November 9, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



223 



and 47 ' pan ; ' for ' dog,' 6 words and i blank, with lo errors ; for 

 ' pod,' 51 words and 64 blanks, with 270 errors, of which ' hog ' is 

 responsible for 85, ' hod ' for 36, ' pog ' for 26, ' hard ' for 25; for ' land,' 

 14 words and 12 blanks, with 63 errors, the word being written 

 ' lamb ' 42 times ; for ' few,' 1 1 words and 10 blanks, with 1 5 errors ; 

 for ' cat,' 5 words, no blanks, and 5 errors. Of course, these errors 

 may be due to defects elsewhere than in the power of sound-dis- 

 crimination, e.g.. in the power of translating auditory into visual 

 symbols ; but the variety and nature of the errors are certainly in- 

 teresting. If we classify the nature of the confusions, we find that 

 in the vowel-sounds, a, as in ' fan ' and ' cat,' is most apt to be 

 heard as a long 8 of 16 times; that the e of ' pen ' is heard as a 

 short a 69 of 84 times ; the of ' dog,' ' log,' ' long,' ' pod,' as a short 

 ji 83 of 132 times ; while the ttf of ' few ' is about equally often re- 

 garded as various other sounds. With regard to consonants, d, as 

 in 'dog,' 'pod,' becomes hard^ 132 of 199 times; the ^ of 'dog' 

 becomes 7/ 67 of 82 times ; the/ of ' pen," etc., becomes A 240 of 

 278 times ; the n of ' pen,' etc., becomes m 56 of 78 times ; the /tg^ 

 of ' long ' becomes « 7 of 15 times ; while /i, /, and hard c have no 

 sounds with which they are specially confused. These facts should 

 be of some importance to philologists, and will perhaps agree with 

 the laws of language and dialect transformations. 



Color and Taste. — The peculiar association of a color with a 

 sound by which a certain sound will at once vividly arouse a defi- 

 nite color, is quite normal, and has of recent years been frequently 

 described. The association of color with smells is a much rarer 

 phenomenon, and of color with tastes perhaps rarer still. Dr. Fer^ 

 gives an account of a woman, who, after taking vinegar, saw every 

 thing red for a few minutes, and then every thing as bright green 

 for more than an hour. Dr. Fere explains this as due to a similar- 

 ity in the subsidiary emotional effects accompanying the sensation. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Use of Tobacco. 



C. W. Lyman, in a communication to the New York Medical 

 Journal, discusses in a very entertaining way, tobacco, its use and 

 abuse. Tobacco, he says, contains an acrid, dark-brown oil, an 

 alkaloid, nicotine, and another substance called nicotianine, in which 

 exist its odorous and volatile principles. This description of the 

 active principles of tobacco is of importance to smokers ; for, when 

 tobacco is burned, a new set of substances is produced, some of 

 which are less harmful than the nicotine, and are more agreeable 

 in effect, and much of the acrid oil — a substance quite as irritating 

 and poisonous as nicotine — is carried off. These fire-produced 

 substances are called, from their origin, the 'pyridine series.' By 

 great heat the more aromatic and less harmful members of the 

 series are produced, but the more poisonous compounds are gen- 

 erated by the slow combustion of damp tobacco. This oil which 

 is liberated by combustion is bad both in flavor and m effect, and 

 it is better, even for .the immediate pleasure of the smoker, that it 

 should be excluded altogether from his mouth and air-passages. 



Smoking in a stub of a pipe is particularly injurious, for the reason 

 that in it the oil is stored in a condensed form, and the smoke is 

 therefore highly charged with the oil. Sucking or chewing the stub 

 of a cigar that one is smoking is a serious mistake, because the 

 nicotine in the unburned tobacco dissolves freely in the saliva, and 

 is absorbed. 'Chewing' is on this account the most injurious 

 form of the tobacco habit, and the use of a cigar-holder is an im- 

 provement on the custom of holding the cigar between the teeth. 

 Cigarettes are responsible for a great amount of mischief, not be- 

 cause the smoke from the paper has any particularly evil effect, but 

 because smokers — and they are often boys or very young men 

 — are apt to use them continuously or at frequent intervals, believ- 

 ing that their power for evil is insignificant. Thus the nerves are 

 under the constant influence of the drug, and much injury to the 

 system results. Moreover, the cigarette-smoker uses a very con- 

 siderable amount of tobacco during the course of a day. ' Dip- 

 ping ' and ' snuffing ' are semi-barbarities which need not be dis- 

 cussed. Not much effect is obtained from the use of the drug in 

 these varieties of the habit. 



