214 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 247 



the population. One-fourth of the whole number occurred in 

 Hampden County. Eastern Massachusetts suffered severely from 

 malarial fevers in 1884, 1885, and 1886, but few of the cases, how- 

 ever, proved fatal. 



Michigan Sanitary Convention. — A sanitary convention 

 is to be held at Albion, Mich., under the auspices of the State Board 

 of Health, Dec. 6 and 7. The objects of the convention are the 

 presentation of facts, the comparison of views, and the discussion 

 of methods relating to the prevention of sickness and deaths, and 

 the improvement of the conditions of living. It is intended to be a 

 convention of the people generally. Among the subjects which it 

 is expected will be presented and discussed are the following: i. 

 The present and future water-supply of Albion ; 2. Disposal of 

 waste in Albion by sewerage and otherwise ; 3. School hygiene ; 4. 

 Money-value of sanitary work ; 5. Restriction and prevention of 

 communicable diseases, from four standpoints, — (a) of the State 

 Board of Health, {b) of the health-officer, {c) of the clergyman, {d) 

 of the lawyer. 



Chloroforming while Asleep. — We had occasion in a recent 

 number of Science to refer to the possibiHty of chloroforming per- 

 sons while asleep without awaking them. In confirmation of the 

 statement which was then made, that under favorable circumstances 

 this could be accomplished, we quote a case which occurred in the 

 New Orleans Charity Hospital and is reported in the Ne-w Orleans 

 Medical and Surgical Journal. A child six years of age was 

 suffering from pleurisy, and it became necessary to draw off the 

 fluid effusion which had accumulated in his chest. He was very 

 much afraid of the operation, and it was determined to attempt it 

 while he was asleep. On the following day, while sound asleep, 

 chloroform was administered without awaking the child, and twenty- 

 four ounces of fluid were withdrawn. The child continued to sleep 

 throughout the night, and when it awoke the following morning 

 knew nothing of the operation. 



Flies as Carriers of Contagion. — A report was made to 

 the French Academy of Sciences by Spillman and Hanshalter, giv- 

 ing the results of their investigations into the possibility of flies 

 acting as carriers of contagion. These observers examined the 

 excrement and intestines of flies that had fed on the contents of 

 spit-cups used by consumptive patients, and found the bacilli of 

 consumption in abundance. These bacilli were also found in the 

 dried excrements of flies scraped from the windows and walls of 

 rooms occupied by consumptives. These facts are in perfect con- 

 sonance with the recommendations of the American Public Health 

 Association, that the sputa of consumptive patients should be re- 

 ceived in vessels in which disinfectants have been placed. 



The Plymouth Typhoid Epidemic. — Our readers will re- 

 member the epidemic of typhoid-fever which created such conster- 

 nation in Plymouth, Penn., in 1885. The population at that time 

 was 8,000. Of these, 1,153 contracted the fever, and 114 died, a 

 mortality of nearly 10.33 per cent. It is now stated that typhoid 

 again prevails to an unusual extent in Plymouth, and that fears are 

 entertained of another epidemic. There are said to be thirty cases 

 of the fever there at the present time. In connection with the sub- 

 ject of typhoid-fever, there have been reported in France three 

 cases in which the disease seems to have been transmitted through 

 the air. A patient suffering with typhoid-fever stopped at a hotel 

 in Eaux-Bonnes. In four weeks she recovered, but the three 

 daughters of the hotel-keeper were attacked. Eaux-Bonnes is said 

 to have a bountiful supply of excellent spring water, and there was 

 no other case of typhoid in the town. The discharges from the 

 stranger were thrown, in an undisinfected state, into the water- 

 closet, the door of which communicated with the room in which the 

 landlord's daughters slept, at a distance of only three feet. It 

 seems reasonable in this instance to eliminate the drinking-water 

 from the factors in causing these three cases, and to charge the in- 

 fection to the neglect of disinfection of the excreta. 



