POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



427 



recorded in the case of other dogs — that is 

 not my point — but it does seem to me that 

 this method of instruction opens out a 

 means by which dogs and other animals 

 may be enabled to communicate with us 

 more satisfactorily than hitherto. I am still 

 continuing my observations, and am now 

 considering the best mode of testing him in 

 very simple arithmetic, but I wish I could 

 induce others to co-operate, for I feel satis- 

 fied that the system would well repay more 

 time and attention than I am myself able to 

 give. I am, sir, etc., John Lubbock. 

 High Elms, Hayes, Kent. 



— London Spectator. 



Gas - Poisoning. — According to state- 

 ments of Professor Pettenkofer at the re- 

 cent Hygienic Congress in Berlin, the poison- 

 ous property of coal-gas depends upon its 

 containiug carbonic oxide in the proportion 

 of about ten per cent, while the other con- 

 stituents, although irrespirable, do not act 

 as direct poisons. The danger in breathing 

 the gas depends not so much on the dura- 

 tion of the exposure to a mixtui-e of air and 

 carbonic oxide as upon the amount of the 

 latter contained in the air. Air containing 

 only a proportion of five parts of carbonic 

 oxide in 10,000 can be breathed for hours 

 and even days by men and animals without 

 any injury to health ; while a proportion of 

 seven or eight in 10,000 causes appreciable 

 discomfort; of twenty in 10,000, difficulty 

 of breathing, weakness, and uncertainty in 

 gait ; a proportion of twice that ratio leads 

 to stupefaction, and higher proportions to 

 extreme and fatal effects referable to the 

 nervous system. Illness attributable di- 

 rectly to the entrance of gas into the 

 house from the mains has been found to 

 increase in the winter months, largely, 

 probably because of the closing of the 

 windows and the artificial heating of the 

 rooms by which the gas is attracted into them. 

 Dr. Pettenkofer has cited several striking 

 instances of severe affection and even death 

 that occurred in dwelling-houses in conse- 

 quence of leakage from street-mains. At 

 Eoveredo, two sisters who slept in a base- 

 ment contracted severe headaches during 

 three successive nights. On the fourth 

 night, which was a very cold one, the mother 

 slept with them. None of the three ap- 



peared on the following morning, and on 

 investigation the two sisters were found 

 dead, and the mother so nearly so that she 

 only survived a few days. The escaping 

 gas, under the roadway, was thirty-five feet 

 distant from the room. At Cologne, three 

 persons in one family were killed in a single 

 night in 1871, by a leak ninety-eight feet 

 away. The superintendent of a prison in 

 Breslau died and his sons were afterward 

 found unconscious, in the same room, in 

 1879, from a leak thirty-five and a half feet 

 away. Another instance has been recorded 

 in Breslau, where the distance of the leak 

 was one hundred and fifteen feet. At Co- 

 logne the gas passed through a sewer-chan- 

 nel and through the floor, while in the other 

 cases it traversed layers of earth. The vari- 

 ation in the degree of cold between one 

 night and another, causing corresponding 

 differences in the force by which the gas is 

 attracted to the rooms, would, in Dr. Petten- 

 kofer's opinion, sufficiently account for the 

 difference in the gravity of the effects pro- 

 duced on these occasions. Gas filtered 

 through the soil from the mains may be 

 quite odorless, at least until it has collected 

 in large amount ; and herein lies the danger 

 to dwellers in the basement. On the ear- 

 liest occurrence of such symptoms as head- 

 ache, the windows should be thrown open ; 

 and if, on closing them again, the symptoms 

 reappear, it may be suspected that gas is 

 escaping into the house. 



Dr. Crothers's Stndies of Inebriety. — 



Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Hartford, Connecticut, 

 read before the London Branch of the British 

 Medical Temperance Society an historical 

 paper on the study of inebriety in America. 

 A fact of psychological interest pertaining 

 to the subject is, that inebriety in this 

 country moves in waA^es and cux-rents, with 

 a decided epidemic and endemic influence. 

 This can be traced in the rapid increase of 

 drunkenness in towns and cities, till after a 

 time a reaction sets in, and a marked de- 

 cline follows. " These waves of inebriate 

 storms that sweep over large circles of coun- 

 try are always followed by intense revivals 

 of temperance interest, and are fields of the 

 most fascinating psychological inquiry yet 

 to be studied." An increase of inebriety 

 among our women is asserted as apparent 



