354 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVni. No. 464 



and then on to Eastern Asia. Now it seems to have a.irivecl among 

 us again after its journey round the world. The symptoms are 

 remarkably various. The malady often takes an easy course, and 

 is in general not very dangerous to robust people. It begins in 

 most cases with high fever, which rapidly abates. In the graphic 

 representation of the progress of the fever the steep and narrow 

 one-day's curve seems to be characteristic. A vast number of 

 sequelae have been observed. Already existing diseases, such as 

 pulmonary tuberculosis and diseases of the heart, often take an 

 unusually rapid and fatal course under the influence of influenza. 

 Influenza must be reckoned among the acute infectious diseases, 

 and its contagious character may be regarded as proved. The 

 spread of the disease is uncommonly rapid, and the time of incu- 

 bation is often less than twenty-four hours, never more than two 

 or three days. The question whether one attack protects the 

 fiatient against future ones cannot be definitely answered; some 

 immunity there must be, for the epidemic never lasts very long. 

 Children are seldom attacked, sucklings never. Some people are 

 temporarily insusceptible. Doctors, for instance, have often fallen 

 ill at the end of the eiaidemic. The age from fifteen to twenty- 

 five seems to be the most susceptible. No specific against the 

 disease is known ; the doctor must therefore confine himself to 

 symptomatic treatment." 



— Principal J. L, Thompson, of the Hawkesbury Agricultural 

 College, New South Wales, has no doubt, according to Nature, 

 that the climate and much of the soil of Australia are well suited 

 for the culture of the olive. All that is needed, he thinks, is an 

 adequate supply of labor. He himself has been very successful 

 in preserving green olives; and in a paper on the subject in the 

 August number of the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales 

 he gives the following account of the system adopted: The olives 

 ate very carefully picked from the trees when about full-grown, 

 hut perfectly green. They should be handled like eggs. If they 

 are bruised in any way, they will become black and decompose. 

 In the green state, olives contain gallic acid, which gives them an 

 acrid taste. To remove this they are, first of all, steeped in alka- 

 line water, made either of wood ashes, lime water, or washing 

 soda; of the latter, about three or four ounces to the gallon of 

 water. As soon as the lye has penetrated through the pulp, which 

 is usually in from eight to ten hours, they are put into clean 

 water, and steeped until all acrid and alkaline taste has been re- 

 moved. Daring that time the water is changed every day. They 

 are then put into brine, composed of one pound of salt to each 

 gallon of water, and kept carefully covei-ed with a thick linen 

 cloth, for if exposed to the air they will turn black. They are 

 finally put up in air-tight jirs. 



— Lepine and Barral {Comptes Rendus, cxii., Nos. 5 and 8) col- 

 lected some arterial blood fiom a dog in a vessel cooled to 0° C, 

 then deSbrinated it, and at once estimated the amount of sugar it 

 contained. Other samples of the same blood were kept at differ- 

 ent temperatures; 6 at 39°, c at 49°, d at 53°, and e at 55° C, and 

 left for one hour. After this time the amount of sugar in h was 

 found to be i, in c and d ^'^ to f less than in a, while in e it was 

 the same as in a. This shows that the "sugar-destroying fer- 

 ment" acts lietter the higher the temperature, until at about 54° 

 C. its activity is destroyed. If blood withdrawn from an artery 

 be centritugalized, one obtains a seram which of course contains 

 more sugar than the original blood, because the corpuscles contain 

 scarcely any sugar. If such serum be kept at 39° C. for some 

 time — for example, one hour — there is no diminution in tiie 

 amount of the sugar, while blood similarly treated loses oue- 

 qaarter of its sugar. If the corpuscles which are separated by 

 the centrifugalizing process be washed with saline solution, a fil- 

 trate is obtained which, if mixed vfith grape sugar, causes a part 

 of the latter to disapx^ear when the mixture is kept at 39" C. It 

 would seem, therefore, that the " sugar destroying ferment" is 

 present in the blood corpuscles. 



■ — The old tower in Saragossa is doomed. It was erected four 

 centuries ago, but it is still, as on its first day, the Torre Nueva. 

