CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 225 



Central-Halle gives the following as the rationale of the process now in use 

 by tanners with gas-lime. The depilatory action depends exclusively upon 

 the persulphide of lime, and is heightened by the presence of cyanide of cal- 

 cium. Pieces of hairy skin brought into a mixture of these two compounds 

 were at once deprived of the hair, the destruction commencing on the ends 

 and stopping at the root without acting in the least on the skin. It appears 

 that one atom of sulphur combines with the substance of the hair, destroy- 

 ing it, and at the same time leaving an insoluble sulphate of lime which is 

 precipitated together with the decomposed hair. Druggists' Circular, 



Chlorined Water in Dissection Wounds. M. Garrigon states that repeated 

 experience has convinced him of the efficacy of the treatment long since 

 recommended by M. Nonant, of placing the hand suffering from dissection 

 wounds in chlorinated water. The application will always be found effica- 

 cious, providing purulent infection have not already set in, when it will be 

 useless. Gaz. cits Hop., 1859, No. 30. 



Sulphur as a Dentifrice. Dr. C. W. Wright states, in an article on the above 

 subject, in the Louisville Medical Gazette, that the common flowers of sulphur 

 of the drug-store possesses advantages over all other substances on account 

 of its antiseptic properties, its exerting no injurious action on the teeth, 

 either chemical or mechanical, and its ready preparation and cheapness. The 

 sublimed sulphur must be freed from any acid which it may contain by agi- 

 tating it in water in which a small quantity of carbonate of soda has been 

 dissolved, and then freed from the soda by repeated washing in cold water. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF STINKS. 



There is a fallacy in the almost universal opinion that, because a stink is 

 unpleasant, it must necessarily be injurious to health. Yet a very small sur- 

 veyof familiar facts would disclose that our likings and dislikings in the mat- 

 ter of smell or taste are by no means accurate criteria of what is wholesome 

 and what is noxious. Unfortunately, we like many things that are notori- 

 ously injurious; and many things that are unpleasant are notoriously bene- 

 ficial. Not only are these familiar truths, but a little inquiry discloses a mass 

 of evidence which proves that even the odors of a too composite river or an 

 ill-drained district, unpleasant as they may be, are very far from carrying 

 pestilence and plague with them wherever they go. We are not going to 

 assert that the question of drainage is not very important. We have no 

 desire to propound the paradox that stinks are wholesome because disagree- 

 able; but we call attention to the fallacy of assuming that because they are 

 disagreeable they must necessarily be injurious. 



Is it a demonstrated fact that the exhalations from a foul river cause chol- 

 era and fever? So far from its being demonstrated, the evidence at present 

 seems decisively opposed to such a conclusion. Is it demonstrated that the 

 exhalations from the sewers cause cholera and fever? 



The public, generally, has no doubt upon the subject, but an English phy- 

 sician of some note, Dr. Parkin, has recently, in a published work, assumed 

 the position that the evidence we possess in regard to these matters is alto- 

 gether against the theory that cholera, fever, and other diseases are owing 

 to the decomposition of organic matter and the use of impure water. His 

 evidence is founded on experience of very various climates and latitudes, 

 the intertropical regioos of the East and West, the burning sands of Arabia 

 and the snow-covered steppes of Russia, as well as the more temperate regions 







