124 



SCIENCE. 



I Vui.. XV. No. 368. 



interesting details of these are given in tlie observer's journals. 

 The storms only occur when the air is moist ; the most favor- 

 able condition is during the time a light, soft snow is falling. 

 When the hands are held up, sparks emanate from the tips of 

 the fingers. At such times, with considerable wind, the anemom- 

 eter-cups look like a circle of fire. Each flake of snow, as it 

 alights on a mule's or burro's back, gives a spark like a fire- 

 bug. The station was once struck by lightning. The electrici- 

 ty came down the anemometer-rod, following along the wire 

 running to the battery. Every place the wire crossed a nail, 

 the head of the nail was fused, and the wire melted at the 

 same point. 



In addition to the regular meteorological observations on the 

 summit of Pike' s Peak which appear in the ' 'Annals, ' ' other 

 special observations have been made. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Contagious Pneumonia. 



De. F. Mosler, in a paper read before the Qreifswald Medical 

 Society, gives details of a series of cases of acute pneumonia in 

 a family where there seemed every reason for believing that con- 

 tagion was the cause of the spread of the disease. The patients, 

 says the Lancet of Jan. 25, 1890, were all attacked during 

 the last fortnight of January, 1889: the first to fall ill being 

 the father, who died on Jan. 22, the fifth day of his illness. 

 On this day his wife was attacked, and she too succumbed on 

 'the fifth day of the disease. While she was ill, her son, who 

 constantly visited his parents during their illness, himself was 

 attacked on the 26th. He was thirty years of age, strong and 

 temperate, but succumbed on the twelfth day of the attack. 

 Further, his sister, who had come from Arendsee, near Stral- 

 sund, to be with her sick parents, and who staid in their house 

 from Jan. 22 to Jan. 26, was attacked at Arendsee on Jan. 29, 

 and was admitted into the Greifswald Hospital. She alone 

 recovered. 



Dr. Mosler points out that the parents' house was dry, the 

 two rooms they inhabited were well ventilated and clean, and 

 that there had been no illnesses in the house within the past 

 five years. He thinks the father must have acquired his pneu- 

 monia outside, and that the disease was communicated in turn 

 to the members of his family by contagion through the sputa. 

 In the case of the son, a post-mortem examination showed that 

 the form of pneumonia was not the typical one: it was more 

 lobular, was accompanied by a hemorrhagic pleurisy and by 

 swelling of the spleen. Moreover, an examination by Professor 

 Grawitz of some of the fluid withdrawn from the lung of the 

 daughter during the height of the disease resulted in the dis- 

 covery of bacilli resembling those of rabbit septicsemia, but 

 neither the pneumono-bacillus of Friedlander nor the pneu- 

 mono-coccus of Frankel was found. In the case of the son, 

 the blood from the heart yielded a similar micro-organism. 

 Dr. Mosler thinks that such facts, as well as the peculiarities 

 of the morbid anatomy of the latter case, suggest the occurrence 

 of a special form of pulmonary inflammation, owning a cause 

 different from that of the ordinary form. He sees in such 

 cases a reason for believing that many varieties of poison may 

 give rise to pneumonia. But the main lesson from the cases is 

 that of contagiousness, and the need for the careful disposal and 

 disinfection of the sputa, which he believes to have been the 

 infective medium in these cases. He refers to recent contri- 

 butions of Finkler and Cantani on infectivity of pneumonia, 

 the latter recording some striking instances where the disease 

 was more of the lobular than the lobar type. 



