Vol. XXIII. No. 4.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



57 



Slje Popular Science l]ews 



BOSTON, APRIL i, 1889. 



AUSTIN P. NICHOLS, S.B Editor. 



WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D., . AsmeUtte Editor. 



The office of the~POPULAR SCIENCE 

 NE WS has been renioi'cd to IVo. 2J 

 School .St., in the same bi4ilding with 

 the well-known publishers., A/cssrs. Cup- 

 pies & Hurd. The location is even 

 more central and convenient than our 

 former one, and we shall be glad to see 

 our subscribers at the new location. 



An attempt is at present being made to 



regulate the practice of medicine in this vState 

 by law, and to require every person desiring 

 to practice the healing art to submit to exam- 

 ination, registration, and other formalities, 

 the ostensible purpose being to suppress the 

 numerous quacks and disreputable "irregu- 

 lars" who flourish at the expense of their 

 deluded patients. We are free to confess 

 that we do not consider such a measure a 

 desirable or even a justifiable one. It inter- 

 feres with the right of personal liberty in two 

 ways. It pre\ents the patient from employ- 

 ing such medical attendance or means of cure 

 as he desires, and also forbids the physician 

 to apply his knowledge and skill in any way 

 not approved of by a board of examiners, who 

 are, practically, political office-holders. It is 

 also an injustice to the regidarly educated 

 physician, in that it requires him to submit to 

 annoying formalities and expense, thus pun- 

 ishing him for the sins of the quacks. The 

 choice of a physician had much better be left 

 to the individual himself, and any interference 

 by the State can only lead to trouble and dis- 

 satisfaction. A notable instance of the op- 

 pressive nature of such laws recently occurred 

 in the city of New York, where a druggist 

 was arrested and fined fifty dollars, for giving 

 a simple remedy to a woman suflering from 

 some trifling ailment — a sore throat, if we 

 remember rightly. 



In holding these views, we do not intend 

 anything derogatory to the "regular" medical 

 profession. The standard of medical skill in 

 this country is remarkably high, and one is 

 almost invariably safe in entrusting himself to 

 their care. We have nothing but contempt 

 for the various ologies, pathies, and thousand 

 and one other medical humbugs, to say noth- 

 ing of the more villainous quacks, who ought 

 to be treated as common criminals. But, 

 while we should not be willing in case of ill- 

 ness, to be attended by any but a regularly 

 educated physician, we cannot think that we 

 have any right to force our opinions upon 

 others, but are willing to allow them the same 

 freedom of choice that we demand for our- 

 selves as a natural right. 



A CURIOUS explosion, unhappily attended 

 with fatal consequences, recently occurred in 

 Dublin. An iron cylinder had been filled 



with hydrogen gas for producing the calcium 

 light, and, after it had been partially emptied, 

 was returned to be refilled. By some acci- 

 dent, at the second filling oxygen gas was 

 forced into it, thus forming a mixture as ex- 

 plosive as gun-powder. As soon as it was 

 attempted to light the supposed hydrogen gas, 

 a terrific explosion took place, destroying the 

 cylinder and killing the operator. Such an 

 occurrence has heretofore been unheard of, 

 and, to prevent further jiccidents of the sort, 

 it has been suggested that the couplings con- 

 necting the cylinders with the supply-pipes of 

 oxygen and hydrogen, be made of difl'erent 

 sizes, thus preventing an}' confusion between 

 the two gases. ' 



The polariscope has recently been applied 

 to a novel use in France, in determining the 

 temperature of incandescent iron and other 

 metals. It has been found that the color of a 

 glowing mass of metal varies according to its 

 temperatin-e, and that a ray of the light when 

 polarized, is rotated by a plate of c|uartz to a 

 degree dependent upon the color. The de- 

 gree of rotation is measured in the usual 

 manner by a simple polariscope, and an em- 

 pirical scale of temperature is thus obtained, 

 which has been found very useful in metal- 

 lurgical operations, and much more reliable 

 than the indications of the former kinds of 

 pyrometers. 



