CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 229 



oxygen in a practical form for inhalation. Fortunately, this difficulty 

 is now removed. The discovery by ?.Lr. Bobbins of a mode of evolving 

 oxygon, by acting on peroxide of barium and bichromate of potassa 

 with dilute sulphuric acid, had given him (Dr. Richardson) the op- 

 portunity of inventing a little apparatus for inhaling oxygen, which 

 could be carried anywhere and used at a moment's notice. The author 

 here exhibited and described the apparatus. It consists of two glass 

 globes, with a double-valved mouth-piece connected with the escape- 

 tube of one globe. The powder containing the oxygen was placed 

 in one globe, and dilute sulphuric acid was poured over it. The 

 oxygen gas was evolved and passed over into the second globe, which 

 was half-tilled with water. From this, after being washed in passing 

 through the water, the gas was inhaled. The apparatus was so ar- 

 ranged, that any dilution of oxygen recommended say three parts of 

 oxygen to two of nitrogen could be secured ; and by changing the 



Cj CJ v CU * ' 



water in the second globe, so as to have hot, or temperate, or very 

 cold, the activity of the combination could be graduated. 



French Investigations. M. M. DeMarquay and Leconte, in a 

 memoir, on the above subject read at a recent meeting of the Paris 

 Academy, advocate the inhaling of oxygen in cases of diphtheritics, 

 diabetes, and other exhausting maladies. In some cases, they say that 

 under the influence of this gas, strength is renewed, the lost appetite 

 returns with remarkable intensity, food being even required in the 

 night ; the pale lips arc reddened ; and, with these appearances of 

 convalescence, nervous affections disappear. The gentlemen do not 

 claim to have healed any person ; but assert that at all events they 

 have done no harm. 



ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL 'EFFECTS OF TOBACCO. 



The following highly interesting paper, on the above subject, was 

 read before the British Association, 1864, by Dr. B. W. Richardson, 

 the eminent English physiologist and chemist. The author began by 

 saying that, without being a devotee to tobacco, he had for many years 

 often smoked. He did not come before the Section biased in any 

 degree, as his remarks would prove ; he came simply as a man of 

 science, who had tried to comprehend the facts of the whole question, 

 and he should put these facts forward clearly, fairly, and free from 

 technicalities. Products of the Combust ion of Tobacco. Some recent 

 researches on this subject had led the author to the fact, that these 

 products are much more complex than had been supposed. He de- 

 scribed an apparatus which was, in fact, an automaton smoker, by 

 which he had been enabled to have pipes of various kinds of tobacco 

 and cigars smoked by means of a bellows ; the smoke which, in the 

 case of a man, would enter the mouth, being all caught and subjected 

 to analysis. The results of these inquiries had led him to the deter- 

 mination of the following bodies as products of the combustion of 

 tobacco: 1. Water. 2. Free carbon 3. Ammonia. 4. Carbonic 

 acid. 5. An alkaloidal principle, called nicotine. 6. An empyreu- 

 matic substance. 7. A resinous bitter extract. Physical Properties 

 of the Component Parts. The water is in the form of vapor ; the car- 

 bon in the form of minute particles, suspended in the water vapor, and 

 to the eddies of smoke their blue color ; the ammonia in the 

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