Vol. XXII. No. 2.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



31 



cealed place is a disagreeable and dangerous foe ; 

 and in piping a house for gas, as for sewerage, the 

 pipes should be so arranged as to be easily ex- 

 posed to view. Nothing but thorough testing by a 

 scientific expeit can make a iiouse absolutely safe 

 from the danger of gas-leakage. In a large house 

 the servants should be instructed as to the proper 

 means of escape in case of fire, and back stair- 

 cases should be sufficiently open and easy of access 

 in order to secure safety in case of a panic by fire 

 or from other cause. 



Back-stairs are often a nuisance by reason of the 

 narrow and steep flights, and a wise economy 

 would suggest that the part of the house where 

 the hard work is done should be of generous dimen- 

 sions, and convenient in construction. Basement 

 kitchens and dining-rooms are very common in 

 city dwellings; and unless they are built upon a 

 dry bottom, and above the line of the sidewalk, 

 they are very objectionable, both on account of 

 dampness and darkness. Yet, because of the ex- 

 pensiveness of land, they are of general use in some 

 cities as a matter of economy. Boston is almost 

 peculiar in this arrangement, but in Philadelphia 

 a basement kitchen is hardly known. It is very 

 difficult to make a basement dining-room elegant 

 or desirable, and every sanitary writer and critic 

 pleads for the abolishment of such apartments. 

 The Southern custom of having the culinary and 

 laundry appliances in a small building separate 

 from the house has many advantages, especially in 

 ridding the looms of the disagreeable odors insepa- 

 rable from these necessary quarters. A kitchen in 

 an L is preferable to one in a basement for obvious 

 reasons. What is more disagreeable on entering a 

 house than to encounter the odors from the kitchen 

 as soon as one opens the hall-door ? and nothing 

 save fire and absolute destruction will neutralize 

 some of the stenches that arise from certain kinds 

 of cooking A well-ventilated kitchen, with im- 

 proved apparatus for cooking, is one of the greatest 

 triumphs of modern house-building. How many 

 safeguards are necessary in the construction of the 

 healthy home ! Every hint from scientific dis- 

 covery, every fact from the broad field of investi- 

 gation, every valuable invention of the ingenious 

 artisan, and all the devices that the forms of beauty 

 and the more practical forms of utility ever sug- 

 gest, must be considered, and their forces conserved 

 to the highest and noblest uses of refined and 

 healthful living. Under such direction, domestic 

 architecture rises to a nobler art, guided by the 

 protecting care of sanitary science. Under such 

 intelligent conditions life is worth living, and a 

 house is worth living in, to the end of time. 



HOW TO TREAT THE EYE WITH A 

 CINDER IN IT. 



R. W. St. Clair writes the Medical Summary 

 as follows: — 



" Nine persons out of every ten with a cinder 

 or any foreign substance in the eye, will instantly 

 begin to rub the eye with one hand, while hunt- 

 ing for their handkerchief with the other. They 

 may, and sometimes do, remove the offending cin- 

 der; but more frequently they rub until the eye 

 becomes inflamed, bind a handkerchief around the 

 head, and go to bed. This is all wrong. The 

 better way is, not to rub the eye with the cinder 

 in at all, but rub the other eye as vigorously as 

 you like. 



"A few years since, I was riding on an engine. 

 The engineer threw open the front window, and I 

 caught a cinder that gave me the most excruciat- 

 ing pain. I began to rub the eye with both hands. 

 ' Let your eye alone, and rub the other eye [this 

 from the engineer]. I know you doctors think 



you know it all; but if you will let that eye alone, 

 and rub the other one, the cinder will be out in 

 two minutes,' persisted the engineer. I began to 

 lub the other eye; and soon I felt the cinder down 

 near the inner canthus, and made ready to take it 

 out. Let it alone, and keep at the well eye," 

 shouted the doctor pro tern. I did so for a minute 

 longer, and, looking in a small glass he gave me, I 

 found the offender on my cheek. Since then I 

 have tried it many times, and have advised many 

 others, and I have never known it to fail in one 

 instance (unless it was as sharp as a piece of steel, 

 or something that cut into (he ball, and required 

 an operation to i-emove it). Why it is so, I do not 

 know; but that it is so, I do know, and that one 

 may be saved much suffering, if they will let the 

 injured eye alone, and rub the well eye." 



[Specl.illy compiled for the Popular Science Xeioi.] 



MONTHLY SUMMARY OF MEDICAL 

 PROGRESS. 



BY W. 8. WELLS, M.D. 



Cases of hydrophobia are published in the Med- 

 ical Gazelle (India), among which is that of an offi- 

 cer under the care of Surgeon-Major P. J. I'reyer. 

 The patient was bitten on the hand by a mad pup 

 a year and a half before the development of ^he 

 hydrophobic symptoms, which ended fatally. The 

 remedies tried were morphia and atropine given 

 hypodermically. 



Dr. Freyer directs attention especially to one 

 point in the case ; viz., that Ihe/irst symptom was 

 pain in the cicatrix oflhe old bite. He considers that 

 this points to the disease being localized in the 

 neighborhood of the bite for a considerable period ; 

 and he is led to believe that the poison received 

 from the bite of a rabid animal does not, as in the 

 case of snake-poisoning, rapidly iuvade the system, 

 but remains localized at the seat of injury for an 

 indefinite period, and, maturing there by some 

 peculiar process, suddenly, after the lapse of davs, 

 ^Yeeks, months, or years, invades the system. 