An electric motor has been for some weeks 

 past in use on the Ninth Avenue elevated 

 railroad in New York City, and proved to be 

 a great success, drawing a train of eight cars 

 with ease, and at a speed exceeding that of 

 the steam locomotives with the usual train of 

 four cars only. The substitution of electric 

 motors upon these roads, in place of the loco- 

 motives now in use, woidtl be a great im- 

 provement, and, if the important matter of 

 expense does not prevent, the change will 

 doubtless be made in a few years. 



Although electricity may prove an effi- 

 cient motor for short lines of railroad with a 

 large passenger travel, the conditions obtain- 

 ing upon the ordinary railroads of the country 

 are such that it is impossiljle to successfully 

 operate them by this form of force. A steam 

 locomotive is one of the most wasteful motors 

 ever invented, but, where a large amount of 

 power must be developed in the shortest pos- 

 sible time, and in a limited space, nothing has 

 yet been found to take its place. A very 

 large percentage of the coal burnt imder a 

 locomotive boiler is wasted, but the amount 

 that is utilized, is utilized in the best possible 

 way, as the efficiency and regularity of our 

 railroad service continually proves. 



satisfactory. All the modern mechanical 

 devices and refinements of manipulation have 

 been at their service, and yet the residts have 

 been so variable that even now we are not 

 certain of the atomic weight of oxygen beyond 

 the first decimal place. The diflerent values 

 obtained by different experimenters have 

 caused the question to be seriously raised, 

 whether the atomic weights are' an invariable 

 quantity, and not liable themselves to change 

 under varying conditions. Such a proposi- 

 tion, if proved, would revolutionize the whole 

 science of cheniistrv, which may be said to be 

 founded upon the atomic weights, liut we 

 think there is no necessity of assuming such a 

 change in values at present. Any one accus- 

 tomed to chemical manipulation will appre- 

 ciate the difficidties of properly performing 

 the accurate work require! in determinations 

 of atomic weights. The liability to minute 

 errors is always present, and, although the 

 question of variability is a legitimate and in- 

 teresting one, we are not inclined to attach 

 much importance to it in the present state of 

 chemical science. 



The revision of the atomic weights of the 

 different elements has, in recent years, em- 

 ployed the skill of many of the most eminent 

 chemists, but the results have not been entirely 



THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF 

 ENERGY. 



As far as we know at present, the simplest 

 forms of matter. — the elements — are distinct 

 entities, and incapable of being transformed 

 into one another. They unite among them- 

 selves to form all the innumerable substances 

 of which the universe is made up, but in 

 themselves are unchangeable and indestructi- 

 ble. A piece of iron, for instance, can never 

 be changed into a piece of copper, or a grain 

 of hydrogen gas into oxygen ; neither can 

 we destroy or annihilate a single atom of these 

 elements. There is just exactly as much 

 hydrogen, oxygen, iron, copper, etc., in the 

 universe as there has been in all the past ages, 

 and exactly the same amount will continue to 

 exist to all eternity, although their combina- 

 tions with themselves and other elements may 

 be altered an infinite luunber of times. 

 Until some future investigator, in following 

 certain clues at present but dimly perceived 

 by us, discovers that the elements are but 

 modifications of one primal form of matter, 

 we must continue to believe that they are 

 unchangeable. 



When, howeA-er, we turn to the different 

 forms of force, or energy, by which, with 

 matter, the universe reveals itself to our 

 senses, we find a very different state of affairs. 

 Meat, light, electricity, chemical action, mag- 

 netism, force or work, are all readily changed 

 from one to the other with the greatest ease. 

 Let us take, for instance, an electric station, 

 and follow the transformations of energy there 

 produced. 



In the first place, we find chemical action 

 taking place in the furnace connected with 

 the steam boiler and engine. Carbon is 

 being oxidized, or burnt, and this chemical 



