7 i8 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



try of two distinctly marked races having the 

 same rights and privileges, of unequal ca- 

 pacities of development one long habituated 

 to servitude, deprived of all power of initia- 

 tive, of all high ideal, without patriotism 

 beyond a mere weak attachment is to be 

 regarded as a blessing, is too absurd a propo- 

 sition for serious consideration. 



Respirability of Vitiated Air. The 



breathing of air in which a candle flame 

 will not burn is generally considered dan- 

 gerous. In a paper by Mr. Frank Cloucs, 

 read before the British Association, at the 

 Ipswich meeting, the results of some inter- 

 esting experiments were given. It was found 

 that the flames of ordinary candles and 

 lamps were extinguished by mixtures which 

 contained, on an average, about 16'5 per 

 cent of oxygen and 83 '5 per cent of the 

 extinctive gases. A flame of coal-gas, how- 

 ever, required for its extinction a mixture 

 still poorer in oxygen and containing 11 '3 

 per cent of oxygen and 88'7 per cent of 

 the extinctive gases. These results have 

 since been confirmed by a different method, 

 which consisted in allowing a flame to burn 

 in air inclosed over mercury until it was 

 extinguished ; the remaining extinctive at- 

 mosphere was then subjected to analysis, 

 when its composition was found to be prac- 

 tically identical with that previously ob- 

 tained from the artificial mixtures. An 

 analysis of air expired from the lungs 

 proved that it was also of the same compo- 

 sition as that which extinguished the flame 

 of an ordinary candle or lamp. The average 

 composition of expired air and of air which 

 extinguishes a candle flame is as follows: 

 Oxygen, 15'9; nitrogen, 80 '4 ; carbon diox- 

 ide, 3'7. Now, an atmosphere of this com- 

 position is undoubtedly respirable. Physi- 

 ologists state that air may be breathed until 

 its oxygen is reduced to ten per cent. The 

 maximum amount of carbon dioxide which 

 may be present is open to question, but it is 

 undoubtedly considerably higher than three 

 per cent. Dr. Haldane maintains that the 

 above atmosphere is not only respirable, but 

 would be breathed by a healthy person with- 

 out inconvenience of any kind; he further 

 states that no permanent injury would result 

 from breathing such an atmosphere for some 

 time. The conclusion to be drawn from 



these facts is that an atmosphere must not 

 be considered dangerous and irrespirable 

 because the flame of an ordinary candle or 

 oil lamp is extinguished by it. The popular 

 notion about such an atmosphere might 

 often deter one from doing duty of a hu- 

 mane or necessary character. 



Death of Hoppe-Seyler. Ernest Felix 

 Immanuel Hoppe-Seyler (his name was 

 Hoppe; he changed it to Hoppe-Seyler in 

 1862) was born in Freiburg, on the Umstrut, 

 Saxony, on December 26, 1825. At eleven 

 he had lost both father and mother. He 

 was taken in charge and educated by the 

 governing body of an endowed institution in 

 Halle. Beginning the study of natural sci- 

 ence in 1846, he received the degree of Doctor 

 of Medicine in 1850, and began practicing in 

 Berlin. In 1 856 he was appointed prosector 

 in the University of Greifswald, and in 1858 

 was called to Berlin to act as Virchow's as- 

 sistant; three years later he was called to 

 the chair of applied chemistry in the Uni- 

 versity of Tubingen, and in 1872 was ap- 

 pointed to the only ordinary professorship 

 of physiological chemistry in the German 

 Empire, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Universitat 

 at Strasburg. Here he worked until the 

 very eve of his death. He died on the fore- 

 noon of August 10, 1895. In 1857, while at 

 Berlin, he published the first paper in a long 

 series of valuable contributions to the physi- 

 ological chemistry of the blood. In 1858 

 appeared the first edition of his Handbook 

 of Physiologico-Chemical and Pathologico- 

 Chemical Analysis. In 1862 he published 

 one of his most valuable papers, On the 

 Behavior of the Blood-coloring Matter in 

 the Spectrum of Sunlight. The researches 

 which followed on the chemistry of the 

 blood-coloring matter probably constitute 

 his highest claim to distinction. In 1877-'78 

 he founded the Zeitschrift f iir physiologische 

 Chemie. Profs. Baumann and Kossel are, it 

 is understood, to be the future editors of this 

 journal. Although he did much to advance 

 both physiology and pathology, Hoppe-Seyler 

 is said to have been more of a chemist than 

 a biologist. 



A Colony for Epileptics. The Craig Col- 

 ony for Epileptics, named from the late Oscar 

 Craig, of Rochester, is located on a tract of 



