Chapter 9

This relation, though short, is to me of great importance. So long as I could not detect the gemiasmas in New Haven, I was very skeptical as to the presence of malaria in New Haven, as I thought there must be some mistake, it being a very good cloak to hide under (malaria). There is no doubt but that the name has covered lesions not belonging to it. But now the positive demonstrations above so briefly related show to my mind that the local profession have not been mistaken, and have sustained their high reputation.

I should say that I have examined a great deal of sputa, but, with the exception of cases that were malarious, I have not encountered the mature plants before. Of course I have found them as you did, in my own excretions as I was traveling over ague bogs.

[_To be continued_.]

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ICHTHYOL.

DR. P.G. UNNA, of Hamburg, has lately been experimenting on the dermato therapeutic uses of a substance called ichthyol, obtained by Herr Rudolph Schroter by the distillation of bituminous substances and treatment with condensed sulphuric acid. This body, though tar-like in appearance, and with a peculiar and disagreeable smell of its own, does not resemble any known wood or coal tar in its chemical and physical properties. It has a consistence like vaseline, and its emulsion with water is easily washed off the skin. It is partly soluble in alcohol, partly in ether with a changing and lessening of the smell, and totally dissolves in a mixture of both. It may be mixed with vaseline, lard, or oil in any proportions. Its chemical constitution is not well established, but it contains sulphur, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and also phosphorus in vanishing proportions, and it may be considered comparable with a 10 per cent, sulphur salve. Over ordinary sulphur preparations it has this advantage, that the sulphur is in very intimate and stable union, so that ichthyol can be united with lead and mercury preparations without decomposition. Ichthyol when rubbed undiluted on the normal skin does not set up dermatitis, yet it is a resolvent, and in a high degree a soother of pain and itching. In psoriasis it is a fairly good remedy, but inferior to crysarobin in P. inveterata. It is useful also locally in rheumatic affections as a resolvent and anodyne, in acne, and as a parasiticide. The most remarkable effects, however, were met with in eczema, which was cured in a surprisingly short time. From an experience in the treatment of thirty cases of different kinds--viz., obstinate circumscribed moist patches on the hands and arms, intensely itching papular eczema of the flexures and face, infantile moist eczemas, etc.--he recommends the following procedure. As with sulphur preparations, he begins with a moderately strong preparation, and as he proceeds reduces the strength of the application. For moist eczema weaker preparations (20 to 30 per cent. decreased to 10 per cent.) must be used than for the papular condition (50 per cent. reduced to 20 per cent.), and the hand, for example, will require a stronger application than the face, and children a weaker one than adults; but ichthyol may be used in any strength from a 5 per cent. to a 40 to 50 per cent. application or undiluted. For obstinate eczema of the hands the following formula is given as very efficacious: R. Lithargyri 10.0; coq.c. aceti, 30.0; ad reman. 20.0; adde olei olivar., adipis, aa 10.0; ichthyol 10.0, M. ft. ung. Until its internal effects are better known, caution is advised as to its very widespread application, although Herr Schroter has taken a gramme with only some apparent increase of peristalsis and appetite.--_Lancet_.

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AUTOPSY TABLE.

The illustration represents an autopsy table placed in the Coroner's Department of the New York Hospital, designed by George B. Post and Frederick C. Merry.

An amphitheater, fitted up for the convenience of the jury and those interested when inquests are held, surrounds the table, which is placed in the center of the floor, thus enabling the subject to be viewed by the coroner's jury and other officials who may be present.

The mechanical construction of this table will be readily understood by the following explanation:

The top, indicated by letter, A, is made of thick, heavy, cast glass, concaved in the direction of the strainer, as shown. It is about eight feet long and two feet and six inches wide, in one piece, an opening being left in the center to receive the strainer, so as to allow the fluid matter of the body, as well as the water with which it is washed, to find its way to the waste pipe below the table, and thus avoid soiling or staining the floor,

The strainer is quite large, with a downward draught which passes through a large flue, as shown by letter, F, connected above the water seal of the waste trap and trunk of the table to the chimney of the boiler house, as indicated by the arrows, carrying down all offensive odors from the body, thereby preventing the permeating of the air in the room.

The base of the table, indicated by letter, B, represents a ground swinging attachment, which enables the turning of the table in any direction.

D represents the cold water supply cock and handle, intersecting with letter, E, which is the hot water cock, below the base, as shown, and then upward to a swing or ball joint, C, then crossing under the plate glass top to the right with a hose attachment for the use of the operator. Here a small hose pipe is secured, for use as may be required in washing off all matter, to insure the clean exposure of the parts to be dissected. The ball swing, C, enables the turning of the table in any direction without disturbing the water connections. This apparatus has been in operation since the building of the hospital in 1876, and has met all the requirements in connection with its uses.--_Hydraulic Plumber_.

