May 1, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



719 



and. results. Several others, in other states, 

 are well advanced as regards investigation, 

 and it is expected that further recommenda- 

 tions can be made after the close of the com- 

 ing field season. The secretary also has au- 

 thorized the expenditure, during the present 

 calendar year, of $450,000 on surveys, borings 

 for foundations, and other examinations, 

 which will be carried on in all the states 

 and territories included within the provisions 

 of the law. 



According to a Keuter message from Vi- 

 enna, Professor Behring, the discoverer of 

 the diphtheria serum, lectured before the 

 Vienna Medical Society upon the results of 

 his experiments with tuberculosis serum, 

 which have so far been confined to animals 

 and have proved entirely successful. The 

 professor at present, however, considers it in- 

 advisable to experiment on human beings. 

 His serum is produced by cultivation of the 

 bacillus of human tuberculosis, which is dried 

 in a vacuum in order to prevent loss of vir- 

 ulence. An ordinary dose consists of four 

 centigrams of bacilli mixed with water. It 

 is injected subcutaneously into the veins. In 

 very few cases, said the lecturer, did the ex- 

 periments prove unsatisfactory on account of 

 fever, difficulty in breathing, and accelerated 

 pulse, but even in these cases the animals 

 proved immune against animal tuberculosis. 

 Professor Behring found that with younger 

 aniraals the reaction was less than in the case 

 of older animals, which suilered from severe 

 reaction, besides losine their immunity more 

 quickly. He thought, therefore, that in the 

 event of the serum's proving a success persons 

 should be inoculated in their earliest child- 

 hood. Professor Behring admitted that he 

 was unable to tell how soon people might ex- 

 pect to be able to protect themselves against 

 tuberculosis by the injection of senun. In- 

 cidentally the lecturer declared that the ques- 

 tion of heredity was far less important than 

 many people believed. He attached greater 

 importance to contagion. 



The London Times reports that M.. Moissan 

 communicated to the French Academy of 

 Sciences at its meeting on March 16 a paper 

 giving the results of an inquiry conducted 



by himself in collaboration with Professor 

 Dewar into the solidification of fluorine, and 

 its behavior in contact jyith liquid hydrogen 

 at the temperature of 20 degrees absolute or, 

 say, minus 252 degrees centigrade. While one 

 of the collaborators has produced liquid hy- 

 drogen in large quantities, the other has iso- 

 lated fluorine gas in a state of absolute purity, 

 and has demonstrated that this most active of 

 known elements does not attack glass when 

 perfectly free from moisture. Thus it has be- 

 come possible by sealing pure fluorine in a glass 

 tube and immersing it in liquid hydrogen to 

 show its liquefaction and solidification, and 

 to prove that its point of fusion is at — 233 

 degrees centigrade. It remained only to 

 bring the two elements together at that tem- 

 perature in order to discover whether chemical 

 activity is entirely suspended as in the case 

 of nearly all other substances. The danger- 

 ous experiment was made by breaking the 

 fluorine tube in 100 c.c. of liquid hydrogen, 

 and the result was a violent explosion, ac- 

 companied by a volume of flame and the 

 shattering of the apparatus employed. It is 

 thus demonstrated that, whatever may be the 

 case at the absolute zero, certain reactions 

 continue to occur at a temperature only 20 

 degrees above it when an element so energetic 

 as fluorine is in question. 



A Eeutee telegram from Vienna, dated 

 March 15, says : " Professor Hans Molisch, of 

 Prague, has reported to the Vienna Academy 

 of Sciences the discovery of a lamp lighted 

 by means of bacteria, which, he claims, will 

 give a powerful light and be free from danger, 

 thus being valuable for work in mines and 

 powder magazines. The lamp consists of a 

 glass jar, in which a lining of saltpetre and 

 gelatine inoculated with bacteria is placed. 

 Two days after inoculation the jar becomes 

 illuminated with a wonderful bluish green 

 light, caused by the innumerable bacteria 

 which have developed in the time. The light 

 will burn brilliantly for from two to three 

 weeks afterwards, diminishing in brightness. 

 It renders faces recognizable at a distance 

 of two yards, and large type is easily legible 

 by it. Professor Molisch asserts that the 

 lamp yields a cold light which is entirely safe." 



