Chapter 8

"In those places where infectious diseases, according to experience, are prevalent and unusually severe and frequent, it is necessary to abstain as much as possible from the employment of water taken from without the ship for cleansing said vessel, and also for washing out the hold when the water of the sea or of a river, in the judgment of the commander of a vessel, confirmed by the statement of the physician, is shown to be surcharged with organic matter liable to putrefaction. With this end in view, if you are unable to send elsewhere for suitable water, you must make use of good and fresh water, but with the greatest economy. In that event the purification of the hold must be accomplished by mechanical means or by disinfectants."

"As I have demonstrated by my investigations that in the distillation of paludal water, and that from the marshy shores of the sea, the Limnophysalis hyalina, which is impalpable, is carried away and may be detected again after the distillation, it must be insisted that the water intended to be used for drinking on shipboard shall be carefully filtered before and after its distillation."

The Klebs-Tommasi and Dr. Sternberg's report, as summarized in the Supplement No. 14, National Board of Health Bulletin, Washington, D.C., July 18, I would cordially recommend to all students of this subject.

I welcome these observers into the field. Nothing but good can come from such careful and accurate observations into the cause of disease. For myself I am ready to say that it may be that the Roman gentlemen have bit on the cause of the Roman fever, which is of such a pernicious type. I do not see how I can judge, as I never investigated the Roman fever; still, while giving them all due credit, and treating them with respect, in order to put myself right I may say that I have long ago ceased to regard all the bacilli, micrococci, and bacteria, etc., as ultimate forms of animal or vegetable life. I look upon them as simply the embryos of mature forms, which are capable of propagating themselves in this embryonal state. I have observed these forms in many diseased conditions; many of them in one disease are nothing but the vinegar yeast developing, away from the air, in the blood where the full development of the plant is not apt to be found. In diphtheria I developed the bacteria to the full form--the Mucor malignans. So in the study of ague, for the vegetation which seems to me to be connected with ague, I look to the fully developed sporangias as the true plant.

Again, I think that crucial experiments should be made on man for his diseases as far as it is possible. Rabbits, on which the experiments were made, for example, are of a different organization and food than man, and bear tests differently. While there are so many human beings subject to ague, it seems to me they should be the subjects on whom the crucial tests are to be made, as I did in my labors.

As far as I can see, Dr. Sternberg's inquiries tend to disprove the Roman experiments, and as he does not offer anything positive as a cause of ague, I can only express the hope that he will continue his investigations with zeal and earnestness, and that he will produce something positive and tangible in his labors in so interesting and important a field.

I would then that all would join hands in settling the cause of this disease; and while I do not expect that all will agree with me, still, I shall respect others' opinions, and so long as I keep close to my facts I shall hope my views, based on my facts, will not be treated with disrespect.

APPENDIX.

Gemiasma verdans and Gemiasma rubra collected Sept. 10, 1882, on Washington Heights, near High Bridge. The illustrations show the manner in which the mature plants discharge their contents.

Plate VIII. A, B, and C represent very large plants of the Gemiasma verdans. A represents a mature plant. B represents the same plant, discharging its spores and spermatia through a small opening in the cell walls. The discharge is quite rapid but not continuous, being spasmodic, as if caused by intermittent contractions in the cell walls. The discharge begins suddenly and with considerable force--a sort of explosion which projects a portion of the contents rapidly and to quite a little distance. This goes on for a few seconds, and then the cell is at rest for a few seconds, when the contractions and explosions begin again and go on as before. Under ordinary conditions it takes a plant from half an hour to an hour to deliver itself. It is about two-thirds emptied. C represents the mature plant, entirely emptied of its spore contents, there remaining inside only a few actively moving spermatia, which are slowly escaping. The spermatia differ from the spores and young plants in being smaller, and of possessing the power of moving and tumbling about rapidly, while the spores of young plants are larger and quiescent. D, E, F, and G represent mature plants belonging to the Gemiasma rubra. D represents a ripe plant, filled with spores, embryonic plants, and spermatia. E represents a ripe plant in the act of discharging its contents, it being about half emptied. F represents a ripe plant after its spore and embryonic plant contents are all discharged, leaving behind only a few actively moving spermatia, which are slowly escaping. G represents the emptied plant in a quiescent state.

