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THE IIULIMOIS FA-RjMEK. 



53 



existed here before our fathers came, and 

 they have characterized all the other institu- 

 tions which they planted, and the race they 

 propagated, and will continue to do so till 

 the end of time. These two institutions are, 

 first, an excessive magnetic intensity, and 

 consequent excessive electric intensity, be- 

 neath and around us; and, second, an exces- 

 sive volume of warm equatorial atmospheric 

 current — counter trade I have called it- 

 excessive compared with the rest of the 

 Northern Hemisphere, except Eastern Asia, 

 flowing over us. To the action and influ- 

 ence of these tico(/reat natural ^^institutions," 

 ice Otoe everything that is peculiar in our 



climatology. 



The immediate and priacipal cause of our 

 warm January, is to be found in the unusual 

 volume and warmth of that counter trade or 

 equatorial current above us. 



If you were to enter a balloon at George- 

 town to-day, and ascend, you woxdd find the 

 cuiTents variable, and the air growing regu- 

 larly cooler, until you reached an altitude of 

 about 10,000 feet. You would then enter a 

 warm current, probably ranging to-day at 

 about bl°, moving steadily east northeast, at 

 about the rate of 12 miles per hour. Con- 

 tinuing to ascend you would pass out of it 

 after ascending about 8,000 feet from where 

 you met it; and find the cold increase sud- 

 denly after you left it. That current which 

 you would thus pass through, is one of the 

 great natural institutions." 



The motions of clouds within the current 

 and on its borders, always before and fre- 

 quently after storms, indicate its existence 

 and direction observable at least 200 days in 

 the year. This current affects our seasons, 

 inasmuch as its depth or volume and warmth 

 were much greater during January, 1858, 

 than during the corresponding month last 

 year. This is indicated by the high /J/iV- 

 'weatlier range of the bai-umeter, by the copi- 

 ous rains which have i\illen, especially at the 

 southwest, and by the almost constant haze 

 which has 'overcast the sky. It is to the 

 depth of this current and its warmth, then, 

 that we owe our warm weather. This is 

 effected not by directly imparted warmth , 

 froiu the current itself, "but to the influence \ 

 upon the sun's rays caused by passing 

 through this thick stratum of heated air. 



"The rays of the sun when they enter our 

 atmosphere, if they contain heat at all, have 

 little heating power. The heat in them, or 

 the heating power, is greatly enhanced by 

 passing through the atmosphere, and just in 

 proportion to its warmth, its density and its 

 moisture. This has been well ascertained 

 by experiment, and cannot be disputed. So 

 the greater the bulk of the atmosphere, and 

 the more heat and moisture there is in i^, t^e 

 greater the heating power of the suu's rays. 

 And so the higher the barometer, and the 

 greater the depth and icarmtJi of that river 

 of heated air over its, </ie icc/r»icr the weather' 

 in the aggregate. All our heated terms 

 commence on a high barometer, and it rises 

 before all our thaws. It ranged very low in 

 the winter of 1856 and we had no thaw. It 

 rose suddenly and high in the winter of 1S57, 

 and we had a long thaw. It keeps up now 

 and it is pretty much all thaw. Our great 

 natural serial "institution" is in an exceed- 

 ingly flourishing state." 



The intense clearness of the air, such as i 

 all observed last winter, the same as prevails ' 

 upon the mountain tops, is attributed to the 

 fact that the atmospheric mass above is at 

 such times quite thin, cold and free from 

 moisture. Still this variation of the atmos- 

 pheric current alluded to is not claimed to 

 be the only cause of the warm weather,, but 

 as a principal cause. 



Still recurs the question, "How happens it 

 that the volume of this 'atmospheric institu- 

 tion' is greater this year than last?" Judge 

 Butler savs, to answer ifr fully involves many 

 things, the explanation of which we cannot 

 at present undertake. In general, however, 



he says : 



"There is increased activity in the great 

 forces which originate the southeast trades 

 of the Atlantic ocean. For the same reason 

 there is doubtless an increase of the equato- 

 rial atmospheric current over all this portion 

 of the northern hemisphere, and hence it is 

 warmer in Europe, and on our western 



. >> :k ****** 



coast. p ^ -^ 



"There is still another question I know 

 you ^\ ould ask, for it is the question of the 

 day, viz : What will February be, and shall 

 have we any ice? 



By a table comparing January and Febm- 

 ary, for the corresponding years of each de- 

 cade of the present century, it is shown that 

 in 1888 and 1848, the years which the pre- 

 sent most resembles, February was much the 



colder month, 



* * * aT.nnkino- at the character of 



"Looking at 

 the winter of 1838, I have supposed that 

 this would not be mild, as a whole, and that 

 we should have cold weather in February. 

