32 t 



• K N O VV LEDGE 



[Oct. 17, 1884. 



the eighth series of Glasgow experiments. The ten prisoners -were 

 fed for one mouth on G lb. of potatoes per diem, and at tlic end of 

 that period had increased in weight, one with another, no less than 

 3i lb., or only i lb. less than the average gain in the first and second 

 experiments of that series. 



These are the only examples that I have happened to come 

 across of a purely vegetable diet — a diet from which not merely 

 meat, but every animal product, even milk, was excluded. But I 

 have already, in this paper, given several examples of dietaries 

 from which meat was wholly excluded, the only animal element 

 being milk made into porridge with oatmeal, and into pudding 

 with Indian meal. I ask your attention again to the exceptional 

 dietaries, of which I am able to give yon two notable examples. In 

 the report on military prisons (1861) the diet for military prisoners 

 in solitary confinement for periods less than 56 days is shown to 

 consist of 



Bread • 56 oz. per week. 



Oatmeal 56 ,, 



Indian meal 42 ,, 



Total solid food 154 oz. with lOJ pints of milk. 



And the penal class diet of Millbank Prison comprises : — 



Bread 8 1 oz. per week. 



Oatmeal 70 „ 



Indian meal 70 ,, 



Potatoes 56 ,, 



Total solid food 280 oz. with lOi pints of milk. 



The diet of military prisoners given above does not encounter 

 objection on the part of the governors or medical ofBcers whose 

 views are stated in the report, and it may, therefore, be assumed 

 to be sufficient for the support of robust men in confinement for 

 periods less than fifty-six days ; and this view receives strong 

 ■confirmation from a passage in Dr. Tufnell's report from Dublin. 

 He says : — " To the increase in the dietary, and especially its 

 alteration, I have ever been, upon principle, opposed, because I 

 found that I could, upon the old scale of dietary, maintain the men 

 in the most perfect condition." Of the sufficiency of the more 

 liberal penal class diet of Millbank, not merely for prisoners under- 

 going short terms of imprisonment, but for those who are in close 

 •confinement and under punishment for many months together, I 

 am able to furnish the most convincing proofs. This dietary was 

 favourably reported upon by my predecessor, Dr. Baly, in 1858, 

 and in my own report for 1859. It has stood the test both of 

 experimental weighings and more general observation of the state 

 of health of the prisoners ; and I have recently had occasion to 

 report cases of men whose health has been maintained on this diet 

 for seven, nine, eleven, fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen months. 

 The women who are on this diet are weighed every month, and the 

 results are quite satisfactory. 



I have no hesitation, then, in expressing an opinion in favour of 

 the sufiiciency of a dietary from which the meat element is wholly 

 excluded. I have no doubt that health may be preserved, and 

 with it capacity for labour, on a diet consisting of milk and vege- 

 table food ; and I should have no hesitation in prescribing for all 

 •criminals under short terms of imprisonment a diet consisting 

 ■ivholly of bread and potatoes. I think that the experience acquired 

 at the Devizes House of Correction, at Stafford, and at Glasgow 

 -ivould be complete justification for such a dietary." 



These are a few examples of a non-flesh dietary, and later on 

 I may be able to adduce more of recent date, showing that health, 

 strength, &c., can be kept up without flesh. I also hope that our 

 prisons and workhouses may be supplied with such diet, for the 

 thousands of vegetarians in this country show that flesh is not a 

 siecessity.— By T. K. Allin.son, L.R.C.P. 



THE RECENT ECLIPSE OF THE MOON. 



WRITING from Broughty Ferry, " Senex " tells us that all the 

 earlier phases of the eclipse were only seen there through 

 thick cloud and mist. The sky, however, cleared somewhat by 

 '.)h. 4^Tm., after which my correspondent goes on to say: — "And 

 we saw the Moon as a whitish blotch with the naked eye, but as a 

 •complete disc of dirty white in the telescope ; no red colour, and 

 the ' mares ' quite black. About 10.20 p.m., the north-east limb 

 began to show brightness, and ther. the copper colour crept over 

 the Moon, and remained visible until the close of totality, and was 

 then replaced by a beautiful blue arc, delicately shaded, which 

 continued for ten or fifteen minutes, and then vanished. After 

 this the shadow gradually receded ; but, owing apparently to the 

 iiaze, the edge of it was quite ragged." 



"Hallyards," dating from Pornic (France), says :—" The sky 



here was extremeh- clear during the whole time; the Moon did 

 not disappear entirely (as sometimes) nor did her whole disk 

 remain visible, as usual, during the whole of totality, but a very 

 trifling part, that nearest the limb of reappearance, and even this 

 did not uniformly extend up to the limb ; so that an |ill-defined, 

 varying, nebulous patch seemed hung up aloft ; a new comet or 

 nebula. At the beginning of totality, the light flickered about the 

 disk like a dying candle for some time. Once only, for a moment 

 or two, I saw the whole circle of the disk (naked eye all the time). 

