NEWS AND SUNDRIES. 
329 
current, and thereby exposing it to the influence of nascent oxygen 
by which means the water would be dezymotized. This sugges¬ 
tion of Dr. Dobell’s seems to have been forestalled by the con¬ 
struction of a filter invented by Dr. Stephen H. Emmons, which 
is now on view at the offices of the Economic Electric Company in 
London. The filter consists of an earthenware vessel, in which 
are placed porous cells containing carbon plates, the spaces between 
the plates and the cells being partially filled with animal charcoal. 
The plates are coupled up with the positive pole of the Leclanehe 
battery or of one of the company’s own chromozone batteries. 
Alternating with the porous cells are other carbon plates, which 
are coupled up with the negative pole of the battery. The water 
is supplied into the porous cells, and passes through the charcoal 
to the exterior of the cells, and is drawn off by a tap in the usual 
way. It is claimed, that by this means, the water being submitted 
to the influence of the evolved nascent oxygen, as suggested by 
Dr. Dobell, the materies morbi of typhoid, cholera, and similar 
disease are destroyed, and that an end is put to the dreaded danger 
of ‘ death in the pot.’— Science. 
Typhoid from Manure. —In a communication to the Lancet , 
Mr. Lawrence puts forward the theory that typhoid fever is 
capable of being set up de novo by bovine evacuations. In support 
of it he cites a number of cases that came under his observation 
while practicing medicine in South Africa, in which, although the 
sparse population was favorable to the tracing of infection, no 
connection with a previously-existing case of typhoid could be 
detected, while there was always evidence of the access of cattle- 
manure to the drinking water. In no case was he able to ascribe 
the disease to horse-manure or to sheep-manure, the latter of which, 
at the large sheep farms of the Boers, is said to lie in enormous 
quantities close by their dwelling-houses. It certainly is a curious 
fact, as pointed out by Mr. Lawrence, that many typhoid epidemics, 
of which the history has been traced to this country, have origin¬ 
ated from dairies, although this has hitherto usually been attribu¬ 
ted to the great susceptibility of milk to contract contamination. 
—Farm and Fireside. 
