THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
155 
THE 
Young Scientist. 
A Practical Journal for Amateurs. 
(With which are incorporated " The Technolo- 
gist," "'The Industeial Monthly," 
aud Home Aets.") 
PUBLISHED 3I0NTHLY AT PER YEAR. 
EDITOES. 
FEED. T. HODGSON. 
JOHN PHIN. 
Adveetisements.— The Young Scientist has 
found its way into the very best homes, and its 
subscribers are as a general rule, of the buying 
class. It therefore offers special inducements to 
those who have anything good to offer. 
Bates: 30 cents per line, agate measure. Lib- 
eral discounts on large and continued advertise- 
ments. No Humbugs, Patent Medicines, or 
"Blind " advertisements inserted at any price. 
Published by 
THE INDUSTRIAL PUBLICATION CO.. 
49 Maiden Lane. New York. 
A Danger and Us Remedy. 
EECENT issue of the London 
Lancet contains a long warning 
in regard to the toy known as 
the "puff and dart." The toy 
is a very old one, and consists of a long- 
tube, through which a dart or pellet is 
forcibly propelled by the breath. The 
Lancet claims that practice does not 
diminish the danger which attends its use, 
for which assertion the following reasons 
are given : 
"A deep breath must be drawn before 
blowing into the tube, and it is extremely 
likely that this will not be concluded 
when the tube reaches the mouth in the 
act of applying it quickly. Again, any 
person may be seized with a fit of cough- 
ing on the first effort to exjnre, and the 
dart is, under these circumstances, ex- 
tremely likely to be drawn into tlie mouth, 
and to pass into the larynx. If it does so 
enter, it is probable that it will go far in, 
as the worsted padding will form a soft 
plug; and the needle-point being out- 
wards, the next expiratory effort is almost 
sure to drive it into the wall of the larynx 
or bronchial tube, rendering extraction 
exceedingly difficult, if not altogether im- 
practicable. In two of the cases which 
Dr. Bruce has described death ensued 
after much suffering. It is a peculiarly 
melancholy and distressing death to die, 
this slow killing by a foreign body in the 
lung, and the distress of patient and 
friends is necessarily greatly enhanced by 
the reflection that the pain and loss of 
life have been the results of recklessness. 
Surely, such toys as this ai)paratus of 
' puff and dart ' ought not to be sold to 
children, and should be abandoned by 
adults. The ordinary x^ea-shooter is a 
foolish instrument of the same class, 
though not, of course, so deadly in case 
of accident, as the pea is small and round, 
and may be coughed up ; but there are 
cases on record in which even so small a 
body as a pea has caused death by being 
gradually drawn into a small bronchial 
tube, where it has acted as a ' pea valve,' 
passing a little further in witli each deep 
or prolonged inspiration, until the air has 
been wholly pumped out of the lung be- 
hind it ; and disease has been set up in 
consequence, partly by its pneumatic ef- 
fects on the organ, and partly by the irri- 
tation and inflammation its presence has 
set up. Life is sufficiently beset with 
perils which are unavoidable. It is need- 
less to make new dangers, and it is partic- 
ularly silly to do so when there is really 
very little, if any, amusement to be got 
out of the diversion to which the peril is 
attached. We trust the ]:)erils of ' puff 
and dart ' may be made extensively 
known by our readers, and that the fool- 
ish game, with its dangerous apparatus, 
may quickly fall into disrepute, as it is 
not' worth the risk run." 
That the Lancet does not exaggerate the 
danger of " puff and dart" we fully be- 
lieve, but as it will be almost impossible 
to abolish the use of this toy, we would 
suggest that all manufacturers and deal- 
ers should be compelled to place cross 
wires in the end of the tube next the 
mouth. In this way a free passage may 
be secured for the propelling air, while 
there can be no danger of the dart pass- 
ing backwards into the lungs. 
Those of our readers who may have oc- 
casion to write to advertisers for circu- 
lars, samples, or other information, will 
do us a great favor, and advance the in- 
terests of the Young Scientist, by men- 
tioning our paper. 
The good work goes on apace. Every 
day adds new names to our list, and thus 
the circle grows larger. We are never 
tired of receiving new names, new auto- 
graphs, new friends. All are welcome to 
our ranks, and we trust that each one 
whose name we have now entered on our 
