502 ANNUAL KECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



PROTECTION AGAINST MOTHS. 



Pfleider, a German inspector of passenger cars, states that 

 a single stem of hemp, with the leaves and blossoms, mixed 

 with the stuffing of a car seat, will protect it from moths for 

 years, and that hemp for this purpose should be gathered 

 just when in blossom, dried rapidly in the shade, and kept 

 in covered wooden vessels in a dry place. 15 (7, 1873, 29. 



UTILIZATION OF OLD FISH PICKLE. 



It would hardly be supposed that so apparently innocent 

 a substance as old fish j^ickle would have any special medi- 

 cal or physiological properties. The fact is, however, that in 

 the earliest ages it was believed to have important medicinal 

 qualities ; and quite recently it has been used to a very great 

 extent in the manufacture of propylamine and methylamine 

 (maintained to be distinct bodies by some, and simply differ- 

 ent forms of the same substance by others), now so largely 

 employed as a remedy in acute articular rheumatism. Recent 

 experiments also show that a small quantity of this pickle 

 administered to poultry produces fatal results ; and in France 

 it is quite common, where the premises are infested by a 

 neighbor's poultry, to soak grain in this pickle, and when 

 dry to throw it out where the intruders can take it ; the re- 

 sult in most cases beinsj their death in a short time. 



The poisonous properties of the pickle are almost entirely 

 destroyed by heating, this causing the propylamine, to which 

 this peculiarity is supposed to be due, to volatilize. It is re- 

 marked by Meiniere, who has written a memoir on the sub- 

 ject, that the pickle obtained from American hog's lard does 

 not exhibit any poisonous character any more than that 

 Avhich comes from butter. 11 B^ July 1, 1873, 348. 



THEORY OF PRESERVATION OF ANIMAL SUBSTANCES. 



Dr. Sacc gives the following as the result of an elaborate 

 investigation into the subject of the preservation of animal 

 substances : That organic bodies are liable to spontaneous 

 decomposition, varying with the kinds, with or without con- 

 tact with the air, and with or without the intervention of 

 microscopic or other plants or animals; also, that there is 

 only one certain way of preserving organic substances, name- 



