POP ULAR MIS CELL A NY. 



567 



way in which they were traveling ran straight 

 through the open, level fields ; neither was 

 any one to be seen on the railway lying at 

 no great distance to the right. Shortly after 

 the occurrence the train from Neuhauscn 

 passed by. At some distance on the left 

 are vineyards, where a few laborers were 

 seen, but none of them had firearms, and 

 even if they had they could not have sent a 

 ball as far as the highway. It may be added 

 that the wounded man is a peaceable fellow, 

 having no enemies, so far as he knows. Be- 

 sides, the missile as is to be seen from the 

 wound came from the front, where no hu- 

 man being was to be seen on the broad, 

 straight highway. The anterior wound was 

 two inches inside of and two inches above the 

 capitulum radii, and the posterior wound, 

 which was only five millimetres in diameter, 

 was two inches inside of and one and one third 

 inch above the inner condyle of the ulna. 

 The physician who attended to the case 

 asked my opinion about this enigmatical 

 occurrence ; and, on my attributing it either 

 to an air-gun or to a meteorite, he rejected 

 both hypotheses. It could not have been 

 an air-gun, he said, because no such instru- 

 ment had ever been heard of in that locality ; 

 and because, even if such an instrument 

 had been used, no one after discharging it 

 could have concealed himself, owing to the 

 nature of the ground, as already described. 

 As for meteorites, no one had ever known of 

 people being wounded by them. I was not 

 prepared to prove my second hypothesis or 

 to strengthen it by citing analogous instances, 

 though authors had often recorded and de- 

 scribed the falling of great stones in fields 

 and through the roofs of human habitations, 

 the bursting of falling stones in mid-air, and 

 the scattering of the fragments. Still the 

 hypothesis seemed to me to be not alto- 

 gether groundless in the present instance, 

 and it was strengthened by the known ve- 

 locity of meteoric stones, which is on an 

 average twelve times as great as that of a 

 musket-ball. Then, too, the time of year 

 and the direction of the projectile favor the 

 opinion that the wound was inflicted by some 

 small stray meteorite. Everybody attrib- 

 uted the wound to a ball from a revolver, 

 because there was no other way to account 

 for it. Had one of the two fellow travelers 

 or one of the laborers in the distant vine- 



yards been in possession of a revolver or 

 other firearm, it would not have been easy 

 for him to clear himself of the suspicion of 

 having shot the man. On this ground, if 

 not on account of its general interest, it is 

 much to be desired that such occurrences 

 should be investigated and published, to the 

 end that, by bringing together and discuss- 

 ing the facts, light might be thrown on this 

 interesting but as yet obscure subject. 



Cold-Water Baths. In some remarks 

 on cold-water bathing in cold weather, the 

 London "Lancet" points out the true use 

 of such baths which is to stimulate the 

 organism to increased activity, and then 

 shows how this effect is best obtained. A 

 great mistake is made when any part of the 

 body is immersed in cold water and left to 

 part with its heat without any guarantee 

 that the energy of heat-production so se- 

 verely taxed can respond to the require- 

 ment. It may easily happen that the inter- 

 nal heat-production will be exhausted, and 

 if that occurs harm has been done. The 

 obvious principle of health preservation is 

 to maintain the circulation in its integrity ; 

 and while the error of supposing that cloth- 

 ing can do more than keep in the heat gen- 

 erated within is avoided, it is not less need- 

 ful to guard against the evil of depriving 

 the body of the heat it has produced. The 

 furnace should be supplied with suitable 

 fuel, i. e., nutritious food ; the machinery of 

 heat-production, which takes place through- 

 out the organism not in any one spot or 

 center, should be kept in working order, 

 and nothing conduces to this end more di- 

 rectly than the free use of the cold douche 

 and the shower-bath ; but the application 

 ought to be restricted to a few seconds of 

 time, and, unless the evidences of stimula- 

 tion redness and steaming of the surface 

 are rapidly produced, the effusion should 

 be laid aside. The use of cold water in 

 cold weather is a practice which must be 

 governed by rules special to each individual 

 case. Whether the practice recommended 

 be that of plunging the feet in cold water 

 before going to bed, to procure sleep 

 which the " Lancet " denounces as " a reck- 

 less prescription founded on a physiological 

 fallacy " or any other use of cold water, 

 the only safe course is to seek the counsel 



