186 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. IX., No. 213 



it. In Germany a new shell has been devised, on 

 principles made known some years ago by M. Tur- 

 pin, a French inventor. In this new projectile 

 two substances, one of which acts as igniter and 

 the other as combustible, are placed close to each 

 other, but not in contact. The igniter is con- 

 tained in a glass bottle, which is broken by the shock 

 caused by the striking of the shell, thereby per- 

 mitting the two substances to come into contact 

 and causing the explosion at the desired moment. 

 Neither of these substances is dangerous in itself, 

 and either may be handled separately without 

 risk. The projectiles are not charged with the 

 igniting substance until they are to be used. A 

 third new explosive has been invented in Berlin. 

 It is called ' roburite,' and has given good results, 

 but it is dangerous to handle, and is said to de- 

 teriorate more or less rapidly after manufacture. 



Miss Klumpke, whom I mentioned in my last 

 letter as having competed for the internat of the 

 Paris hospitals, has been successful, passing as 

 number 16, the whole number of competitors 

 being about 600. She is an American, from San 

 Francisco. Another American lady has been ap- 

 pointed interne provisoire, to be on duty only in 

 case supplementary internes are necessary and for 

 one year instead of four. 



As I stated in my last letter, female students are 

 pretty numerous in Paris. Most of them are Rus- 

 sians, generally very poor, so they club together 

 in small sets, — many of them have brothers or 

 husbands with them who are students also, — and 

 put their resources into a common fund. One 

 room is used as dormitory, another as study, etc., 

 and a single cook does for all, — phalansterism as 

 proposed by Fourier. They work hard, and the 

 life of all, men and women, is very respectable in 

 every way. 



At a recent meeting of the Biological society a 

 paper on paralytic rabies in man was read by M. 

 Gamaleia, a physician of Odessa, and director of 

 the Russian antirabic inoculation institution in 

 that city. One of M. Petei's main assertions in 

 his discussion with Pasteur is that paralytic symp- 

 toms are met with only in rabbits and in cases of 

 experimental hydrophobia ; genuine hydrophobia, 

 according to M. Peter, being always convulsive. 

 M. Gamaleia shows that such is not the case, and 

 gives the records of sixteen cases of paralytic 

 rabies witnessed by himself. The symptoms in- 

 duced by this sort of hydrophobia are as follows : 

 ataxy, paresis, and paralysis of the legs and arms, 

 sensibility being unimpared (at the outset, at 

 least) ; lumbar pains, shooting from the back for- 

 wards ; paralysis of the abdominal and rectal mus- 

 cles. The paralysis gains ground, invading the 

 neck, tongue, and face, and finally asphyxia sets 



in. Among the causes which seem to co-operate 

 in inducing the paralytic form of rabies, M. Gam- 

 aleia notes especially the penetration of a large 

 quantity of virus. This certainly was the case 

 with the patients who died after submitting to 

 Pasteur's intensive method. 



The government report on fisheries for 1885 

 has just been published. The fishing vessels of 

 all descriptions number 23,877, manned by 85 915 

 men. There are also 57,088 fishermen who fish 

 along shore. The total weight of fish taken was 

 187,000,000 kilograms, valued at 92,736,585 francs. 

 There has been a complaint for some years past of 

 the increasing scarcity of sardines. These fish 

 seem to stop in the neighborhood of the Spanish 

 and Portuguese coasts, not going much farther 

 north. The deaths among the fishermen for the 

 year mentioned number 363, leaving 212 widows 

 and 416 orphans. Were it not for the high 

 freights charged by the railroads for the trans- 

 portation of fish, the fisheries would be much 

 more prosperous than they are, the high freights 

 preventing the development of new markets. 

 This is especially the case with oysters. In 

 Brittany, for instance, oysters are so very abun- 

 dant that at present they sell at nine francs per 

 thousand, while in Paris they sell at fifty francs, 

 owing to the high price of transportation and the 

 local duty. 



The telephone experiments which recently 

 took place between Paris and Brussels were very 

 satisfactory. The line was opened to the public 

 some days ago, when a lively chat took place be- 

 tween the invited guests of the minister of posts 

 and telegraphs, and those of the post-director of 

 Brussels. Within the city the wire is inclosed in 

 wooden tubes enveloped by a leaden tube. For 

 the rest of the distance it is an ordinary aerial 

 line, the wire being of siliceous bronze, — the 

 same wire being used for both telegraphic and 

 telephonic purposes. The tarifi" for five minutes' 

 conversation between Paris and Brussels is three 

 francs. 



Some days ago Professor Alglave, the able 

 director of the International scientific series, in 

 France, delivered an interesting public lecture on 

 alchoholism. He stated that of one hundred insane 

 persons, forty had been intemperate ; that fully 

 one-half our criminals had been in the habit of 

 drinking to excess, and that delirium tremens 

 kills 2,200 persons every year. The reason for 

 the increase in the death rate of alcoholic patients 

 is not that there are a greater number of victims, 

 but that alcoholic liquors are much more poison- 

 ous than formerly, owing to their poorer quality 

 and the addition to them of inferior alcohol made 

 from rice, potatoes, corn, beets, etc. Of 1,872,000 