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THE EXCITING PROPERTIES OF OATS.

Experiments have been recently made by Mr. Sanson with a view to settling the question whether oats have or have not the excitant property that has been attributed to them. The nervous and muscular excitability of horses was carefully observed with the aid of graduated electrical apparatus before and after they had eaten a given quantity of oats, or received a little of a certain principle which Mr. Sanson succeeded in isolating from oats. The chief results of the inquiry are as follows: The pericarp of the fruit of oats contains a substance soluble in alcohol and capable of exciting the motor cells of the nervous system. This substance is not (as some have thought) vanilline or the odorous principle of vanilla, nor at all like it. It is a nitrogenized matter which seems to belong to the group of alkaloids; is uncrystallizable, finely granular, and brown in mass. The author calls it "avenine." All varieties of cultivated oats seem to elaborate it, but they do so in very different degrees. The elaborated substance is the same in all varieties. The differences in quantity depend not only on the variety of the plant but also on the place of cultivation. Oats of the white variety have much less than those of the dark, but for some of the former, in Sweden, the difference is small; while for others, in Russia, it is considerable. Less than 0.9 of the excitant principle per cent. of air-dried oats, the dose is insufficient to certainly affect the excitability of horses, but above this proportion the excitant action is certain. While some light-colored oats certainly have considerable excitant power, some dark oats have little. Determination of the amount of the principle present is the only sure basis of appreciation, though (as already stated) white oats are likely to be less exciting than dark. Crushing or grinding the grain weakens considerably the excitant property, probably by altering the substance to which it is due; the excitant action is more prompt, but much less strong and durable. The action, which is immediate and more intense with the isolated principle, does not appear for some minutes after the eating of oats; in both cases it increases to a certain point, then diminishes and disappears. The total duration of the effect is stated to be an hour per kilogramme of oats ingested.

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FILARIA DISEASE.

The rapid strides which our knowledge has made during the past few years in the subject of the filaria parasite have been mainly owing to the diligent researches of Dr. Patrick Manson, who continues to work at the question. In the last number of the _Medical Reports for China_, Dr. Manson deals with the phenomenon known as "filarial periodicity," and with the fate of embryo parasites not removed from the blood. The intimate pathology of the disease, and the subject of abscess caused by the death of the parent filaria, also receive further attention. An endeavor to explain the phenomenon of "filarial periodicity" by an appeal to the logical "method of concomitant variations" takes Manson into an interesting excursion which is not productive of any positive results; nor is any more certain conclusion come to with regard to the fate of the embryos which disappear from the blood during the day time. Manson does not incline to the view that there is a diurnal intermittent reproduction of embryos with a corresponding destruction. An original and important speculation is made with respect to the intimate pathology of elephantiasis, chyluria, and lymph scrotum, which is thoroughly worthy of consideration. Our readers are probably aware that the parent filaria and the filaria sanguinis hominis may exist in the human body without entailing any apparent disturbance. The diameter of an embryo filaria is about the same as that of a red blood disk, one three-thousandth of an inch. The dimensions of an ovum are one seven-hundred-and-fiftieth by one five-hundredth of an inch. If we imagine the parent filaria located in a distal lymphatic vessel to abort and give birth to ova instead of embryos, it may be understood that the ova might be unable to pass such narrow passages as the embryo could, and this is really the hypothesis which Manson has put forward on the strength of observations made on two cases. The true pathology of the elephantoid diseases may thus be briefly summarized: A parent filaria in a distant lymphatic prematurely expels her ova; these act as emboli to the nearest lymphatic glands, whence ensues stasis of lymph, regurgitation of lymph, and partial compensation by anastomoses of lymphatic vessels; this brings about hypertrophy of tissues, and may go on to lymphorrhoea or chyluria, according to the site of the obstructed lymphatics. It may be objected that too much is assumed in supposing that the parent worm is liable to miscarry. But as Manson had sufficient evidence in two cases that such abortions had happened, he thinks it is not too much to expect their more frequent occurrence. The explanation given of the manner in which elephantoid disease is produced applies to most, if not all, diseases, with one exception, which result from the presence of the parasite in the human body. The death of the parent parasite in the afferent lymphatic may give rise to an abscess, and the frequency with which abscess of the scrotum or thigh is met with in Chinese practice is, in Manson's opinion, attributable to this. Dr. Manson's report closes with an account of a case of abscess of the thigh, with varicose inguinal glands, in which fragments of a mature worm were discovered in the contents of the abscess.--_Lancet_.