Seasickness. — The Semai?ie Midicale contains the views of 

 Dr. W. Skinner on seasickness. He looks upon it as the expression 

 of certain purely functional or dynamic disturbances of the organ- 

 ism, some of the symptoms indicating a general fall of the arterial 

 blood-pressure. The starting-point is probably a reflex inhibition 



coming from the sensorium or from the nerves of the abdominal 

 organs, which is brought about by a contusion or stretching of these 

 organs due to the motions of the vessel. His treatment consists in 

 the use of vaso-motor stimulants, strychnia, atropia, and caffeine, 

 introducing them hypodermically. Dr. Skinner reports thirty-nine 

 cases in which his treatment was efficacious, one of them being an 

 infant of two years and a half. 



Hydrophobia. — In the latter part of September three children 

 died in England from hydrophobia, having been bitten by rabid 

 dogs. Their mother was bitten at the same time, and has gone to 

 Paris to be treated by Pasteur. Another child, not of the same 

 family, was bitten by a rabid dog at Lancaster. Seven days after, 

 he went to Paris, where he remained a month under treatment. The 

 day after his return the first symptoms of hydrophobia appeared, 

 and in two days proved fatal. 



Yellow-Fever at Tampa. — Dr. Porter, president of the Key 

 West Board of Health, has gone to Tampa, Fla. He reports that 

 the disease which lately appeared there is undoubtedly yellow-fever. 

 To Oct. 14, there had been eighty cases, of which twelve had 

 proved fatal. 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 



Bilateral Asymmetry of Motion. 



Dr. J. LOEB of the University of Wiirzburg has made some 

 very interesting observations on the motion of the two arms. A 

 thread is stretched between two uprights at such a height, that, 

 with the fore-arm bent at a right angle at the elbow, it can be 

 conveniently held between the thumb and forefinger of either hand. 

 In the first series of observations, the two hands started together 

 at the middle of the string, and moved outwards to either side 

 until signalled to stop by the experimenter. The object was to 

 move the two hands with equal speed ; but it was found that every 

 subject either constantly moved the right hand farther than 

 the left, or the left constantly farther than the right. Right- 

 handed persons who were not handicraftsmen, usually allowed the 

 right hand to make the longer excursion, and contrariwise for the 

 left-handed. The difference between the movements of the two 

 hands varied from one-tenth to one-half of the space moved over. 

 If, instead of the operator's signal, a clamp was placed upon the 

 thread on one side to indicate when the subject should stop, the 

 general result was the same, though the hand on the side of the 

 clamp usually moved more cautiously. 



Thinking it probable that the difference was due to the difference 

 in the nature of the voluntary impulse imparted to the two hands, 

 Dr. Loeb himself moved one of the subject's hands to one side, 

 while the latter was to simultaneously move the other out to an 

 equal distance. But the result was as before : the asymmetry con- 

 stant for each person remained ; and that, too, no matter whether 

 the right hand was passively moved and the left hand moved volun- 

 tarily, or the reverse. The size of the error, however, is reduced in 

 the sense, that, compared with a voluntary motion under the same 

 conditions, a passive motion seems larger. This Dr. Loeb thinks 

 may be due to the fact that there was a conscious fear of moving 

 the active hand too far, and that the attempt to correct this re- 

 sulted in an error in the opposite direction. AH the above obser- 

 vations were made upon persons ignorant of the resulting asym- 

 metry. Those who were informed of the result, or discovered it 

 for themselves, thereafter much diminished their error. 



The next variation consisted in having the two hands move, not 

 in opposite, but in the same direction ; that is, either with the left 

 hand starting in the middle and the right hand to the right side to 

 move towards the left, or with the right hand in the middle and the 

 left hand to the left side to move towards the right. As before, the 

 two movements were simultaneous, were to be made equal in ex- 

 tent, and the motion of one hand was arrested by a clamp set upon 

 the string, Here a new law enters ; and the result is, that, inde- 

 pendently of the hand and of the direction of the motion, the motion 

 from the exterior towards the middle is always distinctly larger 

 than from the middle towards the exterior. 



To eliminate the asymmetry between the two hands, the experi- 

 ment was made with one hand only, first moving out a given dis- 



