oratory investigation of muck, and of its trial on soils under many conditions. It has been published in the New England Farmer, of this city, and will appear with some additions in the State report. HOW PLANTS GET THEIR NITROGEN. A SERIES of experiments with certain cultivated plants was lately made by Herr Weiss, with reference to the comparative value of manuring with nitric acid and with ammonia. The plants were grown in pots in a soil of artificial humus, and received, besides the necessary mineral salts, either no nitrogen, or nitrogen in various forms. Herr Weiss's results are as follows: : (1.) There are plants which in the first period of life can take nitrogen only as nitric acid, and others which can take it only as ammoniacal salt. In the second life-period, nitric acid must also be furnished to all plants. (2.) Buckwheat, oats, peas, beans, and Soja beans are proved to be nitric-acid plants, while maize and tobacco are ammonia plants. (3.) The poppy is probably an ammonia plant, but barley, rape, and potatoes are probably nitric-acid plants. (4.) In general it will be found more advantageous case of ammonia plants, naturally not). If ammonia a to manure with nitrogen in the form of nitre (in the salts are used, they should be applied in autumn. The assimilation of nitrogen by plants has also been carefully studied by Signor Lamattina, of been carefully studied by Signor Lamattina, of Rome, who arrives at the following results: Plants absolutely require to assimilate nitrogen, and they obtain it in three forms: (1.) In the nitrates of the ground. (2.) In the ammonia of the air. (3.) In the state of protoxide in the atmosphere. The nitrogen in the state of nitrates, absorbed by the roots, is for transport and diffusion of mineral substances, principally potash, in the leaves, helping to form chlorophyll and hydrocarbons. The nitrogen absorbed in the form of ammonia by respiration serves for formation of albuminoids, fibrine, etc. The nitrogen absorbed in the state of protoxide appears to serve as complement of the food of the plant, acting both as corrective, by neutralizing the bases in excess, and helping in the formation of alkaloids. Preponderance is given to one or other of these three forms of absorption, by climate, family, etc. THE SOIL AS A LABORATORY. THIS topic is pleasantly and instructively treated in the following extract from one of President Chadbourne's "Familiar Lectures" in the Springfield Republican: Boston Journal of Chemistry. JAS. R. NICHOLS, M. D., Editor. BOSTON, JANUARY 1, 1882. BOSTON WATER. the bad condition of the water supplied to this THE views presented regarding the cause of city, in the December number of the JOURNAL, were in print before the report of Professor Remsen was made to the city government, and hence were based on no information obtained, or researches made by him. It was stated in the article that the evil had its origin in animal, and not in vegetable sources, and this view is sustained by Professor Remsen's investigations. These investigations, however, do not in their results harmonize all the facts, or shed satisfactory light upon the problem in many of its more obscure aspects. then the only condition required to secure fertility pose who had not made such calculations. This fine The decomposition of organic matter also favors living plants, all working together in the laboratory GLEANINGS. Nearly all the substance in a good soil is crude material for plant food, though it is not found in the proportions in which it is commonly required by EFFECT OF ALKALINE CHLORIDES AND NIplants, and but very little of it is at any one time in TRATES UPON THE SOIL. Tuxen has been ina fit condition for their food. Silica, the most abun-vestigating the action of various salts upon the soil, dant substance in ordinary soils, is but sparingly used and has found that Chili saltpetre (nitrate of soda) by plants, and alumina or clay, another abundant substance, is perhaps not used at all as food by our agricultural plants. Whatever substances are taken by the plants must be in a soluble condition, and the soil is a laboratory in almost constant operation, dissolving and combining its own materials, so that they can, from year to year, be taken up by the plants. Only a very few soils will furnish these materials for a series of years, as fast as ordinary crops remove them. Hence the need of applying fertilizers to the soil. Common soil, as we have already seen, consists of pounded rock and the organic matter that has slowly accumulated in it. If a single element essential to plant growth is wanting, then the soil will remain barren till that is applied. But supposing all the elements required for plants are found in the soil, and common salt weaken the power which the soil FISH-FARMING. An acre of water may be made more valuable than an acre