3i6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 353 



SCIENCE; 



A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



PUBLISHED BY 



N. D. C. HODGES. 



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Vol. XIV. 



NEW YORK, November 8, i8 



No. 353 



The Wells Light 3°? 



Certain Provisions of Continen- 

 tal Legislation concerning 

 Food Adulteration 



Edgar Richards 308 



The Ancient Etruscans 310 



TheU.se ofOil 313 



Mental Science. 



Experiments i 



^OTES and 'Ne 



Meeting of i 



Congress 



Paris, Aug. 



Health M 



Electrical Injuries 316 



The Behavior of the Germs of 

 Cholera, Typhoid-Fever, and 

 Tuberculosis in Milk, Butter, 



Whey, and Cheese 317 



Sterilized Milk delivered to Patients 

 in their Dwellings 317 



I Crystal-Vision. 313 



^^s 3M 



he International 

 3F Zoologists at 

 5-11, 1889 A.S.P. 316 



CONTENTS: 



307 j Health of New York and London 



NEN- Compared 31; 



Mineral Waters .. 31; 



Book-Reviews. 

 The Life-Work of the Author of 



Uncle Tom's Cabin 31} 



Hypnotism : Its History and Present 



Development 31! 



Practical Electric Bell Fitting 31J 



Proceedings of the Society for Psy- 

 chical Research 3if 



Among the Publishers 3i( 



Letters TO the Editor. 



The Various Discoveries of Lake 



Mistassini Jacques W. Redivay 32: 

 Ptomaines and Leucomaines, and 

 their Relation to Disease 



Jos, LeConte 32: 



rDUSTRiAL Notes. 

 Storage- Battery Litigati 



MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 

 ZOOLOGISTS AT PARIS, AUG. 5-1 1, 1889. 

 This was the first general gathering of zoologists from nearly 

 all the countries of the Old and New World, and was one of the 

 many notable congresses called into being on the occasion of the 

 Universal Exposition of 1889. It should be said that the initiative 

 ■was taken by the Societe Zoologique de France. The sessions 

 were held from the 5th to the nth of August, under the presidency 

 of Professor Alphonse Milne-Edwards. The opening meeting for 

 organization was held on the afternoon of Aug. 5, and was largely 

 attended. Among the more distinguished savants present were 

 the venerable De Ouatrefages, Retzius of Stockholm, Topinard, 

 Riitimeyer of Basel, Hubrecht of Utrecht, Fritsch of Prague, be- 

 sides well-known naturalists from Belgium, Moscow, Kiew, Buda- 

 pesth, Prague, Berlin, London, Geneva, Cairo, Malta, Algeria, 

 southern France, Scotland, Ireland, Cape Town, and the United 

 States. Papers were read by scientists of all nationalities ; so that 

 the meeting was truly cosmopolitan in its nature, though, naturally 

 enough, French was the language in which the papers were read. 

 Here it might be observed, that, though many of the papers were 

 presented by foreigners, but few of the speakers used notes or 

 manuscript ; and we were, on the whole, struck with the fluency, 

 readiness, and elegance of diction, and the lack of hesitation, 

 clumsiness, and verbosity. The audience consisted mainly of ex- 

 perts ; and the papers, with the ensuing discussions — in fact, all 

 the work of the congress was performed, as an American would 



say, in a thoroughly business-like manner. The session's began 

 promptly at 9 o'clock, and adjourned at noon. The afternoons 

 were devoted to visits to the new and commodious museum build- 

 ing in the Jardin des Plantes, the Ecole des Mines, to portions of 

 the exposition of special interest to the members, where, among 

 other attractions, the Prince of Monaco exhibited his dredging and 

 other apparatus for deep-sea research. Private collections were 

 thrown open to individual members ; private hospitality shown at 

 the noon hour for breakfast, in France, as well as at dinner-time ; 

 while on three of the evenings the members attended the delightful 

 soirees at the houses of Professor Milne-Edwards, of Prince Roland 

 Bonaparte, and M. Cisrtes, inspector-general of finances ; and on 

 other evenings they mingled with the host of savants, teachers, and 

 students at the notable soirees given by M. Guyot, the minister of 

 public works, and the colossal reception at the Hotel de Ville given 

 by the municipality of Paris. 



To return to more prosaic matters: one of the principal topics 

 discussed in the meetings, and which was especially considered in 

 the opening presidential address, was deep-sea explorations, while 

 most of the papers were of a general nature, giving methods and 

 results. The special topics for discussion, and which were an- 

 nounced beforehand, the reports being in print and distributed at 

 the meetings, were the following : i. The rules to be adopted for 

 the nomenclature of organized beings ; the adoption of an interna- 

 tional scientific language (reporter. Dr. R. Blanchard). 2. Determi- 

 nation of the regions of the globe of which the fauna is insufficiently 

 known, and which need exploration ; indications of the method of 

 research, of the preparation and preservation of animals (reporter, 

 Dr. P. Fischer). 3. The services rendered by embryology to the 

 classification of animals (reporter. Professor E. Perrier). 4. The 

 relations which exist between the existing and fossil faunas (re- 

 porter. Dr. Filhol). 



The discussion on nomenclature was not introduced until the 

 last days of the session. The report of Professor Blanchard was 

 conservative, excellent, and generally accepted by those present, 

 and should be widely disseminated ; the law of priority was 

 adopted, beginning with the year 1722, the date of publication of 

 Lang's work ; while little approbation was given by the congress 

 to trinomial nomenclature, although the report favored it in special 

 cases. 



The idea of such congresses, it seems to us, was a happy con- 

 ception ; and so successful we're its results, that, we were told by 

 Professor Milne-Edwards, another will be called in three years. 

 The great value of such international gatherings to a foreigner is 

 the stimulus and pleasure resulting from meeting distinguished 

 workers in other than his own narrow specialty, the friendships 

 formed, the solution of the personal equation so to speak, and the 

 examination of private and public collections and libraries in a 

 metropolis. To an American the occasion was one of great in- 

 terest and lasting value, and one cannot return to his work with- 

 out pricking in " some flowers of that he hath learned abroad." 



A. S. P. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Electrical Injuries. 



At a meeting of the Practitioners' Society, Oct. 4, 1889, Charles 

 L.Dana, A.M., M.D., of New York, read a paper on the above sub- 

 ject. As he pointed out, with the introduction of new industrial 

 methods we are meeting accidents and injuries of all grades of 

 severity ; and in time there will be associated with electrical sys- 

 tems, classes of injuries some of which will be perhaps peculiar to 

 them ; some will resemble those known as railway brain and rail- 

 way spine, traumatic hysteria, and other neuroses or psychoses ; 

 while a large number will be only of the ordinary surgical char- 

 acter. 



The telegraph and telephone produce peculiar neuroses, due to the 

 demand made upon the nervous system of the operator, the results 

 being telegraphers' cramp, aural and mental disorders of telephone 

 transmitters, etc. Most of the observed cases of this electrical 

 injury come from the apparatus carrying electrical currents for 

 lighting and power. 



Such currents have varying effects. In some cases they merely 



