P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY 



545 



ty-eigbt of whom were affected with malaria. 

 Again, there is the outbreak of ague at Til- 

 bury Fort in 1872, cited in Parkes's "Hy- 

 giene," where thirty-four men out of a gar- 

 rison of one hundred and three were seized 

 with ague, while the people at the railway 

 station and the coast-guard men and their 

 families just outside the fort entirely es- 

 caped. The troops had been supplied with 

 water stored in tanks, collected from the 

 rain-water of the roofs, while the people 

 outside obtained theirs from a spring, the 

 atmospheric conditions in both cases being 

 identical. 



The Werdermann Electric Li}?Iit. — Mr. 



Edison's announcement of his success in 

 solving the problem of adapting the electric 

 light to domestic purposes has had the ef- 

 fect of bringing into public view a number 

 of other contrivances for producing the same 

 result. Among these, Werdermann's system 

 appears to be perhaps the most promising ; 

 the following account of it we take from 

 " Nature " : "' The principle of Werdermann's 

 invention is that of keeping a small vertical 

 pencil of carbon in contact with a large disk 

 of the same material. In some earlier ex- 

 periments he found that when he increased 

 the sectional area of one carbon and reduced 

 that of the other he produced an electrical 

 light with the carbons in actual contapt, a 

 small arc appearing at the contact-point. 

 The small carbon is a pencil three millime- 

 tres in diameter ; the upper or negative 

 carbon is a disk of two inches in diameter 

 and an inch thick. The upper carbon is 

 not consumed, so that the waste takes place 

 only in the lower. In his lamp he places 

 the disk uppermost with the pencil vertical- 

 ly beneath it, sliding up a metal tube which 

 acts as a guide and contact. The pencil is 

 kept in contact with the disk by means of 

 chains attached to its lower extremity, pass- 

 ing over pulleys and down again to a coun- 

 terweight of about one and a half pound. 

 About three quarters of an inch of the lower 

 carbon appears above the tube and is ren- 

 dered incandescent by the passage of the 

 current between it and the disk. This pen- 

 cil is pointed, and retains its point all the 

 time of burning. It is between this point 

 and the disk that the small electric arc ap- 

 pears which gives the greater part of the 



light. In an exhibition of the system, ten 

 lamps were shown in one circuit. The in- 

 ventor believes that after further experi- 

 ments he will be able to divide the current 

 into fifty, one hundred, or even five hundred 

 lights. Each lamp can be lighted and ex- 

 tinguished separately without affecting the 

 others." 



Dangers of Moldy Broad. — A singular 

 case of poisoning from eating a pudding 

 made in part of moldy bread is reported 

 in the " Sanitai'y Record." The main facts of 

 the case may be briefly stated as follows : 

 The principal materials of the pudding con- 

 sisted of scraps of bread left from making 

 toast and sandwiches, and they had been 

 about three weeks accumulating. To these 

 scraps were added milk, eggs, sugar, cur- 

 rants, and nutmeg. The whole was baked 

 in a very slow oven, and was subsequently 

 eaten by the cook, the proprietor of the 

 eating-house in which it was prepared, the 

 children of the proprietor, and two other 

 persons. All of these became violently ill, 

 with symptoms of irritant poisoning. One 

 of the children (aged three years) and one 

 of the adults died. The necropsy of the 

 body of the child caused the medical men 

 to suspect poisoning, and accordingly the 

 viscera, together with the remnant of the 

 pudding, the materials used in making it, the 

 matter vomited, etc., were sent to a chemi- 

 cal analyst, Mr. Alfred Allen, for exami- 

 nation. He made tests for several poisons, 

 but without positive result. A puppy was 

 fed with the pudding for two days without 

 any poisonous effect. He was then led to 

 look for ergot in the pudding, and was soon 

 startled to find unquestionable evidence of 

 its presence, as far as the chemical reactions 

 went, though he was unable, with the aid of 

 the microscope, to detect any actual ergot. 

 From these facts Mr. Allen infers that the 

 reactions hitherto supposed to be peculiar 

 to ergot are common to other poisonous 

 fungi. 



Steering of Ocean-Steamers. — Among the 

 reports of committees to the British Asso- 

 ciation at Dublin was one on the steering 

 of screw-steamers. This report declares it 

 to be an invariable rule that, during the in- 

 terval in which a ship is stopping herself by 



