medical expert, who understands the beneficial qualities of healthful and mild exercise, who realises that there are certain forms of insanity where the patient has in many respects as perfect ideas as people entirely sane, the knowledge of insane bicyclists can cause no great astonishment. Everyday pupils are taught to ride a wheel, to mount in the most approved fashion, to dismount and to rile in correct position, all under the trained eye and steady hand of able assistants and clever riders. And as all the people are insane they must naturally be the strangest sort of riders to be seen in the world. The patients receive their bicycle instruction on the pleasant grounds of the institution. It is an ideal place for riders, for, instead of a stuffy, indoor place, artificially lighted, and enclosed from the free air, here we have delightful walks, waving grasses and flower-beds, with the scene swept by the most salubrious breezes. Health comes not only with the exercise of the wheel, but with the associated conditions. If people generally were permitted to see the bicycle instruction which is given to our insane, and did not know the riders were mentally unbalanced, it is possible that many of them would leave with the idea that they had witnessed instruction given to ordinary riders, under the most favourable conditions, in an academy of the most perfect sort. There are the usual expressions of disappointment over failures, the customary sounds of merriment at the falls and futile efforts of others, and the conventional signs of delight at the accomplishment of effort. But beneath the surface there is the serious side, seen here and nowhere else. For the instructors are the keepers, who not only watch every turn of the wheel, but whose eyes constantly regard the rider, without appearing to do so. The insane are very much like children. They are sometimes obstinate and self-willed, and they easily lose their self-control ; but under the stimulus of a fascinating pleasure they become docile and are quite easily managed. TELEGRAPHH WITHOUT WIRES. Mr. W. H. Preece, the telegraphic expert of the post office lectured on Saturday night, 19th December at Toynbee Hall on '"Telegraphy Without Wires." Even so long ago as 1838, Steinhiel, a German professor, seems to have thought of such a mode of communication, for he said that it must be left to the future to decide whether we shall ever piicceed in telegraphing at great distances without any metallic communication at all. In 1884 the operators in the Telephone Exchange in the city of London were able to read messages that were going through London to Bradford by telegraph wires, though these were underground, and those belonging to the Telephone Company wore overground. Further experiments had shown that similar effects could be traced on wires separated by an great a distance at. ten miles. It had been thought that this knowledge might be practically applied to establishing communications with lightships and lighthouses, but a series of costly experiments made with the Goodwin lightship had demonstrated that the sea water intercepted the electric waves. At this point of his lecture. Mr. Preece made an announcement of a discovery by Mr. Marconi, a young Italian electrician, which seemed to promise such good results that the post office had decided to spare no expense in experimenting with the apparatus invented by him. Mr. Marconi's system depends not on electro-magnetic but electrostatic efforts. Electric waves are projected at an almost inconceivable rate of vibration of 2.">o.ooo,0oo a second. These travel in straight lines, and are capable of being reflected and refracted like the vibrations of light. Hertz was the first to discover the method of producing these waves, and they had since been developed by others. Mr. Marconi had made an apparatus which could generate and receive these waves, and so send messages by their means. Mr. Preece then exhibited what appeared to be two ordinary boxes. One was placed at each end of the room ; the current was set in motion at one. and a bell was immediately rung in the other. One of the first trials is to be from Penarth to an island in the Channel. If the experiments prove as successful as Mr. Preece hopes and believes, the invention will be of inestimable value to vessels. Communications may be established with lightships and lighthouses, and warnings may be received of dangerous rocks and shoals in spite of fog and storm.