Figs. A, B, C represent an unusually large variety of the Gemiasma verdans. This species is usually about the size of the rubra. This large variety was found on the upper part of New York Island, near High Bridge, in a natural depression where the water stands most of the year, except in July, August, and September, when it becomes an area of drying, cracked mud two hundred feet across. As the mud dries these plants develop in great profusion, giving an appearance to the surface as if covered thickly with brick dust.

These depressions and swaily places, holding water part of the year, and becoming dry during the malarial season, can be easily dried by means of covered drains, and grassed or sodded over, when they will cease to grow; this vegetation and ague in such localities will disappear.

The malarial vegetations begin to develop moderately in July, but do not spring forth abundantly enough to do much damage till about the middle of August, when they in ague localities spring into existence in vast multitudes, and continue to develop in great profusion till frost comes.

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ANALYSIS OF THE MALARIA PLANT (GEMIASMA RUBRA).

By Prof Paulus F. Reinsch.

Author Algæ of France, 1866; Latest Observations on Algology, 1867; Chemical Investigation of the Connections of the Lias and Jura Formations, 1859; Chemical Investigation of the Viscum Album, 1860; Contributions to Algology and Fungology, 1874-75, vol. i.; New Investigation of the Microscopic Structure of Pit Coal, 1881; Micrographic Photographs of the Structure and Composition of Pit Coal, 1888.

Dr. Cutter writes me September 28, 1882: "My dear Professor: By this mail I send you a specimen of the Gemiasma rubra of Salisbury, described in 1862, as found in bogs, mud holes, and marshes of ague districts, in the air suspended at night, in the sputa, blood, and urine, and on the skin of persons suffering with ague. It is regarded as one of the Palmellaceæ. This rubra is found in the more malignant and fatal types of the disease. I have found it in all the habitats described by Dr. Salisbury. Both he and myself would like you to examine and hear what you have to say about it."

The substance of clayish soil contains, besides fragments of shells of larger diatoms (Suriella synhedra), shells of Navicula minutissima, Pinnularia viridis. Spores belonging to various cryptogams.

1. Spherical transparent spores with laminated covering and dark nucleus--0.022 millimeter in diameter.

2. Spherical spores with thick covering of granulated surface.

3. Spherical spores with punctulated surface--0.007 millimeter in diameter.

4. Very minute, transparent, bluish-greenish colored spores, with thin covering and finely granulated contents--0.006 millimeter in diameter.

5. Chroococcoid cells with two larger nuclei--0.0031 millimeter in diameter. Sometimes biciliated minute cells are found; without any doubt they are zoospores derived from any algoid or fungoid species.

I cannot say whether there exists any genetic connection between these various sorts of spores. It seems to me that probably numbers 1-4 represent resting states of the hyphomycetes.

No. 5 represents one and two celled states of chroococcus species belong to Chroococcus minutus.

The crust of the clayish earth is covered with a reddish brown covering of about half a millimeter in thickness. This covering proves to be composed, under the microscope, of cellular filaments and various shaped bodies of various composition. They are made up of cells with densely and coarsely granulated reddish colored contents--shape, size, and composition are very variable, as shown in the figures. _The cellular bodies make up the essential organic part of the clayish substance, and, without any doubt, if anything of the organic compounds of the substance is in genetical connection with the disease, these bodies would have this role_. The structure and coloration of cell contents exhibit the closest alliance to the characteristics of the division of Chroolepideæ and of this small division of Chlorophyllaceous Algæ, nearest to Gongrosira--a genus whose five to six species are inhabitants of fresh water, mostly attached to various minute aquatic Algæ and mosses. Each cell of all the plants of this genus produces a large number of mobile cells--zoospores.

