196 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 346 



— The number of students attending the principal German uni- 

 versities amounts to 29,491, of whom 6,060 study theology, 6,835 

 law, 8,883 medicine, and 7,713 philosophy and natural sciences. It 

 is of interest to know that 314 of these are Russians. 



— A commission representing the various German railway com- 

 panies has published a report detailing the results of observations 

 made during six )ears on the durability of steel rails on their lines. 

 According to this report, it appears that the duration of a steel rail 

 may be reckoned on an average at thirty-five years. 



— The Prussian minister of education is turning his attention 

 towards the study of the history of medicine, which seems to have 

 been slowly dying out. There used to be a chair for this subject 

 at every German university, but they have all become vacant with 

 the exception of the one at Berlin, occupied by Professor Hirsch, 

 the Nestor of the historians of medicine. To counteract this, it has 

 been ordained that every newly appointed professor of hygiene 

 should give lectures on the history of medicine as part of his work 



— The American Public Health Association will hold its next 

 annual meeting at Brooklyn, N.Y., Oct. 22-25, 1889. This asso- 

 ciation comprises over eight hundred members, all devoted, offi- 

 cially or otherwise, to its declared purpose, the advancement of 

 sanitary science and the promotion of organizations and measures 

 for the practical application of public hygiene. In the furtherance 

 of this purpose it has met annually, during the last sixteen years, 

 in different cities of the United States and Canada, and has in 

 every instance had the effect of greatly stimulating public effort in 

 the promotion of health and measures for its maintenance. With 

 the hope of still further magnifying this interest and effort, it is the 

 purpose of the association, through its local committee, at the 



forthccming meeting, to provide an exhibition of everything availa- 

 ble adapted to the promotion of health. The exhibits will be 

 classified as follows : Division I. The Dwelling, including models 

 and designs for sanitary dwellings ; foundations, drainage, drainage 

 tiles, etc. ; bricks, tiles, floors, cements, etc ; devices and appliances 

 for furnaces, stoves, water and steam-heating apparatus ; ventila- 

 tion and lighting ; domestic water supply, purification, filters, 

 water fittings, etc. ; traps, sinks, water-closets, baths,' etc.; domes- 

 tic garbage destructors, garbage receptacles, etc. ; and sanitary 

 furniture, refrigerators, wall-paper (non-arsenical), floor coverings, 

 etc. Division II. Schools and Education, including plans and 

 models for improved school buildings ; heating, ventilation, light- 

 ing ; furniture and fittings : improved books, printing, etc. ; gym- 

 nastic apparatus ; and works on sanitary topics. Division III. Fac- 

 tories and Workshops, including designs and models for improve- 

 ments in factories and workshops, life and health saving devices, 

 and special devices for removing dust and effluvia and preventing 

 injuries from them. Division IV. Clothing and Dress, including 

 improved materials and garments, etc. Division V. Food, includ- 

 ing selected displays of unprepared animal and vegetable sub- 

 stances used as food or in the preparation of food ; prepared vege- 

 table substances used as food, including canned and prepared, and 

 preserved fruits and vegetables, prepared cereals, meals, flour, bis- 

 cuits, bread, etc., and sirups, sugars, etc. ; canned, smoked, salted, 

 preserved, and prepared animal foods ; products of the dairy ; al- 

 coholic and non-alcoholic beverages, tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, 

 etc. ; food for infants and invalids ; articles and devices used in 

 the preparation of food ; cooking-stoves, ranges, etc. ; vessels for 

 preserving food, etc. ; adulterants and adulteration. Division VI. 

 Sanitary Engineering, including plans for sewerage and sewage 

 disposal, plans for drainage, plans for water supply, purification, 

 filtration, etc. Division VII. Public Health Administration in Cities 

 and Towns, including treatment of contagious diseases ; plans for 

 hospitals ; vital statistics, blanks, etc. ; disposal of waste, garbage 

 destructors, odorless apparatus ; antiseptics, disinfectants, and dis- 

 infection ; and reports of local and State boards of health. Divis- 

 ion VIII. The Laboratory, including instruments of precision in 

 meteorology, thermometers, barometers, hygrometers, etc. ; gen- 

 eral chemical apparatus for health laboratory ; microscopes, etc. ; 

