64 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
[April, 1S90. 
Dr. K. Pashkoff strongly recommends (Moscow 
Therapeutic Weeklij) the dressing of recent wounds 
with a thick layer of ashes, prepared ex tempore by 
the burning of cotton or linen stuff. The ashes 
form, with the blood, a protecting scurf, beneath 
which the wound heals very rapidly. Lesions pre- 
senting a dirty appearance should be thoroughly 
cleansed with a boracic lotion before the ashes are 
applied. Of twenty-eight cases of cuts, stabs, 
crushes, etc., treated thus by Dr. Pashkoff, twenty- 
six healed promptly without any trace of suppura- 
tion. This simple, cheap, and convenient method, 
Dr. Pashkoff states, has been practised from time 
immemorial by the Russian peasantry. 
Dr. Laurent, of Rouen, {Le Progres Medical), 
considers boiled milk less healthy for young infants 
than milk which has not been boiled. Although 
boiling destroys microbes, it also destroys constitu- 
ents of the milk which act as ferments and render it 
more digestible, especially in the case of young 
babes. Hence, stomach and intestinal troubles 
follow the use of boiled milk in such cases. Dr. 
Laurent considers it preferable \fi use milk which 
has not been boiled, to ascertain that it is of good 
quality,' and to watch the state of health of the cows. 
Thus, in his opinion, may a great deal of infantile 
tuberculosis be prevented. 
A Novelty in Skin-grafting. — At a recent 
meeting of the Edinburg Medico-Chirurgical Society, 
Mr. A. Miles showed an interesting and successful 
case of skin-grafting, in a ten-year-old boy who had 
been afflicted with an extensive ulcer of the leg, the 
result of a burn. The special interest in the case 
arises from the fact that the skin used was taken 
from a young greyhound. The grafts were made in 
strips six inches long, and an inch broad. In six 
weeks the entire. ulcer was closed over, and, at the 
time the lad was brought before the society, — three 
months subsequent to operation, — he had a healthy, 
useful limb. 
CORNIL ON THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OP TUBERCU- 
LOSIS. — This eminent authority, in the course of 
some remarks on this disputed question, {La 
Tribune Medicate), said that tuberculosis was en- 
tirely unknown in Tierra del Fuego previous to 
English immigration thither. A missionary's wife, 
who had pulmonary tuberculosis, opened a school 
for young natives with a view to expediting their 
advance in civilization and their conversion to 
Christianity. The founding of this school by this 
tuberculous teacher was followed by an epidemic of 
tuberculosis, in the course of which the population 
was decimated. 
M. H. Secret AN recommends {Revue Medicate 
de ta Suisse Hbmande) that in cases of stenosis of 
the oesophagus, in which it is proposed to employ 
dilation by bougies, the patient be directed to drink 
a quantity of oil just before the operation is begun. 
The passage of the bougie is facilitated by this 
mode of procedure in a much greater degree than 
by the oiling of the instrument. Moreover, the 
operation is rendered not merely much easier, but 
far less painful. [It is inferred that the drinking of 
the oil is not intended to do away with tlie oiling of 
the instrument as well.] 
According to the Medicat Times, nothing so 
quickly restores tone to exhausted nerves, and 
strength to a weary body as a bath containing an 
ounce of aqua ammonia to each pailful of water. 
It makes the flesh firm and smooth as marble, and 
renders the body pure and free from all odors. 
It is said that consumption and other lung 
troubles will be checked by a residence on the I 
Channel Islands, the only complaint not benefitted 
by the climate being rheumatism. — Cincinnati 
Lancet-Clinic. 
It is a fallacy to suppose that the cravings of a 
patient are mere whims, which should be denied. 
The stomach often needs, craves, and digests arti- 
cles not found in any dietary. 
According to Dr. F. A. Evans, of Tell City, Ind., 
fifteen minims of the fluid extract of saw palmetto 
will abort an attack of migraine. 
Prof. Bartholow calls attention to the fact that 
valerianic acid does not represent the active prin- 
ciple of valerian ; therefore the valerianates cannot 
be expected to produce the action of valerian. 
Another practical point to which Prof Bartholow 
directs attention is that the irritability and crying of 
young childreix is due many times, not to hunger, 
but simply to intestinal flatus. Instead of using 
opiates, or soothing syrups, which . are generally 
opium in disguise, the professor advises the follow- 
ing: 
R. Misturic asafcetidiE, 51- 
Sodii bromid, Grs. iii — V. M. 
This is a single dose for a child from one to four 
months old. 