Fig. 9 represents very probably one zoospore developed from these plants as figured from 10 to 16.

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CARBON.

M. Berthelot, in the _Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie_ for March, states that from peculiar physical relations he is led to suspect that the true element carbon is unknown, and that diamond and graphite are substances of a different order. Elementary carbon ought to be gaseous at the ordinary temperature, and the various kinds of carbon which occur in nature are in reality polymerized products of the true element carbon. Spectrum analysis is thought to confirm this view; and it is supposed the second spectrum seen in a Geissler tube belongs to gaseous carbon. This spectrum, which has been recognized along with that of hydrogen in the light of the tails of comets, indicates a carbide, probably acetylene.

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CANNED MEATS.

By P. CARLES.

When tinned iron serves for containing alimentary matters, it is essential that the tin employed should be free from lead. The latter metal is rapidly oxidized on the surface and is dissolved in this form in the neutral acids of vegetables, meat, etc. The most exact method of demonstrating the presence of lead consists in treating the alloy--so-called tin--with _aqua regia_ containing relatively little nitric acid. The whole dissolves; the excess of acid is driven off by evaporation at a boiling heat, and the residue, diluted with water, is saturated with hydrogen sulphide. The iron remains in solution, while the mixed lead and tin sulphides precipitated are allowed to digest for a long time in an alkaline sulphide. The tin sulphide only dissolves; it is filtered off and converted into stannic acid, while the lead sulphide is transformed into sulphate and weighed as such.

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NEW BLEACHING PROCESS, WITH REGENERATION OF THE BATHS USED.

By MR. BONNEVILLE.

To a cold solution containing 1 per cent. of bromine, 1 per cent. of caustic soda at 36° B. is added, then the material, to be bleached is first wet and then immersed in this bath until completely decolorized. It is passed into a newly-acidulated bath, rinsed, and dried. After the bromine bath has been used up, it is regenerated by adding 1 per cent. of sulphuric acid, which liberates the bromine. To the same bath caustic soda is added, which regenerates the hypobromite of soda. The hydrofluosilicic acid can be used, instead of the sulphuric acid, with greater advantage. A bath used up can also be regenerated by means of the electric current.

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DETECTION OF MAGENTA, ARCHIL, AND CUDBEAR IN WINE.

These colors are not suitable for converting white wine into red, but they can be used for giving wines a faint red tint, for darkening pale red wines, and in making up a factitious bouquet essence, which is added to red wines. The most suitable methods for the detection of magenta are those given by Romei and Falieres-Ritter. If a wine colored with archil and one colored with cudbear are treated treated according to Romei's method, the former gives, with basic lead acetate, a blue, and the latter a fine violet precipitate. The filtrate, if shaken up with amylic alcohol, gives it in either case a red color. A knowledge of this fact is important, or it may be mistaken for magenta. The behavior of the amylic alcohol, thus colored red, with hydrochloric acid and ammonia is characteristic. If the red color is due to magenta, it is destroyed by both these reagents, while hydrocholoric acid does not decolorize the solutions of archil and cudbear, and ammonia turns their red color to a purple violet. If the wine is examined according to the Falieres-Ritter method in presence of magenta, ether, when shaken up with the wine, previously rendered ammoniacal, remains colorless, while if archil or cudbear is present the ether is colored red. Wartha has made a convenient modification in the Falieres-Ritter method by adding ammonia and ether to the concentrated wine while still warm. If the red color of the wool is due to archil or cudbear, it is extracted by hydrochloric acid, which is colored red. Ammonia turns the color to a purple violet. König mixed 50 c.c. wine with ammonia in slight excess, and places in the mixture about one-half grm. clean white woolen yarn. The whole is then boiled in a flask until all the alcohol and the excess of ammonia are driven off. The wool taken out of the liquid and purified by washing in water and wringing is moistened in a test-tube with pure potassa lye at 10 per cent. It is carefully heated till the wool is completely dissolved, and the solution, when cold, is mixed first with half its volume of pure alcohol, upon which is carefully poured the same volume of ether, and the whole is shaken. The stratum of ether decanted off is mixed in a test-tube with a drop of acetic acid. A red color appears if the slightest trace of magenta is present. The shaking must not be too violent, lest an emulsion should be formed. If the wine is colored with archil, on prolonged heating, after the addition of ammonia, it is decolorized. If it is then let cool and shaken a little, the red color returns. If the wool is taken out of the hot liquid after the red color has disappeared, and exposed to the air, it takes a red color. But if it is quickly taken out of the liquid and at once washed, there remains merely a trace of color in the wool. If these precautions are observed, magenta can be distinguished from archil with certainty according to König's method. As the coloring-matter of archil is not precipitated by baryta and magnesia, but changed to a purple, the baryta method, recommended by Pasteur, Balard, and Wurtz, and the magnesia test, are useless. Magenta may in course of time be removed by the precipitates formed in the wine. It is therefore necessary to test not merely the clear liquid, but the sediment, if any.--_Dr. B. Haas, in Budermann's Centralblatt.--Analyst_.