of the best farming land. Here is an instance in point: A gentleman in Sonoma County, California, has this year sold $700 worth of carp from a pond covering less than an acre. He has had the fish but two years. If you have a pond of water, utilize it; if an undrained slough, make a pond by excavating. Whilst it is probable that the theory of Professor Remsen accounts in part for the origin of the evil, it does not meet all the facts involved in the problem. The cucumber flavor and fishy taste is found in many pond waters where none of the lowest forms of animal life exist, and this condition has occurred oftener in the dead of winter and late in spring than in summer, when growth, decay, and death in the organic world are the most active. In twenty-one of the thirty past years in which this condition has been observed in Kenosa Lake, Round and Plug Ponds, in Haverhill, Mass., seventeen of the instances have occurred in the winter and spring months. There is not probably a single small lake or pond in the New England States which is not at times affected to a greater or less extent by the same bad odors and taste observed in the Boston water. In large lakes like Winnipiseogee, Sebago, Champlain, etc., it is unknown. In rivers and brooks it is also unknown. In Kimball's Pond in Merrimac, Mass., Chadwick's Pond in Box ford, and Country Pond in Newton, N. H., it has been observed. None of these ponds supply water to towns or cities, and they are free from muddy deposits and aquatic plants. All of them, however, abound in fish of the usual varieties. Farm Pond, from which a portion of the city's supply is taken, and which is found to be the source of the contamination, is situated in a low basin, and the bottom is covered with a heavy deposit of mud. This pond, like others, abounds in small fish, and the mud banks are full of freshwater eels. The pond has been stocked with black bass within a few years, and fishing has been prohibited. Lake Cochituate, being a larger body of water, is not so readily brought under influences promotive of the evil, and yet in 185455, if we mistake not, it was very bad. As many as five or six times in the past quarter of a century it has, to a limited extent, afforded the fishy, cucumber taste and smell. Twenty-five or more years ago, when the trouble became so great as to lead the city government to appoint a commission to investigate it, we joined the gentlemen in some of their expeditions to the lake, and to other bodies of water, and thus became greatly interested in the problem. With the view of ascertaining the influence which fish might exert upon the waters of ponds in some morbid states, occasioned by imperfect aeration, consequent upon drought or low stages of water, a large tank was erected, into which a considerable number of fish were introduced. Connected with this tank was a supply of water under pressure, so arranged that its flow could be easily controlled. It was found that so long as a copious supply of water was furnished, the fish were healthy and very voracious, the pickerel preying upon the smaller fish to such an extent as made frequent replenishing necessary; and the water of the tank was sweet and good. Upon diminishing the flow, in a few days the fish became inactive, their appetite failed, and in the course of a week or two the whole body was covered with a flocculent, slimy membrane, which communicated to the water the intense cucumber odor and flavor noticed in the city supply from Farm Pond, at the present time. A bit of this covering removed and placed in a tub of fresh water instantly permeated the whole mass, and a piece no larger than a thumb-nail was sufficient to contaminate a barrel of water, so disgusting and pervasive was its odor. Under this condition of the fish, when the faucet was opened to admit a full flow of water, in a day or two decided improvement was observed: the fish became active and hungry, and in a week the slimy coating sloughed off, and floated in the water, giving it an exceedingly unpleasant odor so long as it remained. This experiment was repeated several times, with like results; and indeed, in the conduct or management of aquariums the same phenomena have been often observed. If we regard Farm and other ponds as but great aquariums stocked with fish, we have only to introduce the factors of diminished or inadequate water supply to bring about conditions corresponding with those in the experimental tank. This, indeed, is the condition we have observed in several ponds. The deep basins in which the fish congregate in time of drought have been found to contain the most offensive water, and a distinct line of this water could be traced to the outlet in the ponds. If this view of the cause of the offensive taste is correct, it may be assumed that upon the inflow of the late or early fall rains