 biological apparatus, cultures, etc. Division IX. Red Cross Sec- 

 tion. The exhibition will be held in the hall at the north-west cor- 

 ner of Fulton and Pineapple Streets, one block from the Brooklyn 

 Institute, where the sessions of the association will be held, and but 



three blocks from the bridge. It will be opened to the public on 

 Oct. 22, at I P.M., and will continue open until Dec. i. Ad- 

 mission free. Applications for space may be made to any member 

 of the committee on exhibits, accompanied with details as to name 

 and character of articles proposed, space required, and the name 

 and address of applicant. To cover the necessary expenses of the 

 exhibition, each exhibiter will be charged ten dollars, allowing him 

 twenty square feet of floor space, and thirty cents per square foot 

 for additional space, to be paid on the second day of the exhibition. 

 All proposals for e.xhibition and applications for space are subject 

 to the approval of the comrhittee on exhibits, and should therefore 

 be made as promptly as practicable. At the close of the exhibitiorv 

 the association will award diplomas to exhibiters of specially meri- 

 torious articles, based upon the judgment of experts. E. H. Bart- 

 ley, M.D., of 21 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, is the secretary of the 

 association, and J. H. Raymond, M.D., 173 Joralemon Street, is. 

 chairman of the executive committee. 



— The Russian Gazette has received some disturbing intelli- 

 gence on the subject of the rivers of Russia, which play such an. 

 important part in the internal communication of the country. The 

 Dnieper has become so shallow that navigation is difficult at even 

 the deepest parts, such as between Kiew and Catherinoslaw. 

 Small boats can only pass now where vessels sailed formerly. 

 The Volga itself is not much better, and the river steamers are un- 

 able to reach Nijni Novgorod. In consequence of these facts, a 

 strenuous measure of river-dredging and stricter regulation for the 

 control of the navigation of the greater rivers, such as the Don,, 

 the Dnieper, and the Volga, is being advocated, and it is believed 

 that the minister of ways of communication has the subject under 

 his serious consideration. 



— An instance of the progress made in electro-technical science 

 is furnished by the installation just completed for lighting and 

 transmission of power in the south of France at the neighboring" 

 towns of Dieulefit and Valreas, situated twenty-one kilometres^ 

 apart, and having their common electrical source of supply at Be- 

 connes, situated fifteen kilometres from Valreas, and six kilometres- 

 from Dieulefit. The supply of electrical power, according to the 

 London Electrical Review, is excellent in both places. The 

 lighting installation has been effected by an electrical firm in Ly- 

 ons, and the apparatus manufactured by the Edison Company 06 

 Paris. The motive power is water, of which some three hun- 

 dred horse-power are at disposal, but as yet only a part is required. 

 In Switzerland, too, two waterfalls are to be used as motive power 

 for transmission of electricity, namely, at Klus, on the river Aar, 

 and at Lartze, by a company from Zurich. At the Hotel Bernina, 

 at Samarten, in the Engaditie, which has for some time been 

 lighted by electricity furnished by a neighboring waterfall, the pro- 

 prietor has hit upon the ingenious idea of utilizing for cooking the 

 force wasted in the day. Other experimental cooking apparatus- 

 has been constructed, containing german-silver resistance coils,. 

 which are brought to red heat by the electric current, and all the 

 ordinary cooking is now being done in a range fitted with a num- 

 ber of these coils. 



— The commissioner of agriculture of Texas, in his first annual 

 report, presents a statement of the aggregate cotton crop of that 

 State for 1887 by counties. In many parts of the State the season 

 was an unfavorable one for this crop, drought and worms very 

 much reducing the yield per acre. An estimate of the damage 

 done by worms, compiled from the first annual report of the com- 

 missioner of agriculture of Texas, by Mr. B. W. Snow, assistant 

 statistician to the department, is presented for each county, ran- 

 ging from nothing in many counties to a loss of fifty per cent 

 of the crop in others of large production, and an even heavier loss 

 in some counties where the crop is of litde importance and insecti- 

 cides are not made use of. For the whole State the amount of 

 damage done averaged about twenty-one per cent of the crop. 

 According to this return, the total number of bales gathered was^ 

 1,125,499, while, had there been total exemption from insect dam- 

 age, the farmers of Texas would have gathered a crop of 1,422,948 

 bales. This would make the aggregate loss from worms equal to 

 297,449 bales. The value per bale of the crop which was made at 

 the place of production averaged slightly over forty dollars. Pre- 



