72 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 279 



modes of election;" "Your redemption and distress in which you 

 have fallen depends on yourself, and in no wise on the government or 

 its mode of election." Although not one of the ten got it perfectly 

 accurately, yet many were very near it ; and they all show how 

 rhuch more the wear and tear on the sentence is in passing through 

 ten mouths than through one. By the other process one accumu- 

 lates the combined inaccuracies of all, and one pupil with a very 

 poor receptive organ in the middle of the ten prevents the circula- 

 tion of a good repetition after him. After this the sentence was 

 passed through the ten pupils arranged in order of grade, and is- 

 sued as, " Your redemption from the distress into which you have 

 fallen depends entirely upon yourself, and by no means upon the 

 forms of government or helps from education." The sentence 

 here selected is quite a difficult one, but an easier one from Emer- 

 son was hardly more successful. The sentence was, " All things 

 are double, one against another, — tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a 

 tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, measure for measure, love for 

 love," — and the result. " All things are good for one another." Al- 

 though the test, as thus applied, is too complex to allow valid in- 

 ferences to be drawn from it, it at any rate shows how difficult it is 

 to repeat accurately what has been heard, as well as how little con- 

 fidence is to be placed in the declarations of persons reporting the 

 very words of a conversation held weeks or months before ; it illus- 

 trates, too, in a simple form, the process by which a simple tale 

 becomes an elaborately embellished narrative by passing through 

 several hands ; and perhaps it indicates that the powers of careful 

 attention and retention need more systematic training than is de- 

 voted to them in the ordinary school-work. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Sea-Sickness. — Dr. W. H. Gardner, U.S.A., in a letter to the 

 New York Medical Record, reports having treated many cases of 

 sea-sickness with oxalate of cerium, in ten, fifteen, or twenty grain 

 doses, every two or three hours. He believes that seventy-five per 

 cent of all cases that occur will be cured by this remedy. As many 

 of our readers are about to leave the United States for a summer's 

 jaunt in Europe, an admirable opportunity presents itself for testing 

 Dr. Gardner's remedy. As oxalate of cerium is a recognized drug 

 to be administered in cases of nausea and vomiting, we see no rea- 

 son why it should not be efficacious in sea-sickness. 



Function of the Bile. — Among the many mooted questions 

 in physiology is the function of the bile, and every new fact bearing 

 upon this important subject is of great value. Dr. Dastre, as re- 

 ported in Le Progres Medical, recently communicated his observa- 

 tions to the Societe de Biologic of Paris. He said that he had pre- 

 viously proven that the presence of bile in the stomach during dif- 

 ferent periods of digestion did not take from the gastric juice its 

 digestive power : consequently it could not be the cause of vomiting 

 or of severe gastric troubles. At the present time, owing to the 

 success of two operations for cholecj'sto-intestinal fistula, he 

 thought himself in a position to conclude that the bile contrib- 

 uted, as well as the pancreatic juice, to the digestion of the fats, — 

 an opinion which is counter to that expressed by Claude Bernard. 

 In fact, the two animals being in good condition four months after 

 the establishment of the fistula, they had been given a meal of fat 

 and milk, and then slaughtered during full digestion. The exam- 

 ination showed with absolute clearness that the lacteals were trans- 

 parent between the stomach and fistula, and, on the contrary, en- 

 tirely white and milky below the fistula; that is to say, where the 

 bile had been able to get : consequently, if observation on the rab- 

 bit shows us that the bile alone is unable to emulsify the fats, the 

 preceding experience shows us that the pancreatic juice alone is 

 also powerless. They must be mingled, in order to act well. In 

 other words, bile, as well as the pancreatic juice, takes part in the 

 digestion of fats. 



A New Hypnotic. — In the New York Medical Record, Dr. 

