43° 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



operation." — May 5th : " I have decided to 

 come to town next Monday week to let you 

 see how well I can walk." — June 17th: "I 

 played two sets of tennis on Saturday, and 

 my feet were none the worse afterward." — 

 July 24th: "You will be surprised to hear 

 that the big toes have lengthened half an 

 inch since the operation, and I have had all 

 my boots lengthened and the toe line made 

 straighter." — August 30th: "I know that 

 you will be interested to hear that I have 

 just accepted an invitation to a dance on 

 September 13th. Whether I shall dance 

 comfortably or not is another thing." — Sep- 

 tember 14th : " I went to the dance on Tues- 

 day evening and thoroughly enjoyed myself 

 after not dancing for so long. My feet were 

 on their best behavior, and did not pain me 

 once during the evening. I never realized 

 before that I had no toes until I began to 

 dance ; then it seemed so odd only to have 

 one toe, but I suffered no inconvenience 

 whatever from the loss of them." — Decem- 

 ber 5th : " I get on so well with my bicycle." 

 Only two disadvantages showed themselves 

 as the result of the operation and these were 

 temporary. One was that the great toes 

 tended to pervert themselves toward the 

 middle line of the feet, a thing which was 

 readily remedied by the use of single-toed 

 stockings, and by packing the space in the 

 boot left vacant by the missing toes with 

 cotton wool ; the other was a loss of local 

 sense on the outer sides of the feet, which 

 went to show that the lesser toes were missed 

 rather as tactile organs than anything else. 

 This failure of feeling righted itself in time, 

 presumably by a vicarious and intenser sense 

 being acquired by the skin of the outer side 

 of the foot. In all other respects the loss of 

 the toes discovered no inconvenience. 



Animals' Bites. — That there is something 

 more serious than the mere wound in the 

 bite even of a healthy animal is attested by Mr. 

 Pagin Thornton, from a chapter in his own ex- 

 perience, and in the testimony of a number of 

 his own friends who have suffered for weeks 

 together from having been bitten. "And 

 what is more surprising to me," he says, " is 

 that some of us may have hands crippled 

 for some time from bites of a man's teeth." 

 Dog bites are always dangerous, but largely 

 from the size of the wound which a dog 



biting in earnest will inflict. With men they 

 usually fail to do their best. Animals re- 

 cover from wounds more easily than men do ; 

 but Lord Ebrington says that deer bitten by 

 the dogs in Exmoor hardly ever recover. 

 Much of the poisoning caused by bites is 

 supposed to be due to the state of the ani- 

 mal's teeth ; and in this way the bite of a 

 herbivorous animal, whose teeth are usually 

 soiled, may cause worse after effects than 

 that of a carnivore, whose wet mouth and 

 wet tongue keep its teeth fairly clean. A 

 similar difference is observable in the effects 

 of being clawed and bitten by carnivora. 

 Wounds made by the claws of leopards are 

 poisonous, while those caused by the teeth 

 are rarely septic. The force with which a 

 bite in earnest is inflicted is an important 

 element in its dangerous character. "It 

 seems," says the London Spectator, " as if 

 for the moment the animal threw all its force 

 into the combination of muscular action 

 which we call a ' bite.' In most cases the 

 mere shock of impact, as the beast hurls itself 

 on its enemy, is entirely demoralizing, or 

 inflicts physical injury. A muzzled mastiff 

 will hurl a man to the ground in the effort 

 to fasten its teeth in his throat or shoulder. 

 Then, the driving and crushing force of the 

 jaw muscles is astonishing." Sir Samuel 

 Baker noticed that the tiger usually seized 

 an Indian native by the shoulder, and with 

 one jaw on one side and the other on the 

 other bit clean through chest and back. In 

 nearly all cases the bite penetrates to the 

 lungs. This kind of wound is characteristic 

 of the bites of the felidce. Hardly any bird 

 recovers from a cat's bite, for the same rea- 

 son. The canine teeth are almost instantly 

 driven through the lung under the wing. 



Donlton Potteries. — Sir Henry Doulton, 

 head of the Lambeth potteries, whose death, 

 November 17, 1897, has been recorded in 

 the Monthly, preferred devoting himself to 

 the factory to engaging in the study of a 

 learned profession for which his parents in- 

 tended him, and himself did much of the 

 largest work produced there in the earlier 

 days of his connection with it. As the factory 

 was enlarged, it made drain pipes, vessels 

 and appliances of stoneware for chemical and 

 other similar uses, for which it gained prizes 

 at the great exhibitions of 1851 and 1862 ; 



