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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 218 



feet is more exhilarant than that of alcohol, but 

 it is uncertain and variable. This Ptimulant ac- 

 tion develops mania, followed by narcotism and 

 melancholia. As an intoxicant, it is more dan- 

 gerous than alcohol or opium. As a form of 

 inebriety, it is more difficult to treat, requiring a 

 longer time to break up, because of the physical 

 and psychical complications. It cannot be used 

 as a substitute for any other narcotic, or as an 

 antidote or remedy." Dr. Hammond of New 

 York finds, as the result of personal experience 

 with cocaine, that two grains in a pint of wine 

 produced all the beneficial and nohe of the dele- 

 terious effects of the drug. One grain injected 

 hypodermically has an effect similar to that of two 

 or three glasses of champagne. He thinks that 

 cocaine has a refining and softening effect, while 

 the tendency of alcohol is to lower the mental and 

 moral tone, and to brutalize a man. Three grains 

 produced a great disposition to talk, with vivid 

 imagination. Writing was accomplished with 

 great ease, and wonderful progress was made with 

 a medical work which he was preparing. On the 

 following morning he found the work to be com- 

 posed of incoherent sentences and disconnected 

 ideas, being utterly nonsensical. He subsequently 

 took eight grains of the drug, which produced 

 painful sensations. 



Dr. Frank H. Bosworth of New York has had 

 considerable experience with cocaine. He says 

 that in no single case of hay-fever which he has 

 treated with it has he been able to detect any dis- 

 tressing reaction from its use. In a few cases the 

 remedial effect has not been such as desired, but 

 the proportion of such cases has been small. He 

 has used cocaine in a hundred and fifty cases, and 

 in but two was there any reaction, and in neither 

 was this of a distressing character. Many patients 

 have used the drug daily for eighteen months with- 

 out any reaction, and without there being any toler- 

 ation created, the same effect following its use at 

 the end as at the beginning of the period, — com- 

 plete relief. Being a sufferer from hay-fever, the 

 doctor used the drug himself, applying it, in a solu- 

 tion of four per cent, to the nose. The relief was 

 immediate and great, but lasted only from two to 

 three hours. He used it frequently during the 

 day in this way, at the beginning using from two 

 to three grains daily. After using from half a 

 grain to a grain, he experienced the full constitu- 

 tional effects of the drug, which were a feeling of 



absolute peacefulness and repose, entire immunity 

 from worry or care, thorough wakefulness, or, 

 rather, alertness of intellectual faculties, with 

 something of an indisposition to exertion. To- 

 gether with this was an enjoyment of his cigar 

 such as he had not experienced since he was a 

 young man. In this way he would sit and smoke 

 and read hours at a time. He soon found that he 

 was taking from five to eight grains of cocaine 

 daily. At night he would fall into a refreshing 

 sleep, and awake in the morning without an un- 

 pleasant symptom. After breakfast, his hay- fever 

 symptoms coming on, he would resume his co- 

 caine. This he continued for more than two and 

 one-half months ; at one time, in order to test the 

 drug, carrying the quantity as high as twenty-five 

 grains between dinner and bed -time. In all, he 

 used about an ounce of the alkaloid. His con- 

 clusions are as follows : 1°. The use of the 

 drug produced no tolerance : two grains pro- 

 duced as marked a constitutional effect as twenty- 

 five. 2*. No cocaine habit was contracted. At 

 no time from the commencement of the experi- 

 ments to the end of them was there ever the 

 slightest craving for it. 3°. The local effect at 

 the end of three months, in contracting the blood- 

 vessels of the nose, was as quick and as efficient 

 as at the time of the first application. 4°. There 

 was not at any time the slightest local reaction 

 following its use. 5*. In not a single instance 

 was he able to detect any constitutional reaction 

 after its effect passed away. 



We were m error last week in reporting that 

 the sum of $400,000 had been appropriated by 

 congress for the erection of a new naval observa- 

 tory near Washington. The amount actually 

 available is but $100,000, with the understanding 

 that the entire cost of the work shall not exceed 

 $400,000. Mr. Hunt of New York, the architect 

 appointed by the secretary of the navy, has been 

 in Washington examining the site, and consulting 

 with the superintendent of the observatory and 

 Professor Hall, and it is understood that he is now 

 at work upon the detailed drawings. Plans were 

 prepared some seven years ago under the direction 

 of Admiral John Rodgers, then superintendent of 

 the observatory, but they will be very largely 

 modified in order to isolate more effectively the 

 observing-rooms from the main building. Ensign 

 Winterhalter of the U. S. naval observatory has 

 sailed for Paris to represent the observatory at the 



