32 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. Vlll., No. 179 



of the Egyptian institute for 1885 (Cairo, 1886). 

 This discovery confirms tlie suggestion of Sir Wil- 

 liam Dawson as to the carboniferous age of the 

 lower part of the Nubian sandstone of Egypt, based 

 on a fossil plant and on its geological relations. 



— The human spleen has been removed seven 

 time's in Italy, and in but two instances has the 

 patient recovered. Prof. Antonio Ceci of Genoa 

 has recently performed the operation, and his is 

 one of the two successful cases. The patient was 

 a poor girl, seventeen years of age, and the en- 

 larged spleen weighed one-fifteentli of her entire 

 bodily weight. 



— Malignant pustule is fortunately of very 

 rare occui-rence. A patient suffering from this 

 disease has recently died in Guy's Hospital, Lon- 

 don. He was employed on a wharf, in the han- 

 dling of foreign hides, and undoubtedly contracted 

 the disease from the hide of an animal which had 

 been affected with the disease known by the 

 French as charbon. by the Germans as milzbrand, 

 but by English-speaking people as anthrax. The 

 patient noticed a jjimple on the back of his neck, 

 which in twenty-four hours became greatly en- 

 larged, and the glands of the neck were swollen. 

 The surgeons removed the enlarged pimple at once, 

 but without avail, the man dying in about four 

 days from the time he first noticed the pimple. 

 This disease may also be contracted by the bite of 

 an insect, a fiy for instance, which has been feed- 

 ing upon the carcass of an infected animal. The 

 microbe of the disease is a bacillus (Bacillus an- 

 thracis), and was observed in the blood of cattle 

 as long ago as 1849 by Pollender, although its im- 

 portance was first recognized by Davaine in 1850. 



— The evidence of the greater safety of ether 

 than chloroform as an anaesthetic is accumulat- 

 ing very rapidly. In England during 1885 there 

 were twelve deaths attributable to chloroform, 

 and but three to ether. 



— Physicians are now using aniline-oil as a local 

 anaesthetic when simple operations, such as the 

 opening of a felon, are to be performed. The 

 finger, in such a case, is dipped for a short time 

 in the oil, and, although the flesh may subse- 

 quently be cut to the bone, it is said there is 

 absolutely no pain. 



— We learn from the Sidereal messenger for July 

 that the contract for mounting the 36-inch objec- 

 tive has been awarded by the Lick trustees to 

 Warner and Swasey of Cleveland, O., for $42,000, 

 The telescope is to be fifty-seven feet long ; the 

 diameter of the tube, forty-two inches. Provis- 

 ions are made by which it will be possible for the 

 observer at the eye-end of the telescope to com- 



mand all the possible motions, and these same 

 motions can also be controlled by an observer 

 stationed on a small balcony twenty feet above 

 the floor. It is expected that the mounting will 

 be completed in April, 1887, and that the glass 

 will be brought to Mount Hamilton and put in 

 place some time during the summer following. 

 The total cost of the equatorial and dome will be 

 about $164,850 ; the cost of the dome being $56,- 

 850 ; the mounting, $42,000 ; the visual objective, 

 $53,000; the additional photogi-aphic lens, $13,000. 



— Mr. H. C. Wilson, assistant astronomer at 

 the Cincinnati observatory, has accepted a posi- 

 tion as computer under the Transit of Venus 

 commission in Washington. 



— The ' Atlantic pilot chart ' for July calls at- 

 tention to the necessity for the establishment of a 

 simple international code, by means of which 

 13assing ships can indicate readily and exactly the 

 points where they have encountered ice. Many 

 systems have been proposed, but that copyrighted 

 by Mr. F. Wyneken of New York seems to be the 

 best yet offered, and has been adopted by many 

 transatlantic steamer companies according to the 

 chart. 



— MM. Regnard and Loye recently made some 

 investigations of interest on the body of a criminal 

 who died under the guillotine. For physiological 

 research the authorities arranged that possession 

 should be given instantly after the execution. 

 Immediately after the decapitation a temporary 

 rigor of the whole muscular system took place. 

 In lifting the body by the heels the whole frame 

 was moved, and remained absolutely rigid and 

 inflexible. Even the eyelids could hardly be forced 

 open. Not a tremor of any sort was discernible. 

 This state lasted between two and three minutes. 

 At thi'ee minutes from decapitation voluntary re- 

 flex action had completely disappeared. Irritation 

 of the soles of the feet, of the conjunctiva, of the 

 spinal marrow, produced no effect. Only the 

 pupils contracted slightly before a bright light. 

 The first experiment was to determine the action 

 of the pneumogastric nerve on pulmonary con- 

 tractility. The investigations of Williams and 

 Paul Bert have shown that in the dog the circular 

 muscular fibres surrounding the bronchia are in- 

 nervated from the vagus. But in the dog the 

 pneumogastric is so intimately connected with 

 the sympathetic, that it is diflacult to determine 

 to which of these nerves the action of the mus- 

 cles of the lung should be ascribed. In man they 

 are separated. In the present case the result of 

 the experiment showed clearly that the action of 

 the pneumogastric determined the contraction of 

 the lung by the contraction of the circular fibres. 



