258 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 322 



ture and clothing, and may occasion the disease even after the lapse 

 of months. Diphtheria attacks all classes, at all ages, and at all 

 seasons of the year. By preference it attacks children and those 

 who are debilitated from exposure to filth, dampness, or foul air 

 from whatever source. When a case of diphtheria occurs in any 

 family, the sick person should, if possible, be taken to a hospital ; 

 otherwise he should be placed in an upper room apart from the 

 inmates of the house, and should be nursed, as far as possible, by 

 one person only. The sick-chamber should be well warmed, ex- 

 posed to sunlight, and well aired ; its furniture should be such as 

 will permit of cleansing without injury ; and all extra articles, such 

 as window and table drapery, woollen carpets, upholstered furni- 

 ture, and all hangings, should be removed from the room during the 

 sickness. The physician and nurse, as a rule, should be the only 

 persons admitted to the room. 



Visitors to the infected house should be warned of the presence 

 of a dangerous disease therein, and children especially should not 

 be admitted. All clothing removed from the patient or the bed 

 should be at once placed in a solution of corrosive sublimate — two 

 drams to the gallon of water, in a wooden vessel — by the nurse 

 before being carried through the house or handled by any other 

 person. They may be soaked in this fluid for a convenient time, 

 and then boiled for one hour. It is better not to use handkerchiefs 

 for cleansing the nostrils and mouth of the patient, but rather soft 

 rags, which should be immediately thereafter burned. All vessels 

 for receiving the discharges of the patients should constantly con- 

 tain some of the disinfecting liquid. Water-closets and privies in 

 the house should be disinfected daily with a solution of fresh chlo- 

 ride of lime (half a pound to the gallon of water). Every kind and 

 source of filth in and around the house should be thoroughly re- 

 moved, and disinfectants freely used. Cleanliness tends both to 

 prevent and mitigate the disease. Drains should be put in perfect 

 order and ventilated by a four- inch straight pipe extended above 

 the highest point of the roof of the house in every instance, termi- 

 nating at a distance from any chimney or other ventilator. Children 

 in the family should not attend school or mingle with other children 

 until the patient has wholly recovered and all infected articles have 

 been disinfected, and these facts certified by a responsible physi- 

 cian. 



On the recovery, removal, or death of the patient, the most thor- 

 ough disinfection should follow. Close up all apertures in the 

 room tightly ; hang up, unfolded, all articles of bedding, clothing, 

 etc. ; remove all mattress-covers for the free exposure of their con- 

 tents ; place in an iron pan four pounds of brimstone for each 

 thousand cubic feet of space in the room ; place the pan on two 

 bricks or an iron rest in a tub containing water ; pour a little alcohol 

 on the brimstone, ignite it with a match, and leave the room closed 

 tightly and guarded for not less than ten hours. The fumes of 

 burning brimstone are dangerous to breathe, and will kill animals 

 and plants. After fumigating has been done, the room and every 

 thing in it should be thoroughly aired. The walls and ceilings 

 should be brushed, and the floors and other wood-work washed 

 with water containing two drams of corrosive sublimate to the gal- 

 lon of water, and all vessels and utensils used in the room should 

 be thoroughly washed with the same solution. All wash-bowls, 

 water-closets, sinks, and slop-hoppers should be washed with a so- 

 lution of chloride of lime (one half-pound to the gallon of water). 

 When death occurs, the body should be immediately placed in the 

 coffin, wrapped in a. sheet saturated with a solution of corrosive 

 sublimate (two drams to the gallon of water), and the coffin tightly 

 and finally closed. No public funeral should ever take place at the 

 house where the patient died, or elsewhere, unless the coffin re- 

 mains hermetically sealed. Corrosive sublimate is a poison. 



Normal Microbes in the Human Stomach. — M. Abe- 

 lous recently communicated to the Academie des Sciences the re- 

 sults of an investigation of the microbes of his own stomach. He 

 succeeded in obtaining and studying no less than sixteen separate 

 and distinct species. Of this number, seven have already been de- 

 scribed, while nine appear to be new ones. The known ones are Sar- 

 cina Tjentriculi, Bacillus pyocyaneus. Bacterium lactis aerogenes, 

 B. subtilis, B. niycoides, B. amylobacter, and Vibrio rugula. One 

 of the unknown species was a coccus ; the others were bacilli. 