 After enough of the disk had reappeared to cast a shadow, I still 

 saw the copper-coloured segment, which had remained visible 

 all the time. This I mention as a test of eyesight. As 

 seen from the Moon, the Earth is surrounded by a bril- 

 liant ring of light — refracted sunshine in our atmosphere. 

 (Will not the solar corona also afford a notable contribution ?) 

 This is the cause of the moon not disappearing always totally ; but 

 this cause (or two causes) must give a coytntant amount of light. 

 What, then, is the reason of the Jlickerinj of the light on the lunar 

 disk? May it be due to an auroral self-luminosity of our atmo- 

 sphere ? Why is the Moon sometimes entirely invisible ? Sap- 

 posing her even in the centre of the shadow, and at perigee while 

 we are in aphelion, would it not still be probable that our ring of 

 sun-lit air would be bright enough to show her in some degree ? — 

 considering that the light of the crescent earth does so sometimes 

 — and a continuous ring of refracted sunlight should be surely 

 stronger than a half -earth of reflected light." 



A correspondent, who signs himself "E.G. H.," writes as 

 under : — 



" Sir, — I watched the eclipse of last Saturday from Worthing Pier, 

 and was much struck with its difference from other lunar eclipses 

 that I have noticed, though the difference did not seem to be per- 

 ceived by the friends who were with me at the time, or by those 

 whom I have spoken to about it since. It was certainly the darkest 

 eclipse I ever saw, and the moon, when entirely covered by the 

 shadow, instead of assuming the ' appearance of a huge, glowing, 

 coppery-red ball hung up in the sky * (to use, Sir, your words in 

 Knowledge for Oct. 10), was visible only as a patch of dull, ashen- 

 gray ; I should hardly describe it as ' sickly green,' it was too 

 neutral-tinted for that. This was the appearance as seen -with the 

 unaided eye ; when I looked through a binocular glass that I had 

 taken with me, I could make out the moon's circular shape, as I also 

 could a little before totality, bat not long before." 



[The interesting point in the above communications lies in the 

 fact of the faint, sickly-green hne of the visible limb of the Moon 

 at the time of totality, and the change of the tint of the Earth's 

 shadow to copper-colour at a later stage of the eclipse. (The 

 latter change "Senex" says (writing subsequently) was not 

 seen at all in Arbroath, Forfar, Dundee, &c., when the sky 

 was clear. Hence he is disposed to refer to it in some way 

 t) the hszi prevailing at Broughty Ferry.) This suggests 

 the idea that during the first half of the eclipse a densely cloud- 

 laden atmospheric ring must have surrounded the Earth in a direc- 

 tion at right angles to the Sun's rays ; but that the Earth's rota- 

 tion must, later on, have brought a more transparent annulus into 

 the same position. Obviously, were our atmosphere filled -with 

 dense clouds, no refraction of the solar light into the umbra could 

 take place, and the Moon would seemingly disappear entirely. — 

 En.] 



GovERN^^E^'T Inspectors. — A return has been issued by the Home 

 Oflice of the number of inspectors in the employ of the several 

 departments of the Government, and the amount of the fixed salaries 

 paid to them. It is as follows : — England. — Privy Council Office — 

 Agricultural Department, 27, £5,-12u ; Education Department, 259, 

 £105,075; Education (Scotch) Department, 48, £29,070; Science 

 and Art Department, 4, £1,865. Home Ofiice. — Inspectors of Fac- 

 tories, 56, £21,088 ; Inspectors of Mines, 26, £15,642 ; Inspectors 

 of Fisheries, 2, £953 ; Inspector of Burial Grounds, 1, £500 ; In- 

 spectors of Reformatories and Industrial Schools, 3, £1,386; In- 

 spectors of Constabulary, 4, £3,300 ; Inspectors of Explosives, 3, 

 £2,400; Inspector under the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1, £210; 

 Inspectors of Anatomy, 3, £1,060 ; Inspector under the Habitual 

 Drunkards Act, 1 ; Inspector of Rivers Pollution (Scotland), 1, 

 £50. Board of Trade.— Railway Department, 4, £4,-lO0 ; Marine 

 Department, 121, £41,980; Commercial Department, 3, £365; 

 Inland Revenue, 53, £28,310 ; Local Government Board, 56, 

 £39.080; General Register Office, 2, £1,180 ; Charity Commission, 

 3, £2,400; total, 684, £297,634. Scotland.— Fishery Board, 3, 

 £1,165 ; General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy, 4, £3,200 ; 

 Board of Supervision, 3, £1,400; total, 10, £'5,765. Grand total, 

 094 inspectors, and £303,399 salaries. 