Upon this exceedingly plausible theory he ex- 

 plains the fact that the first symptom in the actual 

 development of the disease was pain in the seat of 

 the bite ; and upon this theory the practical lesson 

 taught is the free removal or free destruction of the 

 part bitten, by excision or caustics, or both, as soon 

 as practicable. 



Care should be taken that the fleshy parts around 

 the bite should be freely excised considerably be- 

 yond the margin of the bite, and then thoroughly 

 cauterized, and subsequently dressed. 



Should a surgeon not be at hand to excise the 

 wound, apply lunar caustic, a live coal, or a red- 

 hot nail, wire, or other iron, down into the bite, 

 deep enough to destroy the tissues around the bitten 

 part into which the hydrophobic poison is lodged. 

 If this course has not been followed as a precau- 

 tionary measure at the time or soon after the bite, 

 the cicatrix and surrounding tissues should be ex- 

 cised subsequently. 



Dr. Freyer is of the opinion, that, in the case of 

 the officer alluded to, if excision had been per- 

 formed even shortly before the active symptoms set 

 in, although a year and a half after the bite, the 

 disease would not have ended fatally. 



At a recent meeting of the Berlin Medical So- 

 ciety Ilahn reported fifteen partial or total extir- 

 pations of the larynx. Of their patients, two were 

 living. One was operated upon seven years ago, 

 and is in good health, aged sixty-nine. In this 

 case the extirpation was very extensive, and the 

 specimen was typical carcinoma. The second case 

 was operated on one and a half years previously, 

 and was partial. 



Hahn believes that carcinoma which shows a 

 tendency to horny or warty growth has a more fa- 

 vorable prognosis than other carcinomata. He 

 thinks that most operations are undertaken too 

 late, and that malignant tendency contra-indicates 

 operating at all. 



Brown-S6quard reported, in V Union Me'dicale, 

 a series of experiments on rabbits and birds, in 

 which he produced a kind of rabies by injecting oil 

 of tansy. This rabies he was able to overcome by 

 subcutaneous injections of chloral, and surrounding 

 the subjects with vapors of tliis drug, and believes, 

 from analogy, that chloral so administered would 

 prove to be a preventive of true rabies in man. 



Dr. Feltz, in L'Art Medical, relates the follow- 

 ing as a possible explanation of the occurrence of 

 left-handedness. In a family composed of five 

 persons, the father and mother were right-handed, 

 as was also the eldest son, who had been cared for 

 in his infancy by a nurse. The second child had 

 been nursed by the mother, and was left-handed. 

 The third child, also nursed by his mother, was at 

 the age of one year evidently left-handed, never 

 grasping any object with his right hand. Dr. 

 Feltz noticed that the mother carried the child on 

 her left arm, and, upon being ijuestioned, said it had 

 always been her custom to carry her children on 

 this arm. The doctor advised her to hold the child 

 on her right arm. 



She did so ; the child soon began to use his right 

 hand in seizing objects, and is now, at the age of 

 ten years, normal as regards the preference of the 

 right over the left hand. The doctor explained 

 that when the nurse carries the child on her left 

 arm, the left arm of the infant is the one which is 

 free, and which consequently he learns to use, to 

 the neglect of the right. 



BijcQUOY says, in a recent monograph on duo- 

 denal ulcer, that the diagnosis depends upon, (1) 

 intestinal hemorrhages, with tar-like fa-ces occur- 

 ring suddenly and abundantly shortly after meals, 

 causing extreme anaemia ; (2) pain at the close of 

 stomach digestion in the right hypochondriura, 

 sometimes with reflex nervous phenomena ; (3) 

 vomiting, icterus occasionally, and a remarkable 

 preservation of the appetite. The duodenal ulcer 

 occurs most frequently in men. 



The treatment is nearly the same as that of gas- 

 tric ulcer, but the exclusive milk diet need not be 

 persisted in for so long a period. 



Dr. Wentscher reports, in the Berlin Klin. 

 Woch, a case of ileus cured by intestinal puncture 

 and one washing-out of the stomach, as recom- 

 mended by Kussmaul. The obstruction had lasted 

 ten days. A coil of intestine was clearly marked 

 on the left side, above the umbilicus, and a fine 

 trocar introduced. Gases of not very bad odor 

 passed through the canula, and also a teaspoonful 

 of opaque green-white fluid of fecal odor. 



The abdominal swelling immediately collapsed. 



The stomach-pump was also used shortly after, 

 and the relief was prompt. 



An article is published in the Gazetia Degli 

 O.yntali by M. Taruzza, on the value of effused 

 blood in treating wounds. He claims that hem- 

 orrhage fiom wounds, unless due to lesion of large 

 vessels, or in excess, does not interfere with pri- 

 mary union. He does not think it necessary to 

 follow strictly the rule to secure complete arrest 

 of hemorrhage, and to apply firm compre.<sion. 

 He relies en perfect disinfection of the bleeding- 

 surface, as far as pos.sible, by means of weak solu- 

 tions of carbolic acid or mercuric chloride. After 



