34 2 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVI. No. 411 



ratio of persons attacke ] in industrial and other establishments em- 

 ploying large numbers was about thirty-five and a half per cent, 

 or less than that of the population at large. That of the inmates 

 of public institutions was still less,— twenty nine per cent. 10. 

 The ratio of persons who were obliged to leave their work on ac- 

 count of illness from influenza was about twenty-seven per cent 

 of the whole number employed. 11. The average length of their 

 absence from work was five days. 13 Special occupations do not 

 appear to have had a marked effect in modifying the severity of 

 the epidemic upon operatives in such occupations. While the 

 atmosphere may constitute one important medium of its com- 

 munication, human intercourse also suggests itself as an equally 

 important factor." 



Fasting. 



In connection with Professor Moleschott of Rome, Professor 

 Luciani of Florence made a careful study of the "Hunger Vir- 

 tuoso,'' Signer Succi, during his thirty-days' fast some two years 

 aKO. Tiie results of their work are published in a monograph en- 

 titled "Fasting: Studies and Experiments upon Man," printed in 

 Italian and German. 



According to the Medical Record, Signor Succi, when not 

 starved, is a man of strong muscular frame, with little subcu- 

 taneous fat, and weighing about one hundred and forty-seven 

 pounds. During his thirty-days' f.ist in Italy he lost 6,161 grams, 

 or about thirleeu pounds During his first thirty days of fasting 

 here he has lost considerably more. He drank at that lime an aver- 

 a:;e of 577.5 grams of water daily, which is about the an'.ount he 

 lakes now. 



Luciani states that he had " firm muschs, a good deposit of 

 subcutaneous fat, a very slow tissue-change, and, above all, an 

 extraordinary force of will." The Italian professor seems to think 

 that by voluntary exertion Succi is able to alow down the meta- 

 bolic processes, just as some peculiarly endowed persons can slow 

 down the heart. It is upon this interesting point that Luciani 

 particularly dwells; and he finds in Signor Succi a proof of the 

 regulating influence of the nervous system over the functions of 

 heat-production, lespiration, hepatic action, etc. 



How the Pathogenic Bacteria do their Harm. 



Brieger and Frankel have studied this question. Of course, the 

 first condition for successful inquiry was to employ pure cultiva- 

 tions of the organisiu experimented upon. Basic bodies, denomi- 

 nated "toxine," had already been found in several palhogenic 

 micro organisms, such as the bacillus of typhoid, tetanus, cholera, 

 etc.; yet it was found that this toxine did not invariably call 

 forth all the phenomena of the infectious diseases due to the bacilli, 

 from pure cultivations of which it had been obtained : the suppo- 

 sition, therefore, seemed fair, that, besides the already found 

 chemical bodies, there were other substances which played a mo- 

 mentous part {The Edinburgh Medical Journal). Brieger and 

 Frankel considered that Lbffler's bacillus of dij)htheria was well 

 adapted for their purpose, because it is now beyond doubt that 

 this organism is the genuine cause of diphtheria. LofHer had 

 already called attention to the fact that this bacillus, when inocu- 

 lated on animals, — guinea-pigs and pigeons, — colonized only the 

 immediate neighborhood of the infected spot ; yet grave alterations 

 of texture and organs, and speedy death, of the animals experi- 

 mented on, fullowel. This connection of events could only be , 

 eSplained in this way, — that the bacilli produced, by then- local 

 multiplication, a substance of exceedingly poisonous properties, 

 which spread over the whole organism, and, independently of the 

 bacteria did its deadly work. Brieger and Frankel consider that 

 they have proved Ihat Lotfler's diphtheria bacillus engenders in its 

 pure cultivation a poisonous, soluble substance separable from the 

 bacteria, which, wlien injected into susceptible animals, calls 

 forth the same phenomena as the injection of the living micro- 

 organism. The authors also have settled that this substance is 

 destroyed by a heat of 140" F ; that it can stand a heat of 133° F., 

 even in presence of excess of muriatic acid. This last fact of itself 

 speaks against the supposition that the poison of the diuhtheria. 

