Feb. 3, 1870] 
NATURE 359 
o 
air is between 32 and 40 degrees of Fahrenheit’s heat scale (for 
that is the condition in which the danger is found to be most 
certainly incurred), should be most carefully maintained by the 
judicious use of sustaining food, and by the avoidance of every 
kind of injurious derangement or excess. When once internal 
congestion has been set up, and the cold has been ‘‘ caught,” the 
thing to be done is immediately to bring back vigorous circulation 
and exhalation in the skin. The Turkish bath is one of the 
most convenient and certain of all contrivances for ensuring this 
object: in its absence the vapour bath, or hot air bath may be 
employed. The action of the bath is to be reinforced by the 
administration of stimulants, first and foremost amongst which 
stands concentrated food. Indeed, the Professor’s pet stimulant 
seems to be “ Whitehead’s Solid Essence of Beef,” a New South 
Wales preparation, in which the nutritious principle of an ox is 
condensed into about nine pounds of easily transportable material, 
in which thirty pounds of beef are concentrated into one 
pound of little cakes, each about the size of an ordinary silver 
five-shilling piece, and weighing half an ounce. One cake is 
calculated to prepare two large breakfast cups of good beef-tea. 
This preparation differs from Liebig’s Extract of Meat chiefly in 
containing the gelatinous as well as the fibrinous constituents of the 
flesh. The Gresham Professor scattered the little round cakes, out 
of neat half-pound cases, liberally to his audience, recommending 
them to begin at once to fortify themselves against the inclement 
atmospheric influences. He gave one very interesting instance 
of the value and power of this preparation by alluding to a case 
that had fallen within his experience on the very day of the 
lecture. A patient had been brought into the Brompton Hospital 
in a sinking state, resulting from inability to take food. He was 
at the time all but pulseless and cold, and evidently on the brink 
of the grave. He was placed in bed, and a cupfull of the beef- 
tea prepared from the ‘‘solid Essence” administered. The pre- 
paration was retained in the stomach, and in ten minutes from 
the time of its administration, there was steady warmth all over 
the skin, and restored circulation. 
There is one expedient both for preventing and curing “ colds.” 
which was not alluded to upon this occasion, but which is never- 
theless as powerful as any of the measures which were described, 
and it may sometimes be drawn upon in circumstances when 
those plans cannot be adopted, in consequence of the sufferer 
being compelled by the exigencies of life to continue to meet 
exposure to chilling influences. This is abstinence from drink, 
and liquid food of any kind, until the internal congestion is 
removed. The remedial action through the skin does its work 
by drawing away the superabundance of the circulating 
fluid from the overcharged part. But this desirable result is 
even more certainly ensured if the general bulk of the circulating 
fluid, or blood, is diminished by withholding supplies of the more 
liquid, or watery, ingredient; which may be done where the 
digestive power is unimpaired, without in any way diminishing 
the richer, or more immediately nourishing portion. The instant 
the general bulk of the circulating blood is diminished, the excess 
contained in the congested and overcharged membranes is with- 
drawn and the cold is relieved. Somewhat severe thirst sets in ; 
but curiously enough, simultaneously with the occurrence of this 
thirst, the congested internal membranes grow moist, and exhale 
gently and naturally in consequence of the relief of the over- 
charged vessels. All that is then necessary is to keep the supply 
of drink down to the point which enables some measure of thirst 
to be maintained ; and during its maintenance there is not the 
slightest chance of the recurrence of the cold. Dr. Thompson 
dwelt emphatically in his lecture, upon the fact that, whereas 
certain ailments, such as the eruptive fevers, bring with them an 
almost complete immunity from the recurrence of the affection, 
it is just otherwise with ordinary colds. The more frequently 
they occur, the more frequently they may be looked for. They 
bring with them increased susceptibility of the internal 
membranes to congestive derangements. Under such circum- 
stances diminution of drink, sustained at the point of persistent 
moderate thirst, is the most powerful and certain preventive 
of congestive disorder, and the most sure remover of undue 
internal susceptibility, that can be adopted. 
