Science Notes

England has 71,000 insane persons i. e. abjut 1 to 350 inhabitants. In Jjialio leg-bones are present without a foot, but no animal has armbones without a hand. The lamprey has no lower jaw. By soaking bone in acid the mineral matter entering into its composition, will be removed. It may then be bent, twisted, or tied into a knot. The cause of dislocations occurring so frequently at the shoulder joint is the shallowness of the socket in which the head of the humerus is inserted. In man the first digit or thumb is apposable to the hand, while in cheiromys and many marsupials it is apposable in the foot, but not in the hand. Antiseptic surgery originated with Lemaine and was perfected by Lister from whom it takes its name. lts success has been used as an argument in favor of the germ theory. Dr. Kedzie says that the adulteration of sugar is increasing. He has detected glucose in granulated sugar. This. if pure, is not injurious but glucose is not usually pure. In man the external layer of the skin is removed in minute fragmenta by friction and washing, but in efts and snakes the whole epidermis even to the covering of the eyes ia shed at once. Von Helmont in the 17th century taught that rats, frogs, and other small animáis might be manufactured at will. In that age it was belieyed that i f a snake was pulverized and its ashes sown broadcast a erop of serpents would be produced. Signor Garcia was the flrst man who is known to have had suffleient ingenuity to see his own larynx, prior to bis time all endeavors at inspecting the living larynx were unsatistaetory, since through the exertions and investxgations of Professors Turck and Czermak the art of laryngoscopy has been created andrapidly developed. Great acientific discoverers have usually studied under and gained inspiration fiom others. For exaraple Harvey was taught anatomy in Italy, Halier, who gave the earliest and strongest impulse to the study of the laws of living things in Switzerland, had his lamp lighted in the famous school at Leyden, and Von Baer, the ostensible f o under of embryology, and our own imtnortal Agassiz had Dolliuger for their teacher. To Dollinger Agassiz referred at Penikese as the real founder of embryology and the man who had taught him how to work. In Pfluger'8 Archives atteDtion has been called to the fact that a healthy ar may become so ïatigued by hearing one note continuously f or a long time as to become incapable oí recognizing it, while the other ear which haa not been subjected to thia source of excition will act in the ordmary manner, similarly the deafness of boiler makers may be explained. In theni the continuous tensión upon the tensor tympani muselea and tbe steady swuorous vibration acting upon the auditory nerve dtaden these to such an extent that they will no longer respend to the usual stimuli. Lord Shaftsbury says there are annually 100,000 preveDtible deaths iu England, and a gentleman named Chad wiek, fowner chief offleer of the lirst Englieh board of health, puts the estimato still higher. According to his figures 120,000 deaths, and l,S00,000 cases of seriou sickness in England every year raight be prevented. Mr. Chadwick also states that so í'ar au he eould ascertain the healthiest place in England was a jail in which the deathrate was less than one in a thousand. The reaaon lor this in hia opinión was that in jails regular personal ablutions are required and the use of tea, tobáceo, beer and 'spirits absolutely prohibited. The progress of research has produced rnany varieties of sugars. These agree in the sweet taste and in the fact of their all being composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, a singular peculiarity in the case is that the hydrogen and oxygen are invariably present in jast the proportion necessary to f orín water, so that sugar might be roughly defined as a Chemical combination of carbon aad water. The numerous varieties have been arranged in the two great groups sucroses and glucoses. To the sucroses belong cane and milk sugar called ulso lactose. The former occurs in the bodies of many plants as for example the sngareane, sorghum, corn, palm, sugar-maple, and beet, and is obtained from the juice by evaporatiou. By long boiling it loses the property ol' crystallizing as sugar and becomes slightly acid. lf boiled for hours in the presence of a trace of oil of vitriol it is transformed into grape-sugar, f rom which it differs by containlng less water. Cane-sugar melts at 320 and on cooling forms the transparent, solid, amber-colored barley sugar. Heated to 420 it loses water, carbon reraains in excess and burnt sugar or caramel results. In chemical properties sugar ia classed with the acids as it unite3 with the bases to form salts, known as sacchárates. Lactose ia obtained by crystallization from evaporating the clarifled whey of niilk. Jt haa hard cryatals, and is less soluble, and not as sweet as cane or grape sugar. Fruit and grape sugar belung tothe glucoses. Under polarized light the f ormer roiates the plane of polarization to the lef t and henee has been called lievulose, the latter rotatea it to the right, henee the name dextrose. Ltevulose was formerly considered to be a distinct variety of sugar, but is now regarded as a combination of several varieties. Fruit sugar nevercrystallizes, grape uugar does. The latter is less soluble, less easily crystallized, and not aa sweet as cane-sugar.