438 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
could be passed through the furnace no black smoke could be formed at all, 
and the fuel would do nearly twice the work. With liquid fuel the opera- 
tion is easy, and the exhaust steam would suffice — but that, as I say, must 
be twenty years hence. 
MEDICAL. 
The Physiological Action of Extract of Meat . — If we are to believe the 
conclusions at which Herr Kemmerich has arrived, the extract of meat, 
which is now so generally employed by invalids, is an article of diet which 
has a very grave physiological action on the system, and which should not 
be taken in very large quantities. In fact, Herr Kemmerich would have us 
believe that Extractum Carnis must be looked on rather as a drug to be 
prescribed by the physician than as a form of food pure and simple. His 
first conclusion is, that in the smaller doses this preparation increases the 
number and strength of the heart’s contractions, but that in larger doses it acts 
as a poison, and kills with all the appearances of cardiac paralysis. In cases 
where the dose is very large and concentrated, death is extremely rapid, 
and the arrest of the heart’s action is accompanied with convulsions. The 
second conclusion arrived at’ is, that the active principle in' meat soup, 
which, in smaller doses, acts as an excitant, and in larger doses as a poison- 
ous agent, is to be found chiefly in the potash salts. Kemmerich took the 
exact quantity of flesh extract necessary to produce poisonous symptoms, 
and reduced it to a mere ash ; the solution of this ash produced almost exactly 
the same poisonous symptoms as the larger doses of flesh extract produced. 
It is well-known, however, from the most recent analysis, that the salts of 
flesh are made up to the extent of more than ninety per cent, of potash 
salts ; and it need not be mentioned that potash salts are distinctly de- 
pressive to the heart. The third conclusion, however, is, that the smaller 
and medium doses of potash salts are not able to produce the poisonous 
effects. On the contrary, from direct experiments, by injection under the 
skin, and by gastric administration of chlorate and sulphate of potash, both 
in dogs and man, Kemmerich determines that these lesser doses are excitant 
of the heart’s action. Kemmerich points out that the opposite results ob- 
tained by Traube may be explained by the fact, that (owing to his injecting 
into the external jugular vein) he threw into the coronary circulation a 
comparatively large and undiluted quantity of potash, which could scarcely 
be other than paralysing to the muscular tissues. — Vide The Practitioner, 
August. 
The Electrolysis of Tumours. — In a recent memoir M: Scoutetten shows 
that it is absurd to speak of the action of the galvanic current, in the removal 
of tumours, as an instance of electrolysis. ‘^Take, for instance,” saysM. Scou- 
tetten, a hydrocele tumour containing a hundred grammes of liquid. By 
passing through this a current from a medium-sized pair of Bunsen’s ele- 
ments, we may completely remove the tumour in the course of twenty minutes, 
or half an hour at the utmost. Could this have been achieved by electro- 
lysis ? No : firstly, because such a battery as that referred to could not 
decompose a greater quantity of water than 4| grammes in an hour ; and 
