October 25, 1889] 



SCIENCE. 



affirmed that one can safely eat the flesh of tuberculous animals the 

 tubercles of which are limited to the viscera and lymphatics. High 

 temperatures destroy the bacillus also, and therefore thorough 

 cooking would make even tuberculous tissue safe. Dr. Behrend 

 ought to know, also, that tuberculous meat can only infect the body 

 through the alimentary tract ; but Koch has shown that adult ba- 

 cilli are destroyed in the stomach, and that the spore bacilli can only 

 ■ get through alive by a narrow margin. But, furthermore, if tuber- 

 culous meat were so dangerous, there should be more primary in- 

 testinal tuberculosis. In adults this disease is a great rarity, and 

 practically it may be ignored. Even including infants, it does not 

 make up ten per cent of tubercular diseases. We venture to say, 

 therefore, that the 375,000 Londoners who possibly ate the pre- 

 sumably tuberculous meat digested it and its bacillus, and were the 

 better for their repast. It must be very evident, we think, that the 

 ■danger to adults from eating flesh of tuberculous cattle is so extraor- 

 dinarily remote that it may be practically ignored. The liver, 

 ■" lights," and glands of such cattle, however, are perhaps not so safe, 

 and sausage made up from meat seriously affected may not be free 

 from danger. We advise, therefore, as we have done, the govern- 

 mental inspection of slaughter-houses ; but we much more seri- 

 ously urge the supervision of milk. This, it is known, can carry the 

 tuberculous virus, and, being consumed uncooked by delicate and 

 growing children, is a far more dangerous product than the flesh 

 of tuberculous cattle." 



Sawdust as a Dressing for Wounds. — Cosmos suggests 

 the use of fine soft sawdust as a dressing for wounds, and as a ve- 

 hicle for medicaments or antiseptics. It says that the dust, freed 

 from splinters and sharp bits of wood by sifting, when used alone 

 and dry, makes a clean and grateful dressing ; that it readily takes 

 up and holds the discharges without packing or adhering; and that 

 it is easily rendered antiseptic by any of the methods used in pre- 

 paring antiseptic cotton or wool. The St. Louis Medical and 

 Surgical Journal suggests that our yellow pine sawdust, rich as 

 it is in turpentine, would prove of itself a valuable antiseptic appli- 

 cation. 



Danger in Silk Thread. — Silk thread, says Sanitary News, 

 is soaked in acetate of lead to increase its weight, and persons who 

 pass it through the mouth in threading needles, and then bite it 

 off with the teeth, have suffered from lead-poisoning. 



Some Domestic Remedies in the Transvaal. — Mr. Wal- 

 ter H. Haw, in a letter to The Lancet upon medical practice in the 

 Transvaal, gives the following list of remedies in which the Boers 

 have the most implicit faith, and to which they recur in many of 

 the ills of themselves and their families : i. Cow-dung poultices. 

 2. Stink blaar {Datura stramonium) leaves applied for the relief of 

 pain. These act well, and are often used. 3. Prickly-pear leaves 

 skinned and applied. 4. For children, a young goat killed and 

 opened, the child being put in bodily after removal of the viscera, — 

 -a good poultice, probably. 5. Rimpis (threads) of eel-skin worn 

 round the painful joints in chronic rheumatism. This was de- 

 scribed to me by a man who was wearing one round almost every 

 joint of his body as being a splendid remedy. 6. Rimpis of the 

 tanned skin of a tame goat worn as above for sprains, etc. 7. The 

 finely chopped hair of a black cat, which should not have the 

 faintest trace of white about it, — a remedy for convulsions. 8. A 

 spoonful of dog's blood taken from the ear, for " buur en de mag " 

 {" inflammation of the bowels "). 9. For snake-bite repeated fowl 

 poultices. 



Effect of Cannon-Firing on the Eiffel Tower.— Of 

 all the indispositions (and there are many) created by the exhibi- 

 tion, according to the Paris correspondent of The Lancet, the most 

 curious is that which is caused by the firing of the cannon on the 

 Eiffel Tower. Evvry evening at ten o'clock, when the gun is fired 

 for the last time in the day, it is not unusual to see produced a sort 

 of frenzy among the young female visitors to the exhibition. Un- 

 der the already strong impression produced by the illuminations, 

 the luminous fountains, etc., when the gun is fired, they seem to 

 be seized with a veritable panic. It appears to them that a sudden 

 •catastrophe, such as a great fire, has taken place. Cries of admira- 

 tion escape from some, and of terror from others, when fainting, 



attacks of hysteria and of prostration, occur. The subject has at- 

 tracted the attention of Professor Charcot and other physicians. 



