256 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVIII. No 457 



ponents, color of components, their spectra, the " hypotheti- 

 cal parallax," — for the process of computing reference should 

 be made to Mr. Gore's article, — and the most recent parallax 

 of the star as determined by observation. Mention is also 

 made of the publication in which the elements lirst appeared. 

 The notes following the catalogue are very complete, and will 

 be found very useful to those interested in this particular 

 brancli of astronomy. 



la another paper read before the same society, Mr. Gore 

 gives his observations of the variable star n Cephei. He 

 finds that the variation of light for this, star does not exceed 

 half a magnitude, and is very irregular, the star sometimes 

 remains for several months with little or no change in its 

 brightness. Mr. Gore, in a third paper, gives the orbit of 

 the double star 35 i Comae Berenices. The magnitudes of 

 the components are 5 and 7.8 respectively. He has found for 

 this pair of stars a period of 338.4 years. He has computed 

 the elements, and from this has derived the position angles 

 and distance between the stars from Struve's first measure- 

 ment in 1839 to Burnham's last measurement, made in 1891. 

 ,The residuals betweeen the computed and observed position 

 angles are quite small, and with one or two exceptions the 

 computed and observed distances compare very favorably. 



hyaline death of cells which occurs in the liver and adrenals 

 especially, and the production of intense fatty degeneration 

 of the muscle of the heart, the epithelium of the kidneys and 

 liver. Hence, a valuable link is added to the chain of evi- 

 dence that the cause of human diphtheria is a specific organ- 

 ism — the Klebs-Loefiler diphtheritic bacillus. 



EXPERIMENTAL DIPHTHERIA.' 



Professor Welch and Dr. Flexner present a preliminary 

 account of the results of their study of experimental diph- 

 theria in guinea-pigs, rabbits, and kittens. They employed 

 in their experiments pure cultures of the Klebs-Loefiler diph- 

 theritic bacillus, which they inoculated into the trachea and 

 under the skin of these animals. The study which they 

 made was directed particularly to the changes in the tissues 

 produced by these organisms. Previous observers had not 

 confirmed fully the results obtained by Oertel in his study 

 of the alterations in the tissues in human diphtheria, and 

 hence an important factor in the causation of the disease 

 was missing. Drs. Welch and Flexner found that the le- 

 sions described by Oertel in human diphtheria are also pres- 

 ent in the tissues of animals dead of the experimental disease, 

 and in addition they describe a number of lesions which 

 have not been found up to this time in the disease in human 

 beings. They produced at the seat of inoculation a false 

 membrane, in which the bacilli multiplied. The bacilli re- 

 main in the local process; they never invade the blood and 

 tissues of eitlier animal or man, and the general effects are 

 caused, not by the bacilli themselves, but by a poison which 

 they produce. 



As in human diphtheria the place of entrance of the poi- 

 son and the contiguous parts show the greatest destruction, 

 so also in animals the seat of inoculation and the neighbor- 

 ing lymphatic glands exhibit the gravest changes; and, fur- 

 ther, as is the case in human diphtheria, distant organs are 

 affected, so is it in the experimental form of the disease. 

 These observers found lesions in the seat of inoculation and 

 adjacent tissues of the most intense nature, in the heart, 

 Inngs. liver, kidneys, adrenals, thyroid gland, the epithe- 

 lium and lymphatic apparatus of the intestinal tract, and in 

 all of the lymphatic glands of the body. The lesions de- 

 scribed consist of death of cells, shown by the extensive nu- 

 clear fragmentation that has taken place, the afi'ecled cells 

 being converted often into a substance resembling fibrin; a 



1 The Histological Changes in Experimental Diphtheria. Pielimioary com- 

 municatiOD, By Williaai H. Welch, M.D., professor of pathology and Simon 

 Flexner, 1^1. D., fellow in pathology. The Johns Hcspibal Bulletin, No. 15, Au- 

 gust, 1801. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A KIND of artificial honey which has lately been produced 

 seems likely to become a formidable rival of natural honey. It is 

 callei "sugar honey," and consists of water, sugar, a small pro- 

 portion of mineral salts, and a free acid ; and the taste and smell 

 resemble those of the genuine article. Herr T. Weigle brought 

 the subject before a recent meeting of the Bavarian Association of 

 the Representatives of Applied Cliemistry, and there is a paragraph 

 about it in a recent number of the Board of Trade Journal. 



— It is stated in Nature that a cat born with only two legs (the 

 fore legs being absent from the shoulder-blades) has been recently 

 described by Professor Leon of Jassy (Naturw. Rundsch.). It is 

 healthy, and goes about easily, the body in normal position. 

 When startled, or watching anything, it raises itself to the atti- 

 tude of a kangaroo, using the tail as a support. This animal has 

 twice borne kittens, in both cases two, one of which had four 

 feet, the other only two. 



— Hysteria in men is apparently not rare in other countries, 

 but in England, according to the British Medical Journal, it is, 

 relatively speaking, very uncommon. Not many years ago a 

 Russian physician observed that true laysterical fits were common 

 among young Circassian men, and the disease might reasonably' 

 be suppecled to prevail where men of an imaginative and impres- 

 sionable stock predominate. Judging by the evidence of French 

 medical publirations. Frenchmen ai'e far more subject to hysteria 

 in adult life than Englislnien. Occasionally certain cases re- 

 corded in French medical newspapers must cause us to reflect ; 

 are such cases hysterical at all, or are certain nervous affections 

 common in Engl.md really forms of hysteria? The doctrine that 

 hypochondria is in males the homologue of hysteria, must be 

 accepted by the French on the evidence of what prevails in 

 England. For h>pochondiia, low spirits, or " spleen," is proverb- 

 ially common there, aud the French hold exaggerated opinions 

 on the subject. In a more excitable race, more acute nervous 

 symptoms might be expected. 



— Rats at Aden appear to have a vigorous appetite, and to 

 adopt remarkable ways of gratifying it. Captain R. Light, writ- 

 ing on tlie subject from Aden to the Journal of the Bombay Natu- 

 ral History Society (from which Nature quotes), says the rats in 

 his house — whicii is overrun -svith them clemolisli skins, braces, 

 whips, etc. ; and one night he awoke, feeling a rat gnawing at his 

 toes. This happened in spite of a dog (a good ratter) being in the 

 room. Captain Light was lately watching his pony being shod, 

 and noticed the hoof apparently cut away all round the coronet, 

 wlierever it was soft. He accused the " nalband " of doing this 

 in addition to the usual rasping of the hoof to suit the shoe. The 

 "syce " said that the ratsliad done it, and that they came at night 

 and ate away not only the pony's hoofs but tliose of the goat and 

 kid, and that these animals were greatly tormented by tlie rats. 

 Captain Light examined the hoofs, and found beyond doubt that 

 such was the case, the marks of the teeth being jjlain ; moreover, 

 he found that the horus of the kid, which had been about half an 

 inch hi.gh, were eaten flush wilh the head. Next morning, too, a 

 large rat was discovered in the bedding under the horse. It had 

 evidently been killed by a kick from him. 



— The mareograph in the harbor of Pola, according to Lieut. 

 Gratzl (Met. Zeitsch.), often shows, in addition to the ordinary 

 tidal curve, certain more or less regular oscillations, generally 

 with a period of about fifteen minutes (some with one of seven 

 minutes). According to Nature, these appear to be of the nature 

 of seiches, and to be caused by squall?, wliich drive water from 

 the open sea into the partly inclosed basin of the harbor, where it 

 rises as a wave, retires, rises again to a less height (as only part of 