into a pond the morbid coating of the fish is cast off, and contaminates the water. It is by no means improbable that the water of Farm Pond is contaminated to some extent by the presence of living or dead sponges, but it is highly probable that the morbid condition of fish, consequent upon imperfect aeration of water, is another and prominent source of the evil. Master. "What does Condillac say about brutes in the scale of being?" Scholar. "He says a brute is an imperfect animal." M. "And what is man?' S. "Man is a perfect brute." THE METRIC SYSTEM. even In Chicago, notice has been given to the telegraph and telephone companies that after a certain date no wires will be allowed on posts or house-tops in that city. Philadelphia and Washington are to have underground telegraphs, and Boston ought to have. cities only, but from town to town. In London WE fear that the metric system is making but there are 4388 miles of underground to 500 miles slow progress in this country outside of strictly of overhead wires within four miles of St. scientific circles. The generality of people Martin's-le-Grand. The overhead wires have of well-informed, not to say cultivated people been reduced from 1720 to 500 miles during the do not seem heartily interested in promoting its past four years. adoption for the purposes of common life, and comparatively few of them have mastered its nomenclature and its familiar equivalents. A recent letter from an old subscriber is full of praise for the JOURNAL as "a medium for popularizing science," and the only fault he has to find with it is that it "sometimes gives metric weights and One of the principal objections to underground measures without explaining them." We have telegraphy has been the expense of making suitrarely done this, except in articles or notes for able insulated cables. We have recently been practical chemists, though the avoirdupois weights shown an insulated telegraphic ribbon which of the gram and the kilogram, and the length promises to remove this objection to a certain of the meter in feet and inches, have been given extent. The simplicity of its construction causes hundreds of times in our columns. We suspect surprise that it was not thought of before. In that few even among scientific students become the sample before us are six copper wires placed so familiar with the system that they think in parallel to each other, at a distance of one fourth metric forms, unless they are compelled to make inch apart. A strip of rubber about two inches daily practical use of them. wide is placed on either side of the wires, and the whole passed through grooved rollers, which cause the rubber to adhere between each wire and on the edges. This not only prevents contact between the wires, but insulates them perfectly from the surrounding objects. The following directions for a "translation" of metric weights and measures, which we take from Oldberg with some slight modifications, are accurate enough for popular purposes, and easily remembered and applied : - To convert avoirdupois pounds into grams, mul- per cent. or half liters into pints, add 10 per cent. For error, see above. The rubber employed in making these cables contains a large amount of graphite, or plumbago, and, strange to say, this substance, which is by itself a conductor of electricity, becomes an excellent insulator when incorporated into the rubber. The wires are tinned to prevent the sulphur from destroying them, but it has been proposed to overcome this difficulty by employing sulphide of antimony instead of sulphur for vulcanizing the rubber. If it should be found that the induced currents cause trouble, it will only be necessary to attach a strip of tin foil to one side of the ribbon. The Mutual Union Telegraph Company has To convert avoirdupois ounces into grams, multi-purchased the right to use this cable, and we unply by 30 and deduct per cent. The answer will derstand that the first practical test of it is to be be too great by 24 grains for every ounce. made in Washington, D. C., where the cable is To convert grams into avoirdupois ounces, divide to be put into the sewers. cent. per by 30 and add 5 The answer will be too small by nearly 3-10ths of one grain for each gram. To convert yards into meters, deduct 10 per cent., be and to convert meters into yards, add 10 per cent. gram "Drops" and "spoonfuls," however, as have before shown, are unreliable measures, their use is never to be recommended. we and In Japan, it is said that the spiders ground the wires, so that it is necessary to employ perSons to sweep off the webs continually. In winter, ice accumulates on the wires, breaking them down; in summer vårious other accidents threaten the wires, especially storms and fires; and even kite-tails and hoop-skirts are a nuisance on the wires. In thunder showers the elevated