 As an example of Spanish brickwork the tower is interesting 

 enough, but to its inhabitants its importance consists in its rivalry 

 to the Pisan structure. The Tone Nueva cannot, however, be 



treated as a builder's freak. If there is a departure of nine feet 

 from a perpend cular line it is owing to the sinking of the founda- 

 tions Cases of settlement are generally chronic, and there can 

 be no doubt of the symptoms which are to be observed in the 

 tower. It menaces the people who are so proud of its renown. 

 Although it was restored thirty years since, the ground could not 

 be made firm, and owing to the subsidences, the tower was never 

 in a worse state than it is now. The commissioners who have 

 charge of the ancient buildings in Aragon have met and consid- 

 ered the reports of the architects, which state that it is no longer 

 feasible to make the tower secure, and that the safety of the 

 public makes demolition inevitable. But the commissioners, says 

 The Architect, have affection for the tower, and, instead of ap- 

 proving of the operation, they have implored the advice of the 

 Academy of St. Ferdinand, in Madrid. But a Spanish savant 

 needs a long period of time for deliberation, and unless an acci- 

 dent should occur, the tower may be visible for many months or 

 years. The faith of the custodians in its stability continues un- 

 changed, for they allow people to ascend to the upper platform. 



— According to official statistics published in the British Medi- 

 cal Journal the total number of medical men in Austria at the 

 end of 1889 was 7,146, of whom 5,358 were doctors of medicine 

 and 1,788 practitioners of a lower grade {Wwrdcirzte, surgeons). 

 The proportion of doctors to population was highest in the district 

 of Trieste, where it was G1.7 per 100,000, Lower Austria being 

 second with a very slightly lower ratio, and the Tyrol and Vorarl- 

 berg coming nest at no great distance. In the other provinces 

 the proportion was much smaller, being about thirty per 100,000 

 in Salzburg and Steiermark, and falling as low as 5.9 in Krain, 3.7 

 in Bukowina, and 3.3 in Galicia. As might be expected, the doc- 

 tors of medicine most do congregate in the large towns, while the 

 lower-grade practitioners most affect the villages and rural dis- 

 tricts. About twenty-one per cent of the doctors of medicine 

 practise in Vienna. 



— The " Dea Febris" was invoked in the City of the Seven 

 Hills to avert the local fever, and, in later times, a special saint 

 is worshipped by the devout to sive them from death by apoplexy. 

 Statistics might be adduced, says Lancet, to show that apoplectic 

 seizure — or, at any rate, cerebral hemorrhage — is exceptionally 

 frequent as a "mode of dying" in Rome, the heavy atmosphere, 

 charged (in the Cainpagna particularly) with malaria, and the re- 

 markable stillness of the air, due to absence of winds, being 

 eminently favorable to "determination of blood to the head." The 

 saint whose intercession is implored by subjects of an "apoplectic 

 habit," hereditary or acquired, is, curiously enough, St. Andrew. 

 Now, as that apostle was, accoi-ding to ecclesiastical tTadition, 

 crucified head downward, at his own request (as he deemed him- 

 self unworthy to win the martyr's crown in the position in which 

 his Divine Waster died on the cross), we can readily understand 

 how he should have been selected by the faithful as the typical 

 example of death by conge^tion or stasis of the cerebral circulation, 

 and how in the saintly calendar he should be especially invoked 

 to protect his votaries from dying by a similar cause. 



— A meeting of Ohio scientists, for the purpose of organizing a 

 State Academy of Scieiice, will be held at Columbus, Dec. 31. 

 The question of an Ohio Academy of Science is not a new one; it 

 has been often broached, but, until now, no decisive step taken. 

 In several other States such societies have been in successful 

 operation for many years. At the annual or semi-annual gather- 

 ings of these organizations the scientists of a whole Stale read and 

 discuss papers embodying the results of work in their respective 

 fields or on methods of research or of instruction, thereby greatly 

 aiding and strengthening one another, as well as materially ad- 

 vancing the cause of science and sound knowledge; moreover, 

 experience proves that no better means has been devised for 

 friendly and social reunion of those engaged in kindred activities. 

 All those of the opinion that the organization of an academy of 

 the kind proposed can be effected and maintained by the scientists 

 of Ohio, and in a manner that will make it profitable to its mem- 

 bers and an honor to the State, are invited to participate in its 

 organization at a meeting called at Columbus, Dec. 31, at 2 p.m., 

 in the High School Building. The committee issuing the call was 