 But I confess, that the high range^ of the 

 barometer, and the continuance of warm 

 weather at the Northwest, have shaken my 

 faith very much. The probabilities are still 

 in our iavor, but they are far from being 

 decidedly so." 



The recent cold weather iu February con- 

 firmed the above expressed faith. 



ent 



A Peep Into a I-iviug Man's Stomach. 



The case of Alexis St. Martin is ona with 

 which the public, and especially those who 

 have given particular attention to the subject 

 of physiology in connection with medical 

 science, are already familiar. It is indeed a 

 most extraordinary one — perhaps we might 

 say, the most extraordinar}' one known in the 

 annals of surgery. St. Martinis a Canadian 

 of French descent. In the year 1825, when 

 he was eighteen years old, and while employed 

 in the service of the American Fur Co., in 

 Canada, he was accidentally wounded bj the 

 dischai'ge of a musket loaded with duck shot, 

 as he calls it, but which must, we infer, have 

 been about the size of buck shot. He informed 

 us that he did not know or feel that he had 

 been hit, but a moment afterwards he felt a 

 cold chill, as if a pail of cold water had been 

 dashed over him. The charge, entering later- 

 ally from behind, passed quite through his 

 body, tearing off the muscles, canying away 

 half of the sixth rib, lacerating the left lobe of 

 the lungs as well as the diaphragm, perfora- 

 ting the stomach and exposing to view the 

 pericardium, or covering of the heart' A por- 

 tion of the lungs, as large as a turkey's egg, 



lacerated and burnt, and just below this por- 

 tion of the stomach, protruded from the wound, 

 the food at the same time passing from the 

 orifice thus made in the stomach. This ori- 

 fice has never healed, and through it the pro- 

 cess of disiestion can plainly be seen in the 

 stomach. "Dr. Beaumont, the surgeon who 

 attended him, published some years ago, a 

 volume made up from facts connected with 

 this case, and entitled "Dr. Beaumont's Phys- 

 iology and Experiments." This work em- 

 braced the observations and experiments on 

 St. Martin, and may be said to be the foun- 

 dation of nearly all the positive knowledge 

 now possessed on the subject of digestion.— 

 In this book Dr. B. gives the particulars of 

 the treatment of the ease, and the singular 

 recovery of the patient. Curiously and hap- 

 pily enough by the adhesion of the sides of the 

 protruded portions of the stomach to t\ie pleu- 

 ra costalis and the edge of the external 

 wound, a free exit was afforded to the con- 

 tents ofthat organ, and effusion into the abdo- 

 minal cavity was thus prevented and the 

 man's life saved. 



Probably not one man in a million, if wound- 

 ed in a similar manner, would recover at all, 

 while the chances againstjustsuch a direction 

 and result of another accidental or even an 

 intentional shot, would be so enormous as to 

 defy competition, and almost to surpass be- 

 lief. The case of St. Martin is probably the 

 first, last, and only one of the kind the world 

 will ever see; and the opportunities which it 

 affords for the acquisition of positive knowl- 

 edge concerning the human stomach and di- 

 gestive fiinctions are of corresponding inter- 

 est and value. Think of the idea of actually 

 witnessing the process of digestion, and the 

 assimulation of various foods in the interior 

 of the stomach! 



This interesting subject for study was re- 

 cently in Hartford, and we had the opportu- 

 nity of seeing him. He was under the care 

 of Dr. John G. Bunting, formerly a surgeon 

 iu the British army,and who proposes to ex- 

 hibit this living wonder to the medical men of 

 some of our large cities previous to a journey 

 with him to Europe. While here St. Martin 

 and the Doctor were the guests of Col. Colt, 

 at whose invitation they were induced it stop, 

 while on their way to Boston, for the purpose 

 of allowing to the Hartford Medical Society an 

 opportunity of noting the processes and the 

 effects of digestion, the absorption of different 

 kinds of food, &c. 



Some of the facts thus obtained are new and 

 interesting; others seem to confirm previous 

 theories of the physicians. It was found 

 that brandy taken upon an empty stomach 

 (half an hour before dinner) has the effect to 

 temporarily paralyze the process of digestion for 

 a period of four hours. Moreover its influ- 

 ence upon the stomach, under the circumstan- 

 ces, is such as to prevent that organ from re- 

 covering its natural and healthy tone for thir- 

 ty-six hours after the brandy is swallowed ; 

 when at the expiration ofthat time, its resto- 

 ration to a healthy tone is indicated by the ap- 

 pearance of red patches on the internal coats 

 of the stomach, from which minute drop* of 

 blood are seen to exude. (This is the result 

 after a debauch.) Curious enough, during 

 this interval, appetite is not the least impaired 

 I although the functions of digestion are great- 

 I ly impeded. The immediate effect of the 