wires become dangerous, as collectors and accumulators, as well as conductors, of atmospheric electricity. One troy ounce is equal to 31 grams; one fluid ounce is equal to 29 cc. or fluigrams. One gram is equal to 15 grains (or minims). Underground telegraph wires are being laid The average "drop" is equal to 0.05 fluigram. in New York between the police and fire departAn average teaspoon holds 5 fluigrams; a dessert-ment offices. In laying the wires an excavation spoon, 10 fluigrams; a tablespoon, 20 fluigrams; is made to the depth of two feet. A wooden and a wine-glass, 75 fluigrams. trough is laid down, and in this the wires ar? placed, immersed in a composition which, it is claimed, perfectly insulates them. This comp sition is a mixture of powdered glass, paraffi wax, resin, and linseed oil. It is melted and poured in hot, and when it solidifies it is a tough, hard composition, impervious to moisture and unaffected by changes of temperature. It will bend without breaking, and cannot be broken by the shifting of the earth or settling of the street bed. The wooden trough is simply a UNDERGROUND TELEGRAPHY. WITH the increased number of wires brought into use by the introduction of the telephone, the necessity of burying them is becoming more and more evident. Abroad it has been the custom for years to put down telegraphic cables, not in The Sun, by Prof. C. A. Young, of Princeton (D. Appleton mould, which may rot away without affecting The direction of the wind gave an excess of only does. Still, the future of Florida is to be of no mean importhe efficiency of the cable. Instead of the one northerly and forty-seven westerly observations tance, and the State will be settled with great rapidity. ordinary galvanized iron wires of above-ground over the southerly and easterly, indicating the pre- & Co.), is an entertaining little book, by one of the most distintelegraphy, the wires used in the underground vailing direction very nearly west. The average di-guished astronomers and mathematicians in the United States, system are of copper, with two coverings of rection for the past thirteen Novembers has been cotton fabric soaked in paraffine wax. In plac19° 15′ north of west. It verged to the south of west ing the wires a half-inch layer of the insulating and 1880, and then but slightly. only two years during the thirteen, namely, in 1878 composition is first put in the trench; then eight wires are put down, three eighths of an inch apart; then come another half inch of the composition and eight more wires; and so on, until the 72 are inclosed in a rectangular cable 6 inches wide and 3 inches thick. WHAT IS SAID ABOUT THE JOURNAL. Ir may, perhaps, seem egotistical for us to publish the praises poured out upon the JOURNAL, yet we hope to be pardoned for trying to "see ourselves as others see us." A few days since we received a letter from a doctor eighty years old, away up in Vermont, enclosing a dollar to continue his subscription "as usual." A gentleman in Camden addresses us as "Dear Friend," and adds: 66 Although you have been an inmate of my household for only a few months, all the members of the family eagerly watch for your coming, and every article is read aloud, and talked over and discussed, pro and con. To those who have a liking for science it is interesting and instructive. For those who have never discovered that they have a liking for such things, it opens a mine of interest and study and thought and rare enjoyment. We can't do without you." A new subscriber writes as follows: "I have received the sample copy of your paper, and find it will in more ways than one repay me for the dollar which I send you for one year's subscription." Another says he is much pleased with the practical nature of the articles. Such expressions, unsolicited, are naturally very gratifying, and we thank our correspondents and should be purchased by every intelligent parent for his own instruction and that of his family upon an interesting and important department of science. The subject of solar physics has been studied by Professor Young for many years as a specialty, and his researches are known the world over as among the most The month was unusually warm, being 4.44° above important contributions to science made during the present the average for the past eighteen years, and ex-century. He has the happy faculty of presenting scientific facts ceeded only in 1877, when it was 42.53°. in an attractive form, as our readers well know, from the conAnd the tributions he has furnished to the JOURNAL. In the work under entire autumn was the warmest, without exception, review, he has gone over the whole ground of the physical and during the same period (53.57°). The next warm-chemical history of the sun, and every page is as exciting and est autumns were in 1877, 1878, and 1879, each being that it will