No. 144.] 233 



Dr. Waterbury said he was pleased with reading the reports of 

 the proceedings of this club. He had noticed at a recent club- 

 meeting some authoritative recommendations of collodion in the 

 treatment of burns, wounds, abrasions oi the skin ; that it was in 

 fact an artificial cuticle curative by perfect exclusion of air like 

 the natural skin. This error he, as a professional man, felt it his 

 duty to correct. Admitting the utility of it, as recommended for 

 vegetable uses, such as securing grafts, &c., his experience with 

 it as an application to abraded skin, &c., was such as to convince 

 that nature cannot be supplanted in the process of cure by arti- 

 ficial means Nature produces in due time over the wound a 

 scab more or less porous, and precisely adapted in the shortest 

 time to effect a cure, a dressing prepared by the Lord 6,000 years 

 ago. While under collodion inflammation ensues, and cure is dif- 

 ficult, Dr. Waterbury objected, therefore, to the recommendation 

 to have a quantity of collodion in every family for application to 

 abraded flesh. There was something remaining in the collodion 

 after its formation from gun cotton in ether which rather favored 

 Inflammation. He recommended caution and careful experiments 

 before leading the families of the United States into an unfortu- 

 nate dependence on collodion. 



NEW HARVESTER. 



Mr. Wagoner introduced the model of a new reaping machine, 

 which is calculated to collect the heads and separate the grain 

 from the chaff, and deliver the grain in bags. He had one ma- 

 chine in operation at Racine, Wisconsin, this last year, that cut 

 at the rate of twenty-five acres a day. A machine will weigh 

 about 1,200 lbs. and cost $150. The cutters can be raised or 

 lowered to suit the height of grain by the operator, the heads be- 

 ing carried directly to a thresher and cleaner, aiid the grain 

 thence to a screen and the bags. The whole is mounted upon 

 four wheels, with a body capacious enough to contain all the ma- 

 chinery and carry the bags and man to fill and tie them up. The 

 inventor says that two horses are sufiicient propelling power, and 

 these are hitched to a shaft behind, so as to push the machine 

 into the standing grain. One advantage of this mode is, that it 



