MYSTERIES OF LIFE AND MIND 



2. The number of charges the colloids and atoms 

 bear; 



3. The rate of rotation of the charge, or electron, 

 round its atom ; 



4. The size of the orbit of this rotating electron. 

 These last are for scientific folk to puzzle over. 



Simple people will be more interested in the way 

 the theory might explain some e very-day affairs. 



Chloroform, carried into the blood through the 

 lungs, and so to the brain, tends to dissolve further 

 the highly sensitive brain-cells. While this state 

 lasts there can be no sensation. Little by little 

 the chloroform is swept away, consciousness re- 

 turns. Quite comparable is the rather familiar 

 fact of intoxication. Alcohol carried from the 

 stomach through the arteries to the brain has the 

 same effect. 



In this same easy fashion one may explain the 

 action of whiskey when a man has been bitten by a 

 snake. The effect of the poison is to coagulate the 

 substance of the nerves. Alcohol has the opposite 

 effect, and so may save a man's life. This is im- 

 portant, if true. 



It is all very new. It will require long and pa- 

 tient experiment to determine its value. Professor 

 Mathews naturally believes that from it much may 

 rome. It would, for one thing, afford the basis for 

 a rational pharmacology. By means of the ionic 



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