interest and instruct thousands we have no doubt. absorbing as a novel. We predict for this work a wide sale, and over 51°. The first three days of the past month were peculiarly warm for November, having an average of two days at the three daily observations. This indinear 550, with a range of only 5° through the first cates great uniformity of temperature. The coldest days of the month were on the 28th, 25th, and 23d, with an average of 20.7°, 220, and 24° respectively. The first flurry of snow was on the morning of the 15th. On the 23d about two inches fell, calling out a few sleighs. We are indebted to W. A. Townsend, New York, for a copy of the Physician's Hand-Book for 1882, by Drs. Wm. and Albert with their symptoms; the treatment of emergencies; a list of D. Elmer. It contains, in addition to the usual blank Record of Practice for each month in the year, a classification of diseases poisons, their symptoms and treatment; diagnostic examination of urine; a list of remedial agents; and many valuable tables. manuscript entitled An Elementary Treatise on Electricity, Upon his death, Professor J. Clerk-Maxwell left an unfinished which has been edited by Wm. Garnett, and published as one of the Clarendon Press Series. Most of it was written about seven years ago, and portions had been used by him as a text for I perceive, by a report in the Boston Journal, his lectures at the Cavendish Laboratory. His aim was to that the observations there differ somewhat from ours, appear to throw light on the theory of electricity, and to use them present in as compact a form as possible those phenomena which the locality being less elevated and near the ocean. for the development of electrical ideas in the mind of the reader. The time and frequency of their observations also In the first two chapters experiments are described which demondiffer, which must modify results. Their highest tem-strate the principal facts relating to electric charge considered as a quantity capable of being measured. The third chapter, "On perature was 71° on the 9th, and their lowest 15° on Electric Work and Energy," consists of deductions from these the 23d; while here the highest was 66° on the 3d facts. To make the book in a sense complete, the editor has re(only 65° on the 9th), and the lowest 13° on the 23d. printed a number of articles from Maxwell's larger work, ElectriOn the other hand, our rainfall was somewhat city and Magnetism. The book is in no sense a popular treagreater than in Boston, being 4.05 inches, and theirs laws of electricity to a mathematical certainty. tise, but a text-book for the close student, who would reduce the only 3.73. This is probably contrary to the rule, as the fall is generally greater nearest the ocean, where also the barometer has a higher range, it being 30.624 inches at the highest in Boston, but only 30.46 in this locality. NATICK, December 8, 1881. ATOMS. D. W. Messrs. Gillet and Rolfe's Elements of Natural Philosophy, published by Potter, Ainsworth & Co., is an abridgment of the Natural Philosophy, by the same authors, with such changes as were required to adapt it to younger pupils. Like the larger book, which we have already noticed, is fully up with the times in the practical applications of electricity and other natural forces, and will make an excellent text-book for high schools and academies. The Elementary Natural Philosophy of Prof. La Roy F. Griffin, published by Sower, Potts & Co., Philadelphia, is also designed for high schools and academies. The apparatus used and the experiments performed are both described before introducing the laws which result from them. This teaches the student to observe and experiment for himself. Many of the illustrations are new and all are good. The Salt-Eating Habit is the title of a pamphlet written by Richard T. Colburn, which attempts to prove that salt eating is unnecessary, and absolutely injurious. The popularity of the American Agriculturist is seen in the fact that it is compelled to print two editions simultaneously, one English, the other in German. Either edition may be ordered through us at clubbing rates. It is not merely a farm and garden journal, but is very useful to every housekeeper and to every household in village or country. It has an entertaining and useful department for the little ones, and is a journal that pays to take and read. THE Electro-Technical Society of Berlin (Electro- LITERARY NOTES. The average barometer for the past month was 30.057 inches, the lowest 29.45, and the highest Florida for Tourists, Invalids, and Settlers, by George M. 30.46, a range of 1.01 of an inch. The sum of Barbour (Appleton & Co., New York), contains a great deal of daily variations was 8.49 inches, giving an average important and interesting information, presented in an agreeable daily movement of .283 of an inch. The