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THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.

(_M. chimæra_.)

Of all orchids no genus we can just now call to mind is more distinct or is composed of species more widely divergent in size, form, structure, and color than is this one of Masdevallia. It was founded well nigh a century ago by Ruiz and Pavon on a species from Mexico, M. uniflora. which, so far as I know, is nearly if not quite unknown to present day cultivators. When Lindley wrote his "Genera and Species" in 1836, three species of Masdevallias only were known to botanists but twenty-five years later, when he prepared his "Folio Orchidaceæ," nearly forty species were; known in herbaria, and to-day perhaps fully a hundred kinds are grown in our gardens, while travelers tell us of all the gorgeous beauties which are known to exist high up on the cloud-swept sides of the Andes and Cordilleras of the New World. The Masdevallia is confined to the Western hemisphere alone, and as in bird and animal distribution, so in the case of many orchids we find that when any genus is confined to one hemisphere, those who look for another representative genus in the other are rarely disappointed. Thus hornbills in the East are represented by toucans in the West, and the humming bird of the West by the sunbird of the East, and so also in the Malayan archipelago. Notably in Borneo we find bolbophyls without pseudo bulbs, and with solitary or few flowered scapes and other traits singularly suggestive at first sight of the Western Masdevallia. Thus some bolbophyl, for example, have caudal appendages to their sepals, as in Masdevallias, and on the other hand some Masdevallias have their labellums hinged and oscillatory, which is so commonly the case as to be "almost characteristic" in the genus Bolbophyllum or Sarcopodium. Speaking generally, Masdevallias, coming as most of them do from high altitudes, lend themselves to what is now well known as "cool treatment," and cultivators find it equally necessary to offer them moisture in abundance both at the root and in the atmosphere, also seeing that when at home in cloud-land they are often and well nigh continually drenched by heavy dews and copious showers.

Of all the cultivated Masdevallias, none are so weirdly strange and fascinating as is the species M. chimæra, which is so well illustrated in the accompany engraving. This singular plant was discovered by Benedict Roezl, and about 1872 or 1873 I remember M. Lucien Linden calling upon me one day, and among other rarities showing me a dried flower of this species. I remember I took up a pen and rapidly made a sketch of the flower, which soon after appeared (1873, p. 3) in _The Florist_, and was perhaps the first published figure of the plant. It was named by Professor Reichenbach, who could find for it no better name than that of the mythical monster Chimæra, than which, as an old historian tells us, no stranger bogy ever came out of the earth's inside. Our engraving shows the plant about natural size, and indicates the form and local coloring pretty accurately. The ground color is yellowish, blotched with lurid brownish crimson, the long pendent tails being blood color, and the interior of the sepals are almost shaggy. The spectral appearance of the flower is considerably heightened by the smooth, white, slipper-like lip, which contrasts so forcibly in color and texture with the lurid shagginess around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in describing this species in the _Botanical Magazine_, t. 6, 152, says that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in a rage, and certainly the likeness is a close one.

Grown in shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a partially shaded structure, all the chimæroid section of Masdevallia succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as they have a Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at all sorts of deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will show that for convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower with a stick, this much arrangement being a necessity, so as to enable the tails to lie diagonally across the picture. From tip to tip the flower represented is 9 inches, or not so much by 7 inches as the flower measured in Messrs. Backhouse's nursery at York.--_The Garden_.

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SURVEY OF THE BLACK CAÑON.

It is rumored again that a survey is soon to be made through the heaviest portion of the Black Canon of the Gunnison. For a long distance the walls of syenite rise to the stupendous height of 3,000 feet, and for 1,800 feet the walls of the cañon are arched not many feet from the bed of the river. If the survey is successful, and the Denver and Rio Grande is built through the cañon, it will undoubtedly be the grandest piece of engineering on the American continent. The river is very swift, and it is proposed to build a boat at the western end, and provision it for a length of time, allowing it to float with the stream, but controlled by ropes. If the boat goes, the chances are that the baby road goes, too.--_Gunnison (Colo.) Review_.

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THE ANCIENT MISSISSIPPI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

[Footnote: This lecture was delivered in the Chapel of the State University, at Columbia, as an inaugural address on January 10, 1883, and illustrated by projections. The author has purposely avoided the very lengthy details of scientific observation by which the conclusions have been arrived at relating to the former wonderful condition of the Mississippi, and the subsequent changes to its present form: as a consideration of them would not only cause him to go beyond the allotted time, but might, perhaps, prove tiresome.]