 bacillus is a ferment or an enzym. Further examination of this 

 substance showed it was not a ptomaine or toxine. No crystal- 



lizable substance, save kreatinin and cholin, was obtained. Shortly 

 summing up their investigations, the authors seem to have dis- 

 covered in the diphtheria bacillus a substance belonging to the 

 albumen series of bodies, which has poisonous properties, and 

 causes the phenomena of diphtheria when injected. They propose 

 to give it the name of " toxalbumine." In the living body they 

 consider that the bacteria build up and separate their toxalbumine 

 from the albumen of the tissues. Brieger and Frankel also exam- 

 ined typhoid, tetanus, and cholera bacteria, and staphylococcus 

 aureus and watery extracts of the internal organs of animals killed 

 by anthrax, in the same way as they had examined the diph- 

 theria bacillus, and found in all of them bodies which, according 

 to their chemical behavior, were albuminoids, were poisonous, and 

 could therefore be ajilly called toxalbumines. The road from nor- 

 mal constituents of the body to substances of the most dangerous 

 kind seems a very short one. and our organism itself may be 

 looked upon as the proximate cause of morbid condirions let iQose 

 by the life-activity of bacteria. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The trustees of Johns Hopkins Unversity have decided to re- 

 open the Marine Laboratory of the university in the coming spring. 

 Further announcements will be made later. 



— We learn from the London Journal of Education, that, ac- 

 cording to returns compiled by the Civic Statistical Bureau of the 

 schools of Munich, ihere were in 1889 in those schools 3,327 children 

 suffering; from defective sight; to wit, 996 boys and 1,331 girls. 

 The gradual increase in the figures, which proceeds according to 

 the distribution of the pupils into several classes, is highly signifi- 

 cant. Of every 1,000 boys in the first or elementary class, 36 are 

 short-sighted ; in the second, 49; in the third, 70; in the fourth, 94; 

 in the fifth, 108; in the sixth, 104; and in the seventh and last, 108. 

 The number of short-sighted boys, therefore, from the first class 

 to the seventh, increases about threefold. In the case of the girls 

 the increase is from 37 to 119. 



— Dr. Schmidt-Rimpler, the well-known G5ttingen oculist, has 

 been asked by the Cultusminister von Gossler to draw up a list of 

 requirements for diminishing the shortsightedness so prevalent in 

 German schools Dr. Schmidt-Rimpler, according to the London 

 Jotirtial of Education, recommends (1) that teachers must acquire 

 some knowledge of school hygiene; (3) that a medical attendant 

 be attached to the school staff, and periodically inspect not only 

 the school, but individual pupils; (3) that printed instructions be 

 sent to the parents to inform them of the best position of the body 

 for their children, especially with reference to writing, while en- 

 gaged in the preijaration of home lessons; (4) that afternoon school 

 be abolished, as far as is possible, so that the children may have 

 plenty of exercise in fresh air; (5) that the amount of home-svork 

 be diminished, especially with regard to written tasks; (6) that the 

 school course be not allowed to extend over too many years. 



— The public lecture course of the New York Academy of Sci- 

 ences for the season of 1890-91 is as follows : Nov. 24 " The Cliff 

 Dwellings of the Mancos Canons" ^illustrated by projections of 

 original photographs), by Mr. Frederick H. Chapin of Hartford, 

 Conn.; Dec. 15, "Life and Scenes in the Hawaiian Ishmds" 

 (illustrated), by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton of New York; Jan. 19, 

 1891, "Science and Miracle," by Professor A. J. Du Bois of Yale 

 University, New Haven; Feb. 16, " Instantaneous Photography as 

 an Aid to Science, History, and Art" (illustrated by novel lantern 

 views), by Professor Wallace Goold Levison of Brooklyn, N.Y. ; 

 March 16, "The Orkneys and Shetlands" (illustrated), by Pro- 

 fessor Charles Sprague Smith of Columbia College, New York; 

 April 30, "Practical Application.s of Electricity " (illustrated ex- 

 perimentally), by Francis 13 Crocker, E.M., of Columbia College; 

 May 18 " What is a Diatom?" (illustrated,) by Charles F. Cox, 

 M.A., of New York. 



— W. T. Harris. United States commissioner of education, Wash- 

 ington. D.C., has issued a circular letter, dated Dec. 10, to presi- 

 dents of colleges and universities in the United States, in which 

 he says that it is assumed that language instruction in colleges 

 and universities, so far as it relates to living tongues, is based on 