 Especial interest attaches to the function which Abelous believes 



these micro-organisms perform in connection with digestion. Thus 

 he found that lo attack albumen, 12 fibrine, 9 gluten, 10 cause the 

 more or less complete transformation of lactose into lactic acid, 

 and 13 form variable quantities of glucose from starch. 



Anatomical and Physiological Memoranda. — The 

 following anatomical and physiological memoranda, which we copy 

 from the New York Medical Record, will be of interest to our 

 readers, and serve a useful purpose as a matter of reference : " In 

 each respiration an adult inhales one pint of air. Man respires 

 sixteen to twenty times a minute, or twenty thousand times a day ; 

 a child, twenty-five to thirty- five times a minute. While standing, 

 the adult respiration is twenty-two ; while lying, thirteen. The 

 superficial surface of the lungs, i.e., of their alveolar spaces, is two 

 hundred square yards. The amount of air inspired in twenty-four 

 hours is ten thousand litres (about ten thousand quarts). The amount 

 of oxygen absorbed in twenty-four hours is five hundred litres (744 

 grams) ; and the amount of carbonic-acid gas expired in the same 

 time, four hundred litres (91 1.5 grams). Two-thirds of the oxygen 

 absorbed in twenty-four hours is absorbed during the night-hours- 

 from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. Three-fifths of the total CO^ is thrown off in 

 the day-time. The pulmonary surface gives off one hundred and fifty 

 grams of water daily in the state of vapor. An adult must have at 

 least three hundred and sixty litres of air an hour. The heart 

 sends through the lungs eight hundred litres of blood hourly, and 

 twenty thousand litres, or five thousand gallons, daily. The du- 

 ration of inspiration is five-twelfths, of expiration seven-twelfths,. 

 of the whole respiratory act. During sleep, inspiration occupies 

 ten-twelfths of the respiratory period." 



Lime-Burners Free from Consumption. — It is said that 

 lime-burners are free from consumption. Halter has observed this 

 in the Lengerich kilns. The temperature of the air inhaled at 

 these kilns is las'" F. to 158° F., and to this Halter attributes the 

 immunity of the lime-workers more than to any thing else. He 

 recommends for the treatment of consumption the inhalation of 

 dry air heated to from 248° F. to 374° F. His theory is that the 

 development of the bacilli is prevented by this high temperature. 



Australian Rabbit-Pest. — The experiment of introducing 

 the virus of chicken cholera into Australia, with the object of ex- 

 terminating the rabbits which have become such a plague in that 

 country, has proved a failure. 



Rheumatism. — Dr. Terc contributes to the Wiener Medt-- 

 cinische Presse a novel method of curing rheumatism. He ob-^ 

 served, that, when rheumatic persons were stung by bees, the 

 swelling which usually follows such stings was very slow in 

 appearing, and, if the persons were stung repeatedly, it did not ap- 

 pear at all ; the result of such continued stinging being to cure the 

 rheumatism, which showed no tendency to recur. He followed 

 out this idea in the cases of 173 persons, 39,000 stings being re- 

 quired. Both acute and chronic cases were cured by this treat- 

 ment. 



ELECTRICAL NEWS. 



The Discharge of a Leyden Jar. 



During the past year. Professor O. J. Lodge has experimented 

 and written a great deal on the subject of lightning-conductors. 

 He has taken up the subject of electrical discharges, and has shown 

 that many of our notions on the subject require modification. But 

 the experiments he has made have been necessarily on a small 

 scale, and, in applying his results directly to the problem of pro- 

 tection from lightning-discharges, he may be greatly in error. Still 

 he has called attention to and stimulated inquiry on a subject of 

 vital importance, and his work is already bearing fruit in the inves- 

 tigations begun by a number of other workers. 



On March 8, Professor Lodge delivered a lecture at the Royal 

 Institution of Great Britain, on the discharge of a Leyden jar. 

 When such a jar is charged with electricity, and then the two coat- 

 ings are discharged by connecting them by a short, thick wire, the 

 result is not a single current of electricity along the wire in one 

 direction, but the current passes back and forth, its intensity dimin- 

 ishing until it finally dies away and the jar is fully discharged. 



