Polytechnic Association Proceedings. 613 



feelings. Thus, having tried coffee after the training above 

 described, he found that if he took a certain quantity of it very- 

 strong, a great change gradually came over him. His feelings 

 were numbed, and his intellectual faculties became wonderfully 

 active. He ceased to be communicative, was cold and peevish, and, 

 in short, he acquired a disposition contrary to his natural one, his 

 mind being constantly at work in spite of himself. When he 

 remained long in this state, his intellect was unable to produce 

 connected thought, but was still agitated; his sleep would be dis- 

 turbed and his pulse would fall. By the use of a little food with 

 good wine, tranquility was soon restored; and if he then read what 

 he had written in a former state, he was quite astonished at the 

 peculiarity of the ideas expressed, although they appeared per- 

 fectly natural to him when they were first committed to paper. 

 Wine, on the contrary, taken when the system was reduced by 

 diet, and even in such small quantities as not to produce intoxi- 

 cation, rather obscured the intellectual faculties, and made him 

 fell embarrassed about the slightest things, and fear lest he should 

 offend. Yet it prompted him to freely utter any bad thoughts 

 that entered his mind. These effects, described by one who had 

 brought himself into an abnormal state, are certainly not such as 

 follow the use of these beverages in connection with the regular 

 allotment of food; but, they demonstrate that the too free use of 

 any substance which acts only on a part of the system, may tend to 

 derange the fmictions of a naturally well balanced organism. 



After some discussion on the foregoing items, Dr. L. Bradley 

 read the following paper: 



ANTI-INCR USTA TION. 



It will be remembered that a few evenings since I exposed before 

 the Society, Hays' method of preventing incrustation of steam 

 boilers, which consists simply in making the boiler, with its con- 

 tents, a part of the conducting circuit of a few cups of galvanic 

 battery. 



The possibility of any such effect, as claimed by the inventor, was 

 broadly denied by Dr. Parmelee and Prof. Vanderweyde. They 

 were not alone in such opinion, for I am told that Prof Henry, of 

 the Smithsonian Institute, denied the jjossibility of any such effect, 

 declaring that he would not believe it if a score of men were to 

 testify to it. At the Patent Office, too, I am informed that the 

 claims were delayed at first, on the ground of non-utility, the 