By J. W. SPENCER, B.A.Sc., Ph.D., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the State University of Missouri.

Physical geology is the science which deals with the past changes of the earth's crust, and the causes which have produced the present geographical features, everywhere seen about us. The subject of the present address must therefore be considered as one of geology rather than of geography, and I propose to trace for you the early history of the great Mississippi River, of which we have only a diminished remnant of the mightiest river that ever flowed over any terrestrial continent.

By way of introduction, I wish you each to look at the map of our great river, with its tributaries as we now see it, draining half of the central portion of the continent, but which formerly drained, in addition, at least two of our great lakes, and many of the great rivers at the present time emptying into the colder Arctic Sea.

Let us go back, in time, to the genesis of our continent. There was once a time in the history of the earth when all the rocks were in a molten condition, and the waters of our great oceans in a state of vapor, surrounding the fiery ball. Space is intensely cold. In course of time the earth cooled off, and on the cold, solid crust geological agencies began to work. It is now conceded by the most accomplished physicists that the location of the great continents and seas was determined by the original contraction and cooling of the earth's crust; though very greatly modified by a long succession of changes, produced by the agencies of "water, air, heat, and cold," through probably a hundred million of years, until the original rock surface of the earth has been worked over to a depth of thirty or forty miles.

Like human history, the events of these long _æons_ are divided into periods. The geologist divides the past history of the earth and its inhabitants into five Great Times; and these, again, into ages, periods, epochs, and eras.

At the close of the first Great Time--called Archæan--the continent south of the region of the great lakes, excepting a few islands, was still submerged beneath a shallow sea, and therefore no portion of the Mississippi was yet in existence. At the close of the second great geological Time--the Palæozoic--the American continent had emerged sufficiently from the ocean bed to permit the flow of the Ohio, and of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the former river, although they were not yet united.

Throughout the third great geological Time--the Mesozoic--these rivers grew in importance, and the lowest portions of the Missouri began to form a tributary of some size. Still the Ohio had not united with the Mississippi, and both of these rivers emptied into an arm of the Mexican Gulf, which then reached to a short distance above what is now their junction.

In point of time, the Ohio is probably older than the Mississippi, but the latter river grew and eventually absorbed the Ohio as a tributary.

In the early part of the fourth great geological Time--the Cenozoic--nearly the whole continent was above water. Still the Gulf of Mexico covered a considerable portion of the extreme Southern States, and one of its bays extended as far north as the mouth of the Ohio, which had not yet become a tributary of the Mississippi. The Missouri throughout its entire length was at this time a flowing river.

I told you that the earth's crust had been worked over to a depth of many miles since geological time first commenced. Subsequently, I have referred to the growth of the continent in different geological periods. All of our continents are being gradually worn down by the action of rains, rills, rivulets, and rivers, and being deposited along the sea margins, just as the Mississippi is gradually stretching out into the Gulf, by the deposition of the muds of the delta. This encroachment on the Gulf of Mexico may continue, yea, doubtless will, until that deep body of water shall have been filled up by the remains of the continent, borne down by the rivers; for the Mississippi alone carries annually 268 cubic miles of mud into the Gulf, according to Humphreys and Abbot. This represents the valley of the Mississippi losing one foot off its whole surface in 6,000 years. And were this to continue without any elevation of the land, the continent would all be buried beneath the sea in a period of about four and a half million years. But though this wasting is going on, the continent will not disappear, for the relative positions of the land and water are constantly changing; in some cases the land is undergoing elevation, in others, subsidence. Prof. Hilgard has succeeded in measuring known changes of level, in the lower Mississippi Valley, and records the continent as having been at least 450 feet higher than at present (and if we take the coast survey soundings, it seems as if we might substitute 3,000 feet as the elevation), and subsequently at more than 450 feet lower, and then the change back to the present elevation.

Let us now study the history of the great river in the last days of the Cenozoic Time, and early days of the fifth and last great Geological Time, in which we are now living--the Quaternary, or Age of Man--an epoch which I have called _the "Great River Age_."

It is to the condition of the Mississippi during this period and its subsequent changes to its present form that I wish particularly to call your attention. During the Great River age we know that the eastern coast of the continent stood at least 1,200 feet higher than at present. The region of the Lower Mississippi was also many hundred feet higher above the sea level than now. Although we have not the figures for knowing the exact elevation of the Upper Mississippi, yet we have the data for knowing that it was very much higher than at the present day.

_The Lower Mississippi_, from the Gulf to the mouth of the Ohio River, was of enormous size flowing through a valley with an average width of about fifty miles, though varying from about twenty-five to seventy miles.