Poisoning by Potatoes. — In The Therapeutic Gazette is 

 an account of serious symptoms of poisoning which occurred in a 

 hundred and one members of a battalion of French infantry. The 

 symptoms were headache, dilatation of the pupils, colic, diarrhoea, 

 sweating, fever, pain in the epigastrium, vertigo, nausea, thirst, 

 troubles of vision, and cramps. The poison was evidently con- 

 tained in the food, and, after successive eliminations, suspicion 

 rested upon the potatoes, which were withheld for forty-eight hours, 

 with the result that no new cases developed. It was found on 

 examination that the potatoes simply consisted of sprouts, which, 

 as is well known, contain solanine, an alkaloid of a poisonous char- 

 acter, and which produces results similar to those detailed above. 



"Amminol" for the Disinfection of Sewage. —Anew 

 method of precipitating sewage has been tested at Wimbledon, 

 England. The London Times now devotes a large amount of 

 space to the consideration of this neiv disinfectant method, which 

 was discovered by Mr. Wollheim of London, and which, in the 

 opinion of Medical News, bids fair to revolutionize the sewage 

 question. The disinfecting power of amminol gas is such, that, 

 when introduced into sewage, it very quickly destroys the microbes 

 of putrefaction and of many diseases. The odor of sewage is 

 almost instantly displaced by that of the re-agent, and in less than 

 an hour the sewage thus treated is both deodorized and sterilized . 

 It is reported that Dr. Klein has in part confirmed the claims of 

 the discoverer, in so far that one sample of sewage examined by him 

 was found to be absolutely sterile after having been treated by the 

 amminol method. If this alleged discovery should be verified, it 

 will undoubtedly become one of the most useful discoveries of the 

 present day, and must materially influence the future of sanitary 

 practice. 



Variations in the Composition of Milk. — From the 

 results of about fifty thousand analyses made in the laboratory of 

 the Danish Dairy Supply Company, and reported in the Medical 

 and Surgical Reporter, it is found that the dry matter less fat is 

 an almost constant value (8.7 to 8.8). The fluctuations in total 

 solids depend almost entirely on variations of the fat. The evening 

 milk contains more fat and more total solids than the morning 

 milk. In October and November the milk is richer in fat and total 

 solids than in other parts of the year. 



How Drunkards are treated in Norway. — The London 

 correspondent of the American Practitioner and News says that 

 a well-known medical man, who has recently been in Norway, 

 gives a glowing description of their manner of treating dipsomani- 

 acs. An habitual drunkard in Sweden and Norway is treated as a 

 criminal in this sense, that his inordinate love of strong drink 

 renders him liable to imprisonment, and while in confinement it 

 appears he is cured of his bad propensities on a plan which, though 

 simple enough, is said to produce marvellous effects. From the 

 day the confined drunkard is incarcerated, no nourishment is served 

 to him or her but bread and wine. The bread, however, it should 

 be said, cannot be eaten apart from the wine, but is steeped in a 

 bowl of it, and left to soak thus an hour or more before the meal 

 is served to the delinquent. The first day the habitual toper takes 

 his food in this shape without the slightest repugnance ; the second 

 day he finds it less agreeable to his palate, and very quickly he 

 evinces a positive aversion to it. Generally, the doctor states, 

 eight or ten days of tnis regimen is more than sufficient to make a 

 man loathe the very sight of wine, and even refuse the prison dish 

 set before him. This manner of curing drunken habits is said to 

 succeed almost without exception, and men or women who have 

 undergone the treatment not only rarely return to their evil ways, 

 but from sheer disgust they frequently become total abstainers 

 afterward. 



The Venom of Snakes. — The venom of the rattlesnake has 

 been frequently made the subject of study, and, while its action as 

 a poison has been generally conceded, some writers have en- 

 deavored to prove its efficacy as a drug. Surgeon L. A. Waddell, 

 M.B., says the Lancet, has recently been availing himself of his 

 opportunities as a deputy sanitary commissioner in Bengal to de- 



