Aug. 24, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



187 



nay more, divided nerves and tendons also are success- 

 fully united by suture. Thermal, chemical, and sea baths 

 have their appropriate domain assigned them. Cod-liver 

 oil and many concentrated foods, easy of assimilation 

 and rendered more so by the addition of digestives, have 

 come into use. Patients are no longer reduced by diet, 

 purging, and bleeding, or blindly over-stimulated with 

 alcohol, but a a dietary founded upon their requirements 

 is prescribed before and after operation. The therapeutic 

 advantages of change of scene and climate are fully taken 

 advantage of, as the means of locomotion have been im- 

 proved and cheapened. Of the innumerable new drugs 

 with which chemistry has endowed us many highly valu- 

 able ones have come into general use, while greater con- 

 centration and more elegance have been employed in 

 their manufacture. The surgical instrument maker has, 

 by his ingenuity and skill, simplified and improved the 

 surgical armamentarium, and for every purpose has 

 supplemented our manual dexterity. 



I have thus, in the limited time at my disposal, and to 

 the best of my power, noted the changes and improve- 

 ments in surgical theory and practice which have emerged 

 during the last half century. The task I set myself has 

 proved longer and more difficult than I anticipated, as 

 the harvest has been extraordinarily abundant. I am con- 

 scious of having omitted much from want of time and 

 knowledge ; but I trust I have succeeded in showing that 

 in every branch of the surgical art there has been a 

 wondrous advance, and that the profession to which we 

 belong marches in the very van of the great army, re- 

 cruited in all climes, whose aim it is to enlarge human 

 knowledge. Such a retrospect as 1 have attempted 

 makes us reverence a profession whose hope and ambi- 

 tion it has ever been to abate suffering without distinc- 

 tion of race or creed. We see how an abiding and 

 ever-increasing purpose has run through these long ages, 

 and that while we now rejoice at being no longer bound 

 by the authority and crude doctrines which shackled our 

 forefathers, we can yet honour the traditions of the past, 

 and appreciate the efforts of that great host of devoted 

 men who have by their unselfish labours built up the 

 famous temple of our art. 



♦^>*^^5«f^ ■ 



Visitors to Museums. — The Rev. H. H. Higgins 

 divides such visitors into three classes : students, obser- 

 vers, and loungers. Thestudents, who form, perhaps, 2 per 

 cent, of the total, are those who go with a definite pur- 

 pose, seeking the solutions of questions which have 

 occurred to them during reading or reflection. The 

 observers, who may range from 50 to 78 per cent, have 

 no conscious definite object, but fix their attention with 

 more or less intelligence on the specimens displayed, and 

 generally carry some knowledge away with them. The 

 loungers go to spend time, especially as the museums 

 are places which " one must have seen." They are 

 most numerous at South Kensington. 



The Production of Iron. — According to Dingier' s 

 Polytech. Journal, the mean annual production of iron in 

 the years 1880-1884, inclusive, has been, in Britain 4,275 

 kilos; in the United States, 4,674 ; in Belgium, 532 ; in 

 Germany, 3,181 ; and in France 2,164 kilos. During 

 these years the British production has been approxi- 

 mately stationary, that of Germany has increased 

 nearly 30 per cent., and that of France by about 10 per 

 cent. In Britain the maximum production was in 1883, 

 but in America and France in 1882. 



of papers, Hecturej*, etc* 



JUNIOR ENGINEERING SOCIETY. 

 On the 20th ult. a number of members of this Society 

 visited the Hampton and Kew Bridge stations of the 

 Grand Junction Water Works, through the kindness of 

 Mr. Fraser, engineer to the works. At the Hampton 

 station an explanation was given of the two systems in 

 operation there, viz., one for supplying London direct 

 with 800,000 to 1 million gallons of filtered water hourly, 

 and the other for passing 17 million gallons of unfiltered 

 water a day on to Kew. The engines, pumps, boilers, 

 etc., having been seen, the party proceeded outside to 

 the reservoirs and filter beds, one of which latter being 

 in course of reconstruction, the different layers of filter- 

 ing material and culverts were fortunately all exposed to 

 view. The Kew Bridge station is arranged to filter the 

 water received from Hampton, and also to filter about 

 600,000 gallons per hour, drawn direct from the river. 

 The pumps raise both supplies to a head of 150 feet. 

 The filter beds and reservoirs at Kew are on a larger 

 scale than those at Hampton, and the manager gave 

 an interesting explanation of the different operations 

 involved in charging, emptying, cleaning, and maintain- 

 ing them. The engines, pumps, etc., here also proved 

 of considerable interest. 



A visit to the works of the Southwark and City of 

 London Subway took place on the 27th ult., Mr. Great- 

 head, Engineer to the Company, having kindly granted 

 the necessary permission. The party met at the 

 Harleyford Street workings, Kennington Park, and after 

 descending the shaft where the passenger lifts will be 

 fitted, walked down one of the tunnels, which are 10 feet 

 in diameter, to the working face. Here the resident 

 engineer fully explained the ingenious arrangements 

 devised for driving the tunnel ; setting the segments of 

 the cast-iron rings composing it ; and for filling with 

 grouting of blue lias lime the small annular space left 

 between the tunnel cutting and lining. This last highly 

 important detail of the construction is successfully effected 

 by forcing the mixture by atmospheric pressure through 

 the holes left for the purpose in each segment. A vote 

 of thanks was accorded to Mr. Greathead and the resident 

 engineer at the conclusion of the visit. 



THE CAMBRIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL 

 ASSOCIATION. 

 The forty-third annual congress of the Welsh Archaeolo- 

 gical Association was opened by the Bishop of Llandaff, 

 the president-elect, on the 13th inst., at the Town Hall, 

 Cowbridge, who expressed the hope that the visit would 

 furnish them with ample materials for archagological 

 study. Among the various objects of antiquity which 

 were to be found within easy distance of their present 

 place of meeting there were some which would serve to 

 call their thoughts back to the time when the Druids 

 worshipped with their intricate and it was feared too 

 often cruel system in temples which consisted of nothing 

 more than a collection of colossal stones untouched by the 

 hammer or chisel of the workman, while at other spots 

 would be found remains more or less perfect of the 

 grand old abbey or more modest parish church, in which 

 the varying styles of Christian architecture followed 

 each other in succession, each in its own peculiar grace- 



