910 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



marrow. Gregarines multiply so rapidly as to clog the blood- 

 vessels, thereby engcudcring dropsy, asthma, albuminuria, and 

 other dangerous diseases. 



Mr. Lindcrmann made microscopical examinations of thirty 

 samples of hair procured from a dealer in hair in Central Russia, 

 twenty of which proved to he infested with gregarines. He ascer- 

 tained that these specimens came from a filthy class of people 

 living on the banks of the Wolga, whose uncleanly haliits engen- 

 der the disgusting pediculus (louse) on the body of which grega- 

 rines exist as parasites, and from which they pass into the human 

 hair. Gregarines do not die when the hair is dried, or even when 

 it is placed in Ijoiling water, and as acids, alkalies, and ethers 

 would destro}^ the hair as well as the parasite, artists in hair have 

 been compelled to use tlie material in a state of impurity and have 

 constructed their beautifid waterfalls or chignons regardless of the 

 gregarine. 



In prosecuting the inquiry as to the manner in which these par- 

 asites penetrate the human body, Mr. Lindcrmann found that a 

 moderate degree of warmth, particuliirly when the body perspires, 

 is sufficient to enliven them, when tliey begin to grow, and in the 

 course of a few hours arc able to propagate their species. The 

 finely divided state of the very thin layers of "false hair" some- 

 times worn by ladies, nearly all of which is imported, is particu- 

 larly favorable for the escape of colonies of young gregarines 

 which, flying about in the air, may be either inhaled, or carried 

 into the digestive organs with food, and finding their way into all 

 parts of the body, they thus engender disease. 



The facts set forth hy Lindcrmann arc of too serious a nature to 

 be passed over without eliciting further inquiry. The London 

 Telegraph coutains an account (hardly to be credited) of an expe- 

 riment with one hundred and fifty hairs selected, with the aid of 

 a microscope, from a chignon sold by a fashionable hair-dresser: 



A writer in Jlte London Review attempts to throw doubt upon 

 the statement in TJte Telegraph, but does not profess to have 

 made any experiments. He endeavors to quiet English ladies l)y 

 the statement that most of tlm chignons worn by them are made 

 of hair from France and Germany, and not from the filthy Bur- 

 lakes of Russia. 



The Hicks Boiler. 

 ^Ir. James M. Hicks, of New York, exhibited a beautiful glass 

 model of his new boiler, so, constructed as to produce complete 