average for the last nine Novembers has been 29.970, the lowest 29.815, in 1873, and the highest 30.193 in 1880, a range of only .378 of an inch. style. The author went through Florida with General Grant, in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent, and after completing his trip was so well pleased with the country that he concluded to locate there. He travelled very generally over the State, and remained through the summer of 1880 in the southern section, in The face of the sky in 90 observations gave 48 the woods. His descriptions of the country are graphic and fair, 10 cloudy, 18 overcast, 13 rainy, and 1 snowy. thing, and has expectations of Florida's future that seem a little probably truthful. He looks with a favorable eye upon everyThe amount of rain, including two inches of melted extravagant. He thinks it the place for the poor man to snow, was 4.05 inches; the average for the past emigrate to, but we do not. The time may come when it will thirteen Novembers being 4.13 inches, the lowest be better for the poor laborer to go South rather than West, but that time is not yet. We have spent two winters in Florida, amount 1.62 in 1874, and the highest 7.45 in 1877, and have seen something of its climate and industrial capabilities, a range of 5.83 inches. and do not take so golden a view of the country as Mr. Barbour We welcome to our table Food and Health, edited by Mrs. Amelia C. Lewis, New York. It is published fortnightly, and is a most valuable contribution to the literature of food, its price, quality, adulterations, etc. Hygiene is also treated of in a popular but practical manner. In 1879 sixty new medical journals were started, and twentythree ceased to exist. Of the number started in 1880 we are not informed, but we find in Ayer's American Newspaper Annual a list of 112 medical journals in the United States, omitting those which do not insert advertisements. The most recent accession to this list is the New England Medical Monthly, edited by Wm. C. Wile, M. D., at Sandy Hook, Fairfield Co., Conn. We have received from the Bureau of Education Circular of Information, No. 3, 1881, containing the proceedings of the department of superintendence of the National Educational Association at its meeting at New York, February 8-10, 1881; also Dr. Wickersham's able report on "Education and Crime," and Hiram Orcutt's article on "The Discipline of the School." We are indebted to Dr. H. Carrington Bolton, of Trinity College, Hartford, for a copy of his pamphlet on the Occurrence of Microscopic Crystals in the Vertebræ of the Toad, illustrated. The American Newspaper Annual contains a list of all newspapers and periodicals published in the United States and Canada. It is published by N. W. Ayer & Son, Philadelphia. The arrangement is geographical, and many useful statistics are also given. It will prove a valuable guide to those who advertise widely, as well as to all who have occasion to correspond with editors in distant places. Medicine and Pharmacy. WHY WE COUGH AND HOW WE COUGH. EVERYBODY Coughs sometimes, and, judging by the quantity of patent cough medicines sold, many people must be coughing all the time. Most persons suppose that a cough is a cough, the world over, and that what will cure one will another; and so they prescribe for themselves and their friends all sorts of syrups, home made or proprietary, with the consoling assertion that "it can't do any hurt, if it don't do any good." How do you know it can't do any hurt? Do you know its ingredients, and, if so, have you studied their effects upon the system in health and in disease? Do you know the condition of the patient you are prescribing this for, stitution, his habits of life, his past history? Let us see what a cough is. It is a sudden and forcible expulsion of the air from the lungs, preceded by a temporary closure of the windpipe to give additional impulse to the current of air. The effect of these spasmodic expirations is the removal of whatever may have accumulated in the air-tubes, whether a foreign body from without, as when a particle of food finds its way into the wind-pipe, or an accumulation of mucus secreted by the air passages themselves. to. - his con Coughing is in part a voluntary act. We can cough whenever we wish to, but frequently we are compelled to cough when we don't wish Nerves are divided into two classes, sensory and motor nerves. The former carry intelligence to the brain; they report any disturbance on the frontier to headquarters. The motor nerves then carry back the commands of the general to act. You tickle a friend's ear with a straw, and his hand automatically proceeds to scratch the itching member. A tickling sensation is produced in the throat by any cause whatever; the brain then sends back orders to the muscles concerned to act so as to expel the intruder, in