THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A LITTLE drowsiness is natural to the 

 work of digestion, and may be talcen as a fair 

 indication of its activity; but normally it 

 should be no more than can be overcome by 

 an easy diversion. When the tendency to 

 sleep regularly follows a meal and is well 

 marked, it must be explained in some other 

 way — perhaps by excess of food, or some 

 special bodily condition. The effect of actual 

 sleep on digestion can not be immediately 

 helpful, for, during its continuance, all the 

 bodily operations are slower, but a good 

 effect may possibly follow in the greater 

 energy of life after a little rest. Persons 

 who sleep after eating should take account 

 of the fact in fixing the hour for the next 

 meal. 



An English brewer, recently deceased, 

 Mr. Richard Berridge, has left a fund of 

 £200,000, or $1,000,000, to be applied to 

 the advancement of economic and sanitary 

 science. 



It is remarked, in connection with the 

 active sanitary measures that have been set 

 on foot in Japan since the cholera epidemic 

 of 1886, that the people themselves have 

 come largely to appreciate the importance 

 of sanitation, and the work is going on 

 " smoothly between the authorities and the 

 people, without the least misunderstanding 

 or ill feeling." 



A PIECE of dry biscuit has been found by 

 W. J. Russell to possess an odor which could 

 be perceived by a pug dog at a distance of 

 several inches, when hidden and covered up, 

 and even when its smell was disguised by 

 cologne-water. In every instance the dog, 

 when called in, was able to find the biscuit 

 in less than a minute. 



A STORY is told in the north of England 

 papers of a person, v/ho, having had his right 

 eye destroyed and his frontal bone broken 

 by an explosion, and lost also the vision of 

 his left eye, from shock to the retina, it is 

 supposed, had his vision restored by lightning. 

 During a severe thunder-storm he remarked 

 that he saw light through his spectacles, and 

 immediately afterward experienced a pierc- 

 ing sensation passing from his eye to the 

 back of his head, after which he found that 

 he could see indistinctly the objects near him. 

 The next day he was able to walk about 

 the town without a guide. 



The nations which still eat with the fingers 

 defend the practice on the ground of cleanli- 

 ness. A Malay gentleman regards the use 

 of a fork much as we should think of the use 

 of a borrowed tooth-pick. He is troubled by 

 the reflection that it has been in other 

 mouths, and that some lazy servant may have 

 neglected to wash it properly. The care of 

 his fingers is in his own charge, and he knows 

 that they are clean, and that they have never 

 been in any one else's mouth. 



The statistics of blindness in Russia go 

 to show that the afBiction prevails more 

 widely among the Ural-Altayans, and espe- 

 cially among the Finnish-Mongolian stems, 

 than among the Aryans and Shemites, al- 

 though the conditions of these races, so far 

 as poverty is concerned, are much the same. 

 One eighth of all the cases are due to small- 

 pox, and one half only to direct eye-diseases. 



It is said that the ivory produced by eight 

 hundred elephants is consumed every year 

 by a single firm only — Messrs. Rodgcrs and 

 Sons, cutlers, of Sheffield. 



Dr. Defontaine, of the Crcuzot steel- 

 works, has described an affection which he 

 calls electric sunstroke, to which the work- 

 men in that factory are subject. The electric 

 furnace, which is essentially an arc-light of 

 100,000 candle-power, produces upon the 

 workmen all the symptoms of sunstroke. 

 Although protected by dark glasses, the 

 retina of the eye is painfully affected, the 

 sight is very considerably disturbed, a copi- 

 ous discharge of tears is kept up, headache 

 and sleeplessness are engendered, and the 

 skin of the face peels off. 



It ia quite generally known that the cor- 

 rection which each astronomer has to make 

 to his observations, called his " personal 

 equation," represents the slight delay which 

 occurs after his eye observes an event and 

 before his hand records it. The time re- 

 quired for the passage of a nervous impulse 

 from the retina to the brain, its translation 

 there into terms of consciousness, the send- 

 ing of an efferent nervous impulse to the 

 hand, and the setting in motion the muscles 

 which move the I'ecording-instrument, differs 

 in difi'erent persons — hence the personal 

 nature of the correction. It is not so well 

 known, however, that the personal equation 

 of an observer is determined, not with refer- 

 ence to the actual time of the event, but with 

 reference to the time as observed by some 

 particular observer, who is taken as a stand- 

 ard, his equation being arbitrarily assumed 

 to be zero. Hence it sometimes occurs that 

 a personal equation is a minus quantity, but 

 this does not signify that the observer an- 

 ticipates events, it shows only that he loses 

 less time than the standard man with whom 

 he is compared. 



The doctrine that cold or chill is a gen- 

 eral cause of such diseases as bronchitis, 

 pneumonia, pleurisy, and rheumatism, is dis- 

 puted by Dr. W. H. Ransom, of Nottingham. 

 While admitting that such diseases are apt 

 to appear during cold seasons and in cold 

 or temperate latitudes, he has failed to ob- 

 serve such a direct correspondence between 

 the chill and the disease as would satisfy him 

 of the existence of a valid relationship of 

 cause and effect ; and he is disposed to re- 

 gard the chill as a coefiBcient of the cause 

 rather than the primary excitant itself. 