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PANAX VICTORIÆ.

Panax Victoriæ is a compact and charming plant, which sends up numbers of stems from the bottom in place of continually growing upward and thus becoming ungainly; it bears a profusion of elegantly curled, tasseled, and variegated foliage, very catching to the eye, and unlike any of its predecessors. The other, P. dumosum, is of similar habit, the foliage being crested and fringed after the manner of some of our rare crested ferns.--_The Gardeners' Chronicle_.

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A NOTE ON SAP.

[Footnote: Read at an evening meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society, London, April 4, 1883.]

By Professor ATTFIELD, F.R.S.

Beneath a white birch tree growing in my garden I noticed, yesterday evening, a very wet place on the gravel path, the water of which was obviously being fed by the cut extremity of a branch of the birch about an inch in diameter and some ten feet from the ground. I afterward found that exactly fifteen days ago circumstances rendered necessary the removal of the portion of the branch which hung over the path, 4 or 5 feet being still left on the tree. The water or sap was dropping fast from the branch, at the rate of sixteen large drops per minute, each drop twice or thrice the size of a "minim," and neither catkins nor leaves had yet expanded. I decided that some interest would attach to a determination both of the rate of flow of the fluid and of its chemical composition, especially at such a stage of the tree's life.

A bottle was at once so suspended beneath the wound as to catch the whole of the exuding sap. It caught nearly 5 fluid ounces between eight and nine o'clock. During the succeeding eleven hours of the night 44 fluid ounces were collected, an average of 4 ounces per hour. From 8:15 to 9:15 this morning, very nearly 7 ounces were obtained. From 9:15 to 10:15, with bright sunshine, 8 ounces. From 10:15 until 8:15 this evening the hourly record kept by my son Harvey shows that the amount during that time has slowly diminished from 8 to a little below 7 ounces per hour. Apparently the flow is faster in sunshine than in shade, and by day than by night.

It would seem, therefore, that this slender tree, with a stem which at the ground is only 7 inches in diameter, having a height of 39 feet, and before it has any expanded leaves from whose united surfaces large amounts of water might evaporate, is able to draw from the ground about 4 liters, or seven-eighths of a gallon of fluid every twenty-four hours. That at all events was the amount flowing from this open tap in its water system. Even the topmost branches of the tree had not become, during the fifteen days, abnormally flaccid, so that, apparently, no drainage of fluid from the upper portion of the tree had been taking place. For a fortnight the tree apparently had been drawing, pumping, sucking--I know not what word to use--nearly a gallon of fluid daily from the soil in the neigborhood of its roots. This soil had only an ordinary degree of dampness. It was not wet, still less was there any actually fluid water to be seen. Indeed, usually all the adjacent soil is of a dry kind, for we are on the plateau of a hill 265 feet above the sea, and the level of the local water reservoir into which our wells dip is about 80 feet below the surface. My gardener tells me that the tree has been "bleeding" at about the same rate for fourteen of the fifteen days, the first day the branch becoming only somewhat damp. During the earlier part of that time we had frosts at night, and sunshine, but with extremely cold winds, during the days. At one time the exuding sap gave, I am told by two different observers, icicles a foot long. A much warmer, almost summer, temperature has prevailed during the past three days, and no wind. This morning the temperature of the sap as it escaped was constant at 52° F., while that of the surrounding air was varying considerably.