other words, to cough. And that is how we cough. The source of the impression may be various. Frequently it is due to an irritation of the respiratory organs by foreign bodies, dust, and acrid vapors, admitted with the air in health, or to damp, cold air itself, if the organs are particularly sensitive, or to the presence of mucus, pus, or blood, in disease. Inflammation, from whatever cause, acts as a source of uneasiness. A better reason for the use of Latin is that it of cough in question, and attempt, if possible, to "correct, exact, and significative," he tells us, must The difficulty in the way of recommending There are, as we all know, many different any one kind of cough remedy is that different kinds of cough. Thus, we have the dry cough, coughs require different treatment, and what will without expectoration, and the moist cough, with relieve one may aggravate another. Then, too, expectoration. We have the short, hacking the general health of the patient must be atcough, resulting from slight irritation, and the tended to, the secretions kept open, etc. In violent, spasmodic, and convulsive cough, caused short, the maxim, "What is one man's meat is by a greater degree of irritation or some peculiar another man's poison," applies here as elsewhere, modification thereof. Then there are the occa- and induces us to protest against the use of any sional, the incessant, and the paroxysmal cough, nostrum simply because it cured a neighbor. terms that explain themselves. Hoarse, wheezing, barking, and shrill coughs are due to the tension or capacity of the rim of the wind-pipe, or other portion of the tube. The hollow cough owes its peculiar sound to resonance in the enlarged tubes or the cavities in the lungs, if such exist. Sometimes the exciting cause of a cough lies not in the lungs and respiratory organs, but in the stomach, liver, or intestines. In other cases there seems to be no real cause; it is purely nervous or hysterical. The author begins by defending the use of Cough remedies should be suited to the kind Latin for the nomenclature, which, in order to be PHARMACEUTICAL LATIN. We have been interested in reading a paper on "The Pharmacopoeial Nomenclature," read at the last annual meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association, by Oscar Oldberg, Ph. D., and recently published in the Proceedings of the society. It is a careful study of the subject, and includes many good practical suggestions,, with some not so good. is the language used in other pharmacopoeias, and enables us to understand them; and if we ever have an "international" nomenclature, it will certainly be a Latin one. Among the changes in the received nomenclature which Dr. Oldberg proposes, the most radical, and the one most likely to provoke opposition, is the substitution of the nominative for the genitive everywhere. Thus, tincture of rhubarb will be rheum tinctura instead of rhei tinctura, soap plaster will be sapo emplastrum instead of sa ponis emplastrum, etc. There is little to be said in favor of this, except that it is a gain in sim plicity, at the expense of syntax, and that it relieves physicians and pharmacists of the necessity It seems inconsistent to retain the Latin plurals, semina, folia, flores, etc., when the genitives are discarded. It may be said that the singular is not used, and that if only one form is learned it may as well be the plural. We see, however, that Dr. Oldberg retains the distinction of gender in aromaticus, aromatica, aromaticum, etc.; but why should the pharmacist be expected to decline adjectives when he is relieved from the necessity of declining nouns, and why should he be required to learn that pulvis is masculine, aqua feminine, extractum neuter, and the like? In his "Unofficial Pharmacopoeia" (an excellent compilation of some seven hundred popular preparations, with much other matter of practical value to the pharmacist) Dr. Oldberg gives the Latin names according to his ungrammatical sysWe note, however, an occasional violation of his own rule, as in vinum extractum carnis, etc. Why the genitive carnis, when elsewhere we have extractum opium, not opii? tem. obtains relief, and drops off into a quiet slumber, NOTES FROM ABROAD. The It will often cut short and cure attacks of intermittent fever. In typhus fever it increases the excretion of urea, and so far purifies the blood without increasing tissue metamorphosis. It is It tends to lessen coma and low delirium. Dr. Segur's chief reliance in yellow fever. It is useful in spasmodic asthma, whooping cough, and hysterics. It is a diuretic in cardiac dropsy. In opium-poisoning its efficacy is well known. After a heavy meal it relieves the sense of oppression and helps digestion. It is a disinfectant and deodorizer. Habitual coffee - drinkers generally enjoy good health, and live to a good old