76 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
seed of the leaven, which by cellule propagation leavens the whole mass. It has 
lately been shown that the process of nitrification in certain soils is due to a pe- 
culiar ferment, that is to say, to a spore floating in the atmosphere, and finding 
its conditions for action, stops and operates. Marsh fever is due to cellules or 
spores existing in a bog neighborhood; the same spores have been detected by 
the microscope in the expectorations of the patient, in the dew that was examined, 
and on the surface of the peaty soil where they were generated. ‘This is simply 
poisoning; to a like cause is due the fell disease known as hospital gangrene, the 
germs in the polluted ward-atmosphere, enter the wounds, induce putrifaction, 
and death. Hence the importance of washing the affected part with carbolic 
acid or other anti-septic; then dressing it with a wadding that will intercept, by 
acting as a filter, the germs to be deposited, from being sown. In many factories 
workmen become victims to the dust, generated by their special industry, enter- 
ing and saturating the lungs; on dissecting old colliers, their lungs after forty years 
respiration of dust, instead of being rose-colored as in health, were as black as the 
coal itself; the dust in this impalpable form is often the cause of accidents; it can 
take fire and blaze hke alcohol. Witness the catastrophe at the Minneapolis 
flouring mills; the confined air highly charged with the flour, became on a par 
with ether or alcohol, awaiting only ignition from the heated millstone to burst 
into flame and explode. 
The Society of Legal Medicine has discussed the question of shop lifting ; 
no very clear results have been arrived at; it was maintained that in the case 
where the accused female’s family was liable to hereditary cerebral irregularities, 
the court ought to accept such as an extenuating circumstance. It seemed to be 
the opinion, that too much importance was attached to the abnormal inclinations 
and fancies of women enceznée, and also, that the interests of justice were not 
served by the numerous classifications that alienists indulge in. Dr. Lasségue 
repudiates all the doctrines about monomanias; a woman shop-lifts because she 
has not the strength to resist, and if any obstacle rises up to baulk her thieving; 
that chance will save her, as reason does in the case of others. He disbelieves 
in the theory of excitement ; the seduction is not greater than what other females 
experience at the view of articles of toilet; it is transitory, and the thief speedi- 
ly forgets not only the pleasure she anticipated from possessing an object easily 
obtained, but the fault itself. He concludes, the less the impulsion of the weak- 
minded will be imperious, the more she will be encouraged by every attraction— 
that of impunity included. 
M. Hirn has devoted a good deal of attention to the subject of human heat, 
and in his experiments has been assisted by Professor Herzen, of Florence. Heat, 
or caloric, is synonymous with force, and there ought to be a gain or loss of heat, 
following the nature of the work. For example: the exertion to raise our own 
weight in ascending a stair-case, or a mountain, must represent a loss as compared 
with descending either. Now, M. Herzen affirms in both cases the contraction © 
of the muscle is almost the same; there is only a slight difference in the intensity 