Nicotine is one of the most powerful of the 'nerve-poisons' 

 known. Its virulence is compared to that of prussic acid. If birds 



be made to inhale its vapor in amounts too small to be measured,, 

 they are almost instantly killed. It seems to destroy life, not by 

 attacking a few, but all of the functions essential to it, beginning 

 at the centre, the heart. A significant indication of this is that 

 there is no substance known which can counteract its effects : the 

 system either succumbs or survives. Its depressing action on the 

 heart is by far the most noticeable and noteworthy symptom of 

 nicotine-poisoning. The frequent existence of what is known as 

 ' smoker's heart ' in men whose health is in no other respect dis- 

 turbed is due to this fact. 



Those who can use tobacco without immediate injury will have 

 all the pleasant effects reversed, and will suffer from the symptoms 

 of poisoning if they exceed the limits of tolerance. These symp- 

 toms are : i. The heart's action becomes more rapid when to- 

 bacco is used ; 2. Palpitation, pain, or unusual sensations in the 

 heart ; 3. There is no appetite in the morning, the tongue is coated, 

 delicate flavors are not appreciated, and acid dyspepsia occurs after 

 eating; 4. Soreness of the mouth and throat, or nasal catarrh, ap- 

 pears, and becomes very troublesome ; 5. The eyesight becomes 

 poor, but improves when the habit is abandoned ; 6. A desire, often 

 a craving, for liquor or some other stimulant, is experienced. 



In an experimental observation of thirty-eight boys of all classes 

 of society, and of average health, who had been using tobacco for 

 periods ranging from two months to two years, twenty-seven showed 

 severe injury to the constitution and insufficient growth ; thirty-two 

 showed the existence of irregularity of the heart's action, disordered 

 stomachs, cough, and a craving for alcohol ; thirteen had intermit- 

 tency of the pulse ; and one had consumption. After they had 

 abandoned the use of tobacco, within six months' time one-half 

 were free from all their former symptoms, and the remainder had 

 recovered by the end of the year. 



A great majority of men go far beyond what may be called the 

 temperate use of tobacco, and evidences of injury are easily found. 

 It is only necessary to have some record of what the general health 

 was previous to the taking-up of the habit, and to have observation 

 cover a long enough time. The history of tobacco in the island of 

 New Zealand furnishes a quite suggestive illustration for our pur- 

 pose, and one on a large scale. When Europeans first visited New 

 Zealand, they'found in the native Maoris the most finely developed 

 and powerful men of any of the tribes inhabiting the islands of the 

 Pacific. Since the introduction of tobacco, for which the Maoris 

 developed a passionate liking, they have from this cause alone, it is 

 said, become decimated in numbers, and at the same time reduced 

 in stature and in physical well-being so as to be an altogether in- 

 ferior type of men. 



ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. 

 Some New Tests of Secondary Batteries. 



In the last two years the improvements in storage-batteries have 

 been such as to indicate the near approach of the time when they 

 can be economically used for street-car work. Indeed, it is now a 

 question whether, under favorable conditions, they cannot advan- 

 tageously replace horses ; and the result of the e.xperiments on the 

 Fourth Avenue Road in New York, where ten storage-cars will 

 soon be regularly operated, will be awaited with interest. 



Dr. A. von Waltenhofen, in the Ccntralblatt fi'ir Ekctrotechnik^ 

 gives the results of some interesting experiments on the Farbaky- 

 Schenck accumulators that have a direct bearing on the subject of 

 electric traction. But before giving the results, it is well to call to 

 mind the points in which the present storage-cells are lacking. The 

 principal point is in the small discharge-rate, necessitating a large 

 number of cells being carried by each car (from 3.200 to 4,500 

 pounds), a corresponding increase in the weight of the car itself to 

 give the strength necessarj' to sustain this increased weight, a 

 larger outlay for battery and a corresponding depreciation, a greater 

 power to move the greater weight, and the necessity of re-laying 

 much of the track now in use with heavier rails and a better road- 

 bed. For instance: the weight of an ordinary 16-foot car is from 

 6,000 to 7,000 pounds. Equipped with motors and storage- 

 battery, the weight is about 13.000 pounds. A car equipped with 

 this weight of battery can be run for from 45 to 60 miles, depend- 

 ing on the conditions of the track and the type of equipment. 



