July 17, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



87 



ebra via San Juan) with very little added 

 cost or trouble. No cable will be required, 

 but only a mast and some sort of light motor. 

 The operator could be improvised easily by 

 one of the resident staff familiar with the 

 Morse code. The greater comfort and con- 

 venience of life with this facility at hand 

 would be cheaply purchased. 



I am assured by the executive of the Amer- 

 ican De Forest Company — whose office is at 

 100 Broadway — that they would welcome the 

 establishment of a science station near their 

 field and cooperate in any reasonable way for 

 the handling of any commercial business that 

 might come that way. 



Believing that this suggestion may have 

 further weight in the deliberations, I forward 

 this with the concurrence of Dr. De Forest's 

 organization. E. T. Colburn. 



Room C, 120 Broadway, New York. 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 

 SOME OF THE D.\NGERS OF FORMAL. 



So much use is being made of formal* in 

 the conservation of anatomical and zoological 

 specimens, as well as for purposes of disinfec- 

 tion, and it has become so readily accessible to 

 persons unfamiliar with some of its dangerous 

 properties, that it may not be amiss to point 

 out some of these. Of course every one who 

 works with formal has experienced the dis- 

 agreeable coryza and coughing arising from 

 the inhalation of the fumes of this drug, as 

 well as the irritating effect upon the ocular con- 

 junctiva;. Although no fatal case of poison- 

 ing by inhalation has been recorded, one may 

 take warning from the experimental results of 

 M. H. Fisher.t who found that the exposure 

 of various animals (guinea-pigs, rats, cat and 

 dog) to the fumes of formaldehyd for one or 

 one and a half hours produced in them a fatal 

 pneumonia, tracheitis and bronchitis, after 

 only three grams of paraformaldehyd had been 



* On the use of formal as a term more suitable 

 than formalin, formal or formalose, cf. B. B. 

 Stroud's papers in The American Xaturalist, 

 January 1 and May 1, 1897. 



t M. H. Fi.sehcr, ' The Toxic Effects of For- 

 maldcliyd and Formalin,' Jour, of the Boston 8oc. 

 of Med. Set., Vol. 1, October 1(5, 1900. 



volatilized in the room. Only recently, in 

 this city (Xew York) a woman was overcome 

 by formal fumes. Her younger child had had 

 diphtheria; the disinfecting was done in the 

 afternoon and the family moved in again 

 about seven o'clock. The odor was still 

 strong, but the woman thought it would pass 

 away and went to bed. Later she awoke with 

 her head ringing, and was just able to crawl 

 to the hall and summon help. The children 

 were not ill at all. The writer has noticed in 

 himself, after working in an atmosphere 

 fairly charged with formal fumes, a state of 

 depression and dulness which does not wear 

 off until after spending some time in fresh 

 air. A long exposure might bring about a 

 serious condition, though Kenyon* expresses it 

 as liis belief that the vapor does not endanger 

 inhabitants of rooms, and cites an experiment 

 on a calf kept in an atmosphere of two per 

 cent, formaldehyd for five hours, which only 

 produced a slight cough and some watering of 

 the eyes, both symptoms disappearing on the 

 animal's going into fresh air. 



The effect of formal on the skin is well 

 known. j- The cuticle is killed; it hardens, 

 cracks and desquamates ; in some individuals 

 this is attended by an eczematous rash. The 

 nerve terminals in the skin are paralyzed, 

 producing an annoying numbness. Where the 

 skin is cracked, the entrance of formal be- 

 comes very painful. 



The palpable influence of formal on the 

 glandular action of the skin led Dr. E. C. 

 Spitzka to recommend it in two instances 

 where patients consulting him mentioned their 

 being affected with the annoying condition of 

 perspiring hands and feet. They began with 

 a dilute solution used as a wash several times 

 a day, and gradually increasing its strength, 

 not exceeding one of ten per cent, of the com- 

 mercial preparation. In both cases the effect • 

 was gratifying after two or three weeks, and 

 in one of them the permanency of the cure 

 seems guaranteed by the non-return of the 

 trouble for three years thereafter. 



To laboratory workers one of the great 

 dangers is the accidental splashing of drops 



• F. C. Kenyon, .Science, VI., 1897, p. 737. 



t W. 11. Dail, Science, VI., 1897, p. 033. 