age. London St. James Gazette comes to the defence of a "When a person has been bitten by an animal, either mad or supposed to be so, the wound should be induced to bleed, and should be washed and cauterized. (1.) By a sufficient amount of pressure the bites, whether deep-seated or superficial, should There is, moreover, another reason why sedatives dismay that their recommendation of tea and coffee drunkenness. enna paste, butter of antimony, chloride of zinc, and by red-hot iron, which seems to be the best of all. Any piece of iron (the end of a rod, a nail, a key, etc.) may be used for the cauterization, which should penetrate to every part of the wound. (3.) The success of the cauterization depending upon the promptitude with which it is executed, any one is able to practice it at once before the arrival of a different forms of alcohol are quite inefficacious." TREATMENT OF SMALL-Pox." On the 16th On the whole, if Latin is to be retained for that a largely tea drinking population cannot safely the pharmacopoeial nomenclature, it had better be dispense with either alcohol or opium. There has grammatical Latin. Those who know the lan- never been any such controversy among medical guage should not be compelled to use a barbarous men respecting the absolute usefulness of opium as burlesque of its forms, in order to spare others has arisen on the subject of alcohol. In some quan- doctor. (4.) Cauterizations made with ammonia or the small effort necessary for mastering a few in-tity or other, the products of the poppy are invaluable; and nearly the latest and perhaps the greatest flections and constructions. Let the changes in of medical discoveries consists in the injection of one the nomenclature be such as Dr. Oldberg has of them into the blood. The fact is by itself enough suggested in the principles quoted above, in to necessitate a revision of the whole argument about clearness, accuracy, .precision, and conformity to the opium traffic. modern science, changes which are obviously for the better; but let "dog Latin" be left to those who have never learned, or, haply, have forgotten, the grammatical kind. The best of this prescription Latin is bad enough to a classical scholar, and to make it worse, deliberately and systematically, would be intolerable. DR. WILLIAM MURRELL, in the British Medical Journal, writes: There can be no question as to the value of fuming inhalations in the treatment of asthma. The ordinary nitre-paper often fails, because it is not strong enough. For some time I have been in the habit of using very thick and strong nitre-papers, which may be called "nitre-tablets." They contain both chlorate and nitrate of potash. Each consists of six pieces of white blotting-paper, about six inches square, and they are made by dipping them into a hot saturated solution of nitre and chlorate of potash. Before the pieces are quite dry they may be sprinkled with Friar's balsam, spirit of camphor, tincture of sumbul, or some aromatic. The nitrepaper so prepared is as thick as cardboard, each piece consisting of six pieces of blotting-paper, closely adherent, and covered all over with crystals of saltpetre and chlorate of potash. The door and windows having been closed, the tablet is placed on a fire-shovel or piece of metal of some kind, and folded down the middle, so as to make it like a tent or the cover of a book. When lighted at each end it burns very quickly, throwing out a flame often four or five inches long, and giving rise to dense volumes of smoke. The asthmatic patient almost immediately MECHANICO-THERAPEUTICS IN STOCKHOLM. a of January, 1880," says Dr. Bouyer, of St. Pierre lieve to be the curative and abortive treatment of Alcohol. 1 gram (16 grs.). 20 grams (53). A short description of Dr. Zander's Mechanico- WHAT COFFEE WILL Do.. According to Dr. Bock, of Leipsic, coffee and tea are the chief causes of the nervousness and peevishness of our time. Dr. Henry Segur takes the opposite ground, and enumerates the blessings which the infusion can produce. It is a mental and bodily stimulant, assisting to convert the blood into nervous tissue, and thus recruit the nervous moving and thinking faculties. It lessens the waste of tissue, and thus lessens the amount of food necessary to support the system. 50 grams (2 3). MEDICINE AS A SCIENCE. Sir James Paget, in his eloquent address before the International Medical Conference, refers thus to the preeminence of the medical profession in its range of opportunities for scientific study: "It is not only that the pure science of human life may match with the largest of the natural sciences in the complexity of its subject matter; not only that the living human body is, in both its material and its indwelling forces, the most complex thing yet known, but that, in our practical duties, this most complex thing is presented |