SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
217 
subject whereof be treats. After reviewing the action of the Mobile Board 
of Health, which contended that the comparative exemption from yellow 
fever in that city was due to this disinfecting agency of carbolic acid, Pro- 
fessor Cochran says there is not a particle of reliable evidence to show that 
they have derived any benefit at all from all the carbolic acid scattered in 
their streets and yards. He contends that if carbolic acid has any power 
to destroy the infectious germs of yellow fever, it ought to exhibit that 
power most clearly where it has been most freely used. He shows that the 
City Hospital of Mobile has been more thoroughly disinfected than any 
other part of the city ; that the whole atmosphere in the vicinity has been 
saturated with it for weeks, and yet the protective virtues of disinfection 
have failed to check the progress of yellow fever in the hospital and vicinity, 
and have also failed to modify its type, while at other places in the city 
where disinfectants were not used there was no fever. He claims that in 
the experience of Mobile, time and money have been thrown away in the 
use of disinfecting agents. 
Examining the Remains of Petrarch , the Great Italian Poet. — A contem- 
porary states that the Italian Scientific Commission appointed to examine, 
from an anthropological point of view, the remains of the Italian poet 
Petrarch, and to publish the result of its observations at the centenary of 
the great poet, proceeded, we learn from “ La Nature,” in the beginning of 
December, to open the urn of red granite, amid a large gathering of people. 
The bones, instead of being contained in a coffin of wood or metal, were 
spread upon a simple plank, and were of an amber colour, moist, and partly 
mouldered. The cranium, of medium size, was intact, the frontal bone 
much developed. The jaws still contain many teeth, among which were a 
number of molars and incisors very well preserved. The orbits were very 
large. Nearly all the vertebrae and ribs were found. The bones of the 
pelvis were in good condition, as also the scapula, the humerus, and the 
other bones of the arms ; the apophyses of the femurs were very prominent. 
There was discovered also a quantity of small bones which probably com- 
posed the hands and the feet. The vestments were reduced to a dark 
powder. From the size and length of the bones, we may conclude that 
Petrarch was a man of middle height and robust constitution. 
The Hygienic Value of the American Liquor Laws . — It is stated in the 
a Boston Medical and Surgical Journal,” that the liquor law at present in force 
in Massachusetts has “produced nothing but opium-eating,* secret drinking, 
hypocrisy, black-mail, and State constables.” The law will probably be 
modified or repealed by the new legislature. 
METALLURGY, MINERALOGY, AND MINING. 
An Ingot of Palladium . — An ingot of this exceedingly rare metal was 
exhibited at "Vienna last summer, in the English Department. It was valued 
at 2,500 1., having been extracted from about 1,520,000/. (!) worth of platini- 
ferous gold. 