The second lecture was mainly devoted to a description of 
stimulants, and an experimental explanation of the way in 
which the amount of the saccharine, acid, and spirituous ingre- 
dients of wines may be ascertained. There is one very note- 
worthy peculiarity in all these lectures, which renders them pecu- 
liarly fit for the class of audience at which the Gresham College 
is aimed : Dr, Symes Thompson is a master of the art of giving 
a clear notion of the whereabouts of a fact, or principle, to 
popular apprehension. It is to be extremely regretted that in 
a vast metropolis like ours, and, indeed, in all our large towns, 
such courses as these Gresham Lectures are not more common. 
It is absolutely impossible to over-estimate the good they can 
do, not only, as in this case, in showing what “ to eat, drink, and 
avoid,” but generally in inducing thought and work. Further 
lectures of the Gresham course are announced for the months 
of April, June, and September. 
LETPERS LOY LAE EDITOR: 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Where are the Nebulz ? 
Mr. Procror’s interesting paper in your last number re- 
minded me of an essay on ‘*The Nebular Hypothesis,” origi- 
fially published in 1858, and re-published, along with others, in 
a volume in 1863 (“‘Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative.” 
Second Series), in which I had occasion to discuss the question 
he raises. In that essay I ventured to call in question the infe- 
rence drawn from the revelations of Lord Rosse’s telescope, that 
nebulee are remote sidereal systems—an inference at that time 
generally accepted in the scientific world. On referring back to 
this essay, I find that, besides sundry of the reasons enumerated 
by Mr. Proctor for rejecting this inference, I have pointed out one 
which he has omitted. 
Here are some of the passages :— 
“** The spaces which precede or which follow simple nebul,’ 
says Arago, ‘and, @ fortiori, groups of nebulz, contain generally 
few stars. Herschel found this rule to be invariable. Thus, 
every time that, during a short interval, no star approached, in 
virtue of the diurnal motion, to place itself in the field of his 
motionless telescope, he was accustomed to say to the secretary 
who assisted him, ‘‘ Prepare to write; nebule are about to 
arrive.”’ How does this fact consist with the hypothesis that 
nebulz are remote galaxies? If there were but one nebula, it 
would be a curious coincidence were this one nebula so placed in 
the distant regions of space as to agree in direction with a starless 
spot in our own sidereal system? If there were but two nebula, 
and both were so placed, the coincidence would be excessively 
strange. What, then, shall we say on finding that they are 
habitually so placed? (the last five words replace some that are 
possibly a little too strong). . . . . When to the fact that the 
general mass of nebulze are antithetical in position to the general 
mass of stars, we add the fact that local regions of nebul are 
regions where stars are scarce, and the further fact that single 
nebulz are habitually found in comparatively starless spots, does 
not the proof of a physical connection become overwhelm- 
ing?’ 
The reasonings of Humboldt and others proceeded upon the 
tacit assumption that differences of apparent magnitude among 
the stars result mainly from differences of distance. The necessary 
corollaries from this assumption I compared with the hypothesis 
that the nebulze are remote sidereal systems in the following 
passage :— ; 
“Tn round numbers, the distance of Sirius from the earth is a 
million times the distance of the earth from the sun; and 
according to the hypothesis, the distance of a nebula is something 
like a million times the distance of Sirius. Now, our own 
‘starry island, or nebula,’ as Humboldt calls it, ‘forms a lens- 
shaped, flattened, and everywhere-detached stratum, whose major 
axis is estimated at seven or eight hundred, and its minor axis at 
a hundred and fifty times the distance of Sirius fom the earth.’ 
And since it is concluded that our solar system is near the centre 
of this aggregation, it follows that our distance from the remotest 
parts of it is about four hundred distances of Sirius. But the 
stars forming these remotest parts are not individually visible, 
even through telescopes of the highest power. How, then, can 
such telescopes make individually visible the stars of a nebula 
which is a million times the distance of Sirius? The implication 
is, that a star rendered invisible by distance becomes yisible if 
taken two thousand five hundred times further off !” 
This startling incongruity being deducible if the argument 
proceeds on the assumption that differences of apparent magni- 
tude among the stars result mainly from differences of distance, I 
