364 



SCIEJS'CE. 



[Vol. VUL, No. ^94 



of railways returned to Vienna from Pesth last 

 week, and died from cholera on the 17th. 



— The fever which existed some months ago at 

 Biloxi, Miss., a seacoast town eighty miles east 

 of New Orleans, on the Louisiana and Nashville 

 road, and which was pronounced to be yellow- 

 fever by the Louisiana state board of health, has 

 again broken out in epidemic form, there having 

 been three hundred cases with eighteen deaths. 

 Great excitement exists in New Orleans and its 

 vicinity, and the most rigid quarantine has been 

 instituted against the entire county in which 

 Biloxi is situated. 



— The first parson upon whom the title of 

 doctor in me Jicine was ever conferred was Wil- 

 liam Gor lenia. The codege at Asti gave the 

 degree in the year 1329. 



— During the past year two new methods of 

 treating hay-fever and other forms of nasal catarrh 

 have come into use. The one is the use of the 

 galvano-cautery for destroying the mucous mem- 

 brane of the nose ; and the other, the employment 

 of hydrochlorate of cocaine, either in the form of 

 spray or as a suppository or tablet. The testimony 

 of the physicians and the sufferers from hay-fever 

 who took part in the thirteenth annual meeting of 

 the Hay-fever association in Bethlehem, N.H., 

 was to the effect that cocaine gives but temporary 

 relief. Some reported that they were completely 

 cured after treatment with the galvano-cautery ; 

 others, that they were much relieved ; but the 

 larger number of those who had been thus treated 

 had found no relief whatever. 



— Dr. William H. Dudley, president of the 

 collegiate department of the Long Island college 

 hospital, Brooklyn, died in his seventy-sixth year, 

 on the 8th of October, from hemorrhage of the 

 lungs. He was one of the founders of the hospital, 

 and lived to see it take a place in the front rank 

 of American medical colleges. 



— The Brookville society of natural history has 

 recently been provided with very commodious 

 rooms in a new business block. These rooms are 

 now being fitted up for its use, and will be oc- 

 cupied by Nov. 1. Dr. D. G. Brinton of Media, 

 Penn., delivered the first of the lectures in the 

 course given by the society, on the evening of 

 Oct. 15, upon 'The study of man.' This will be 

 the fifth course of free lectures which this society 

 has given. 



— Mr. G. A. Smith, the private secretary of 

 Mr. Edmund Gurney, the indefatigable secretary 

 of the Society for psychical research, is shortly 

 to visit this country, and while here will hunt up 

 a good many of the persons who have furnished 



accounts to the society. Mr. Gurney's bcok, 

 ' Phantasms of the living,' will appear shortly. 

 It will be recalled that it was annoiinced in the 

 spring ; but a large fire destroyed almost the en- 

 tire edition, and from correcting the proof on, the 

 whole process of book-making had to be gone 

 through with a second time. 



— The Afghan frontier commission is now ex- 

 pected in India. Colonel Lockhart's mission 

 found that Manchester cotton goods ha'l com- 

 plete command of the mai-ket in Ghilgit, Chitral, 

 and even Wakhan, and sold at an average price 

 of one rupee for five yai'ds. Russian cotton 

 seemed unknown, and what was not obtained 

 from English sources was supplied locally or from 

 Chinese Kashgar. They also found that Ameri- 

 can fire-arms were imported via Russian Turkes- 

 tan, underselling English weapons from India. A 

 good revolver from Cincinnati was purchased in 

 Chitral for fifteen rupees. 



— Mr. George Muirhead, says The atlieno.eum, 

 has for some years been studying the birds of 

 Berwickshire, and is about to publish his re- 

 searches. He has paid special attention to the 

 hawks, the dotterel, the bittern, and other birds, 

 many of which are rapidly lessening in numbers. 

 Provincial bird-names and folk-lore will not be 

 forgotten, and a special chapter will be devoted to 

 falconry. The book will be illustrated by etch- 

 ings, and Mr. Douglas of Edinburgh will publish 

 it. 



— It is gratifying to find that lithology is being 

 rescued from the status of a merely ' practical 

 study,' in the curriculum of the American colle^^e, 

 and is becoming established as an exact science. 

 The monograph (' Modern petrography,' by G. H. 

 Williams, Boston, Heath, 1886) of Professor Wil- 

 liams on that subject supplies the student vvith. 

 a compact yet full history of the steps taken to 

 elevate it from the domain of conjecture to that 

 of fact, and to change the microscope from a toy 

 to a valued assistant. While not giving to our 

 home institutions as full credit for regular instruc- 

 tion, in the past, as the facts warrant, the mono- 

 graph is interesting as showing that a desire for 

 the inore exact methods of rock-analysis is be- 

 coming prevalent among American students, and 

 that it will not be necessary to go to the continent 

 for needful instruction. The appended note on 

 forming rock-sections, and the cost of obtaining^ 

 tliem from trustworthy parties, will be of value 

 to the beginner, as will be the bibliography of the 

 science. 



— The ' Theory of magnetic measurements,' by 

 F. E. Nipher (New York, Van Nostrand, 