Andrew Twaddles, who died on Christmas day, 
near Moorestown, Ohio, was the last member of a 
family of nine children, all of whom were born 
blind. 
+♦► 
MEDICAL MEMORANDA. 
When you have a cold you do not know how to 
cure it. All your friends know how, and they tell 
you; but that does not affect the cold. 
Watery Solutions are difticultto mix with vase- 
line, but the Repertoire de Pharmacie says this diffi- 
culty can be overcome by means of a little castor 
oil. 
Salol in Burns. — Gratzer recommends a mixture 
of from two to three parts of salol with fifty parts of 
starch as an application to inflamed and painful sur- 
faces, bruises, burns, and painful skin diseases of all 
kinds. The relief is said to be great and very 
prompt. The remedy is simply dusted on the sur- 
face. 
A Child Born with the Measles. — Dr. Lomer, 
of Hamburg, reports a case where a mother gave 
birth to a child while suffering from measles, it 
being the second day of the eruption. The child 
when born showed the beginning of a measles rash, 
and subsequently developed the disease in its typi- 
cal form. 
Phthisis in High Altitudes in Switzerland. 
— From a report by Dr. L. Schrotter on the distri- 
bution of phthisis in Switzerland, it would seem 
that the inhabitants even of high altitudes are by no 
means so free from phthisis as we are perhaps wont 
to suppose. The tables of deaths for the eleven 
years 1876-1886 show that phthisis is endemic in 
every part of Switzerland, not a single district 
(Bezirk) being free from it. On the whole, the 
deaths from this cause are fewer in the high than in 
the low-lying districts, but it cannot be said that the 
mortalitv from this cause is inversely proportionate 
to the altitude. Wherever there is a large indus- 
trial population, the phthisis mortality is consider- 
able. Industrial populations always suffer much 
more than agricultural populations where the alti- 
tude is the same. 
published monthly by the 
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SPECIAL NOTICE. 
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Publisljers' Coliin^R. 
The ink used by the Saxons was superior, it is claimed, to 
that used in the present day, but they needed the Esteubkook 
Pen to write with it. 
The Arena for March was all that was claimed for it, and 
more. It was really a success from the first number, whilt; 
each succeeding number is simply a mar\^el of richness. 
Members of the Agassi? Association can be supplied 
with standard books in any department of natural history at 
very low rates, by writing to Bradlee Whidden, scientific 
publisher, Boston, Mass., who makes a specialty of such 
works. 
It is not yet too late to send in your order to David Boyle, 
of Chicago, for an Artificial Ice Machine. Ice will com- 
mand a high price nextsummer, and with oneof these machines 
it can be made at ^ cost not much above that of cutting and 
storing the natural product. 
It is worth the noting t'liat Dixon's Artists' Pencils are 
recommended by leading members of tlie American Institute of 
Mining Engineers, the National Academy of Design, New 
York, the Woman's Institute of Technical Design, New York, 
and thousands of practical people throughout the country. 
The preparations of the New York Health Food Co., 
both for general use, and those especially adapted for different 
diseases,— such as diabetes, for instance, — are well worthy of a 
trial by those interested. Their goods will be found to be pure 
and reliable, and cannot fail to be of benefit in many cases. 
Office of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, ) 
53 Lexington St., Baltimore, Oct. 27, 1874. \ 
I have the pleasure to say that I have used the tonic called 
" Colden's LiQjJiD Beef Tonic," in this Institution and in 
private practice, for more than a year, and can recommend it as 
one ot the most efficient preparations I have ever met with. 
It combines the virtue of food and tonic in a remarkable vvay, 
and I am satisfied it has been the means of saving life when no 
other medicine could do so. It should be used, of course, only 
under the judgment of a physician. 
R. S. Steuart, President Maryland Hospital. 
The necessity for aerial disinfection is recognized by all san- 
itarians. To carry out such treatment properly and wherever 
required has been a difficult problem ; but the Sherman 
"King" Vaporizer claims to have solved it. This device- 
consists of an iron vessel, provided with a tightly-fitting lid that 
can be held down with a screw, inclosing a porous cuj). A 
small aperture closed by a screw valve is arranged on the side 
of the case about half way up from the base. A volatile disin- 
fecting fluid is used to saturate the porous cup. The liquid 
that has been selected is a coal tar product characterized by the 
presence of phenol and cresol. This is of wide reputation as a 
disinfectant. In short, it supplies a means for delivering con- 
stantly volatile disinfectants, and' at the same time for regulating 
the supply as desired. A single saturation of the porous cup 
lasts for two months. For further particulars the reader is 
referred to the advertisement in this number. 