 E. C. Wendt describes sulfonal, a new hypnotic. Chemically this 

 substance enjoys the euphonious designation of ' ditethylsulfondi- 

 methylmethan.' It occurs in the form of large, flat, colorless crys- 

 tals, which are tasteless, and devoid of smell. Sulfonal is soluble 



in eighteen to twenty parts of boiling water. In tepid water the 

 solubility is only about one to one hundred. The crystals dissolve 

 more readily in alcohol and alcohol mixed with ether. Acids and 

 alkalies do not affect the composition of the body, which appears to 

 possess considerable chemical stability. The crystals melt at a 

 temperature of 275" to 260° F. According to Professor Kast of 

 Freiburg, sulfonal is an hypnotic pure and simple. It does not com- 

 pel sleep through a paralytic effect on the nerve-centres, nor through 

 a profound impression produced upon the vascular system. From 

 numerous experiments on animals, and many clinical observations 

 on man, the action of this new remedy would appear to consist 

 merely in the intensification of those factors that lead to natural sleep 

 in the physiological sense, or in supplying the periodical desire for 

 sleep in those cases where it is wanting. It is for this reason, prob- 

 ably, that the range of applicability of sulfonal is a more Imiited one 

 than that of some other drugs employed as hypnotics, iiut sulfonal 

 has none of the disadvantages inherent in the deadly narcotics, and 

 it is much more reliable than any of the bromides. This new body 

 does not disturb digestion, it is not constipating, it has no unpleas- 

 ant after-effects, it is perfectly harmless, it does not invite the for- 

 mation of ' a habit,' and, finally, it does not appear to lose its effi- 

 cacy even when employed for a long period. 



Smokers' Vertigo. — Dr. Decaisne is reported in the .Wr.,' 

 York Medical Record Si's having recently investigated a number of 

 cases of vertigo in smokers. Out of sixty-three patients, forty-nine 

 were between fifty and sixty-six years of age. More than half of 

 them suffered, in addition, from digestive troubles, with constipa- 

 tion alternating with diarrhcea, insomnia, palpitations, dyspnoea, " 

 and diuresis. In a third of the number there was marked intermit- 

 tence of the pulse, and granular pharyngitis, while others suffered 

 from aphthse, amblyopia, etc. Thirty-seven were persons who 

 smoked habitually on an empty stomach ; and these suffered from 

 vertigo, principally in the morning. The vertigo generally coin- 

 cided with suppression of perspiration and diminished excretion of 

 urine. The treatment consisted mainly in regulating or suppress- 

 ing the cause, but thirty-three out of thirty-seven patients ceased to 

 suffer on merely refraining from smoking on an empty stomach. 



A Leper Invasion of the United States. — It is reported 

 that many lepers are leaving the Sandv^fich Islands, as soon as the 

 disease manifests itself, in order to prevent being banished to the 

 island of Molokai. Mr. Putnam, cons'ul-general at Honolulu, be- 

 lieves the number of these emigrants to be considerable, and many 

 if not most of them flee to the United States. 



Race and Insanity. — In an article entitled ■ R ace and Insan- 

 ity,' published in the America7i Journal of Insanity, Drs. Bannis- 

 ter and Hektoen, physicians of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the 

 Insane, express the opinion that there is little doubt but that in- 

 sanity is influenced by race. From the statistics of three institu- 

 tions in which insane persons are treated they draw the following 

 conclusions: i. That in the white race the depressive types of men- 

 tal disease are most frequent in the Germanic and Scandinavian 

 peoples, and least so in the Celts : the reverse of this appears to be 

 the case as to the exalted or maniacal types. 2. That general 

 paralysis is not a disorder to which any race is immune, but one 

 that depends upon causes independent of racial or national pecul- 

 iarities. 3. That the well-known fact that insanity is much more 

 common amongst the foreign-born than amongst natives in this 

 country, is not to any great extent explainable by the shipment of 

 the defective classes of Europe to America. The ' cranks ' and 

 epileptics and other neurotic individuals do not appear to be rep- 

 resented, in due proportion even, amongst the foreigners in our 

 asylums. The cause of the excess of foreign-born insane in this 

 country is, it seems probable, to be looked for mainly m the fact, 

 that, supposing the immigration to include only its proportion of 

 persons below the average of mental strength and flexibility, the 

 change of scene and associations, the difficulties of beginning life 

 among them, disappointments, homesickness, and all the other 

 accidents and trials that befall the new-comers, together contribute 

 to break down mentally a vast number who under other circum- 

 stances would have escaped, and largely contribute to the mass of 

 insanity in this country. 