The collected sap was a clear, bright, water-like fluid. After a pint had stood aside for twelve hours, there was the merest trace of a sediment at the bottom of the vessel. The microscope showed this to consist of parenchymatous cells, with here and there a group of the wheel-like or radiating cells which botanists, I think, term sphere-crystals. The sap was slightly heavier than water, in the proportion of 1,005 to 1,000. It had a faintly sweet taste and a very slight aromatic odor.

Chemical analysis showed that this sap consisted of 99 parts of pure water with 1 part of dissolved solid matter. Eleven-twelfths of the latter were sugar.

That the birch readily yields its sap when the wood is wounded is well known. Philipps, quoted by Sowerby, says:

"Even afflictive birch, Cursed by unlettered youth, distills, A limpid current from her wounded bark, Profuse of nursing sap."

And that birch sap contains sugar is known, the peasants of many countries, especially Russia, being well acquainted with the art of making birch wine by fermenting its saccharine juice.

But I find no hourly or daily record of the amount of sugar-bearing sap which can be drawn from the birch, or from any tree, before it has acquired its great digesting or rather developing and transpiring apparatus--its leaf system. And I do not know of any extended chemical analysis of sap either of the birch, or other tree.

Besides sugar, which is present in this sap to the extent of 616 grains--nearly an ounce and a half--per gallon, there are present a mere trace of mucilage; no starch; no tannin; 3½ grains per gallon of ammoniacal salts yielding 10 per cent. of nitrogen; 3 grains of albuminoid matter yielding 10 per cent. of nitrogen; a distinct trace of nitrites; 7.4 grains of nitrates containing 17 per cent. of nitrogen; no chlorides, or the merest trace; no sulphates; no sodium salts; a little of potassium salts; much phosphate and organic salts of calcium; and some similar magnesian compounds. These calcareous and magnesian substances yield an ash when the sap is evaporated to dryness and the sugar and other organic matter burnt away, the amount of this residual matter being exactly 50 grains per gallon. The sap contained no peroxide of hydrogen. It was faintly if at all acid. It held in solution a ferment capable of converting starch into sugar. Exposed to the air it soon swarmed with bacteria, its sugar being changed to alcohol.

A teaspoonful or two of, say, apple juice, and a tablespoonful of sugar put into a gallon of such rather hard well-water as we have in our chalky district, would very fairly represent this specimen of the sap of the silver birch. Indeed, in the phraseology of a water-analyst, I may say that the sap itself has 25 degrees of total, permanent hardness.

How long the tree would continue to yield such a flow of sap I cannot say; probably until the store of sugar it manufactured last summer to feed its young buds this spring was exhausted. Even within twenty-four hours the sugar has slightly diminished in proportion in the fluid.

Whether or not this little note throws a single ray of light on the much debated question of the cause of the rise of sap in plants I must leave to botanists to decide. I cannot hope that it does, for Julius Sachs, than whom no one appears to have more carefully considered the subject, says, at page 677 of the recently published English translation of his textbook of botany, that "although the movements of water in plants have been copiously investigated and discussed for nearly two hundred years, it is nevertheless still impossible to give a satisfactory and deductive account of the mode of operation of these movements in detail." As a chemist and physicist myself, knowing something about capillary attraction, exosmose, endosmose, atmospheric pressure, and gravitation generally, and the movements caused by chemical attraction, I am afraid I must concur in the opinion that we do not yet know the real ultimate cause or causes of the rise of sap in plants.

Ashlands, Watford, Herts.

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THE CROW.

[Footnote: Abstract of a recent discussion before the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture.]