742 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
considers a legitimate occupation during physiological ex¬ 
periments; he does not, however, suggest the same caution 
in regard to chewing .—Chemical News. 
Curious Medical Facts. —Dr. Kidd says it is a curious 
thing that life among the Arabs is of a more healthy kind 
than the life of the selfsame Arabs brought into town (even 
the Spahis in Paris got sick lately till encamped along with 
their horses and cows), and the reason has only leaked out 
gradually. Such Arabs have no disease like measles or 
smallpox that, amongst the Chinese to wit, either renders 
blind or kills 30 per cent, of the population. The Arabs lie 
asleep with their horses and oxen. The grease/^ a peculiar 
disease of horses, gives cowpox to the cows, and this latter 
saves the Arab children from smallpox. Measles is another 
disease, as well as consumption, that they escape. Some 
striking facts go to show that measles arise from feathers 
and straw used in nurseries for children. Seventy per cent, 
of the cases spread and arise by infection, so this the Arabs 
escape. Consumption again is a disease unknown amongst 
Arabs, living in the open air; it is a disease as certainly 
arising from bad ventilation in close rooms as that the sun 
rises in the East, or that our Irish workhouses are nurseries 
of this fell disease. It is now believed that tobacco is less 
injurious to the world than sugar, as the latter is the root of 
a series of diseases ending in rheumatism and diseased heart. 
Estimation of Sugar in Beer. —By means of the 
dialyser of Mr. Graham, the quantity of saccharine matter in 
beer may be ascertained. For this purpose, a certain quan¬ 
tity of beer is introduced into the dialyser, and in a few days 
all the sugar will be found in the external liquid, separated 
from the gummy and other principles. 
New Green Pigment. —Of all colours, green seems to 
be most agreeable to the human eye. But since the justly 
denounced use of the arsenite of copper, this colour has been 
only rarely employed for wall papers, &c. M. Plessy states 
that a chrome-green may be obtained by dissolving one part 
of bichromate of potash in 10 parts of boiling water, adding 
to this three litres of biphosphate of lime, and then 1*250 
kilogrammes of brown sugar. The precipitate, he says, con¬ 
tains no poisonous substance, is unalterable in the sun, and 
sulphuretted hydrogen and acids do not act on it. More¬ 
over, it may be used either as a water or oil-colour. 
