FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 647 



tery vapor, while currents arriving from overland are the contrary ; that is 

 to say, dry. The action of he moon seems to reside in the displacement of 

 these currents. Where dry currents predominate there can be no rain, no 

 more than water could be expected from a pump sunk in a parched soil. 

 The sun in its annual course, in passing from one hemisphere of the heavens 

 to the other, drags with it all our atmosphere, not only displacing it, but 

 altering also its currents. Thus the trade winds that reign in each atmos- 

 phere around the equator approach our latitudes in summer, and recede in 

 winter. These semi-annual perturbations are represented by the equinoc- 

 tial winds. As a kind of central furnace, the sun's influence is considerable 

 on all our atmosphere; it produces annually displacements in currents. 

 "Why not the moon also induce monthly changes, as it passes from one hem- 

 isphere into the other, causing aerial currents to penetrate different regions ? 

 Our satellite ought to force back the northern on the approach of the south- 

 ern winds, substituting thus rain for fine weather. Such is likely the 

 mechanism of our satellites on the weather ; so that it is neither a prejudice 

 nor exactly a popular error to hold that a change of moon will be followed 

 by a changement of weather, and that the moon can equally induce rainy 

 or dry weather, in two neighboring regions, as the latter are situated on the 

 confines of humid or dry currents. It is thus explained why rain falls at 

 Paris, while there is brilliant sunshine at Orleans. 



In Paris hydrophobia is unpleasantly on the increase. Every year the 

 government publishes returns of the number of persons bitten by mad d^gs. 

 Dr. Proust has examined all these statistics for the last thirty years, and 

 has arrived at important conclusions. Thus; men are more frequently 

 bitten than women, and children more than either. The latter is due to 

 dogs being so often their playmates, and that children are constantly outside 

 of doors, whether in towns or villages. But if attacked by mad dogs, chil- 

 dren are more exempt from the consequences ; of 154 individuals bitten be- 

 tween the ages of five and fifteen, only 37 died, whereas of 32 persons attacked, 

 and aged between sixty-one and seventy, 22 succumbed. Dr. Proust also 

 establishes that there are no "dog days," as the animals have no special 

 season for the rabies; the maximum of registered bites took place, not in 

 July, but in September and February; the minimum in March and August. 

 Hence, the police regulations respecting dogs ought to be as active in win- 

 ter as during summer. Cauterization, following the same authority, is the 

 only known remedy against hydrophobia. Of 203 persons bitten, sixty per 

 cent, died ; when cauterization has been resorted to, or butter of antimony 

 employed, immediately after being bitten, the death rate was only twenty 

 per cent. It is difficult to have a red-hot iron, &c., ready at hatjd, so the 

 doctor recommends tightly bandaging above the wound with a piece of cord, 

 or a cravat, &c. This interrupts the circulation of the blood, and diminishes 

 absorption — ordinarily very rapid, of the virus deposited in the flesh by the 

 dog's teeth. T^he bleeding from the wound, by the well-tightened ligature. 



