624 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



others in which it has been tried, it acts as a restorative and 

 reconstituent, and may be applied to the treatment of all 

 such conditions of the system as exhibit a general cachexia, 

 without being addressed to any particular malady. 



Wishing to verify as much as possible the conclusions of 

 Dr. Pollock in reference to the fattening of calves, pigs, and 

 sheep with cod-liver oil. Dr. Decaisne weighed a number of 

 children slightly affected with scrofula and rickets, before, 

 during, and after treatment, and ascertained that whenever 

 the dose exceeded a certain limit, variable with the individ- 

 ual, the growth ceases, and that the cessation of growth is 

 attended with loss of appetite and a reduction of nutriment. 

 He has been enabled to verify the experience of Greenhow, 

 who maintains that the increase of weight always ceases in 

 individuals attacked with consumption whenever by the use 

 of the cod-liver oil they have attained their normal weight. 



He furthermore maintains, contrary to the views of other 

 writers, that the oil treatment is only useful in the first stages 

 of consumption, and when there is little or no fever. On the 

 principle, now perfectly admitted, that the digestion and 

 minute subdivision of fatty matter is one of the functions of 

 the pancreas, the functional activity of that organ is always 

 connected with that of gastric digestion, and he therefore al- 

 ways administers the oil with the food, and not in the inter- 

 vals between meals. 6 B^ December 16, 1872, 1714. 



MEDICAL USE OF KUMISS. 



In a paj^er by Professor Richter, on the medicinal use of 

 milk and whey, it is stated that kumiss, a substance prepared 

 in Northern Asia by the fermentation of mare's milk (according 

 to an analysis, in June, by Hartier, an apothecary), contains, 

 in 100 parts, 2.05 of fat, 2.20 of milk sugar, 1.15 of lactic acid, 

 1.12 of casein, 28 of salts, as solid constituents, 1.65 of alcohol, 

 and 0.758 of carbonic acid. Compared with an analysis of the 

 milk, this shows loss of nutritious matter (cheese, fat, sugar), 

 but gain of lactic acid, carbonic acid, and alcohol. To these, 

 then, must be ascribed the peculiar effect of kumiss ; and 

 they increase in amount if it is subjected, like wine, to a sub- 

 sequent fermentation. It has a pungent, pleasantly acid taste, 

 with an after-taste of almonds, and an acid odor, somewhat 

 similar to that of the horse. The effect upon healthy individ- 