Mouth -Breathing and the Teeth. — Dr. Scanes Spicer read 

 a paper at the last meeting of the Odontological Society of 

 London, upon "Nasal Obstruction and Mouth-Breathing as 

 Factors in the Etiology of Disorders of the Teeth." In the 

 course of his remarks, as we learn from the Lancet of Jan. 8, he 

 said he had been struck with the frequency with which carious 

 teeth were associated with obstruction of the pharynx and 

 enlarged tonsils ; so much so, that he had made it a routine 



practice to examine the teeth in all cases of nasal obstruction, 

 and he believed that there existed a relation between them; 

 and he further is of opinion that there is a generic relation 

 between some cases of vaulted arch, narrow jaws, and irregular 

 teeth, and nasal obstruction. Normally we should breathe 

 through the nose, so as to warm and filter the air respired. 

 All animals, savage races, and young infants do so; but a 

 large number of adults of civilized nations breathe through 

 the mouth, because they have some obstruction of the nasal 

 passages, — erectile tumors, permanent catarrhal affections, 

 polypi, ' post-nasal adenoid growths, etc. Mouth -breathing, he 

 said, as a predisposing cause of caries of the teeth, c^me into 

 action in various ways. The teeth were exposed to a current 

 of air of a much lower temperature than that of the body, 

 which would tend to cause inflammation of the periosteum and 

 pulp of a tooth; the cold, dry air produced congestion of the 

 mucous membrane, with a secretion of stringy acid mucus; and 

 the rapid evaporation of water which takes place when the 

 mouth is constantly open inspissated this mucus, which so 

 formed a fertile soil for the development of micro-organisms. 

 Again: when sleeping with the mouth open, the tongue falls: 

 back, and the parotid secretion finds its way directly through 

 the pharynx instead of bathing and washing the teeth. With 

 reference to tlie so-called V-shaped maxilla. Dr. Spicer thought 

 that many cases might be traced to mouth-breathing, the 

 muscles of the cheek pressing unduly upon the soft alveoli when 

 the mouth is open. 



Scratching the Back for Intermittent Fever. — Dr. Alois 

 Fenykovy communicates to a Vienna medical journal an account 

 of some observations made on the treatment of intermittent 

 fever by means of friction of the back along the spine. Many 

 years ago, as stated in the Lancet, while at Nisch with his 

 regiment, there occurred so many cases of intermittent fever 

 that the stock of quinine was becoming exhausted, and, in 

 order that the patients might not be entirely without some 

 sort of treatment, it was ordered that they should be rubbed 

 twice a day along the spine with simple ointment. The day 

 after this order had been given it appeared that the usual attack 

 had not come on. Accordingly since that time Dr. Fenykovy 

 has very frequently employed this treatment, and usually with 

 marked success. Indeed, he says that three'fourths of his cases 

 have done very well without any quinine at all. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The English Royal Meteorological Society have arranged to 

 hold at 25 Great George Street, Westminster, on March 18 to 21 

 next, an exhibition of insti-uments and photogi-aplis illustrating 

 the application of photography to meteorology. 



— Herr Ti'autweiler thinks that a railway should go to the top 

 of the Jungfrau, and in the Schweizerische Bauzeitung gives a 

 brief account of his scheme. The railway would go from the 

 valley below to the summit, and would be almost entirely under 

 ground. There would be several intermediate stations, from 

 which convenient, well-arranged tunnels would lead to points on 

 the mountain whence the best views are to be had. If stormy 

 weather came on, the passengers could withdraw into the shelter 

 of those turmels. The railway would be lighted by electricity. 



— The Thomson-Houston Electi-ic Company of Boston are build- 

 ing several large electric motors, or electric locomotives, for a 

 street-railway company in that city. Each locomotive will be 

 powerful enough to draw a train of cars. 



— The Russian Government, it is stated, has announced its 

 intention to begin operations soon on the gi-eat railway across 

 Siberia. Work will begin at Vladivostok and at the present 

 eastern terminus of the Russian railway system at the same 

 time. The total length of the line is to be 4, 375 miles. 



— The JuU snow-excavator, illustrated and described in these 

 columns some months ago, received several severe tests during 

 the recent snow blockades on W^estern railroads. On Feb. 3 it 

 opened up a blockade on a road between Pendleton, Ore. , and 



