Page:Eleanor Gamble - The Applicability of Weber's Law to Smell.pdf/37

Rh of the same length in order that no odor from their outer surfaces may pass around the screes.

India rubber has three great qualifications for use in experiments in smell, (a) It can be smelled for a long time by most subjects without blunting the organ; (2) its odor is not easily obscured by other odors, and (3) adheres comparatively little to the inhaling-tube. Two of our subjects (C. and Sh.), however, complained more of smarting in the nose when using rubber than when using any other substance. The age and mode of preparation of different sorts of rubber, and the amounts of sulphur in them, make some difference in the quality and slight differences in the intensity of the smell. The intensity, is, on the other hand, virtually the same at all degrees of temperature between 13° and 39° C: The cylinder may be prepared by cutting 10 cm. from a rubber tube with a bore of 8 mm., and working it into a glass tube of the same length. The rubber must be clean and new, and, in particular, must never have come in contact with illuminating gas. Although the odor of the rubber when fresh is not easily disguised by other smells, yet the substance easily loses its own odor and takes that of other substances. An inhaling-tube or the broken fragment of one should, therefore, be left in the cylinder so as to cover its inner surface when not in use. Such tubes must never be allowed to lie about unprotected on the shelves of a wooden cupboard. If not sealed by containing the inhaling-tube, they should be rolled up in clean glazed paper and shut up in a jar by themselves.

Our cedar and rose-wood cylinders were turned to order. A block of wood $2 1/2$×$2 1/2$×$4 1/2$ ins. will make four of these tubes. Each was held in its place in the outer tube of glass by a small bit of “instant crockery-mender” applied to the wood before putting it in. The fit is so tight that the odor of the paste cannot escape. These cylinders also are very liable to lose part of their odor, and should be carefully protected. Messrs. McKesson and Robbins, of New York, furnished a single piece of musk-root large enough to make two cylinders. One crumbled in the turning, but the other broke evenly around the circumference into two sections, which were pushed so tightly into a glass tube as to stay in place of themselves. The crack was almost invisible, and as it was 6 cm. from one end of the tube, it did not render the cylinder really defective. From the Russian leather,—which was genuine, and not the “Russian leather” of America, which is tanned with birch instead of sandal wood,—a piece 24 mm. wide and 10 cm. long was cut, and was fitted into a tube so as exactly to cover the inner surface, Cylinders may be prepared in the same way from India rubber sheeting.

The other substances were all melted and moulded. The glycerine soap was Pear's, the mutton fat employed was fresh from the butcher’s, the cocoa-butter, paraffine (the kind used by histologists), gum benzoin and gum ammoniac were such as can be bought of any retail druggist. We obtained of McKesson and Robbins “solid” oil of mace and the pure juice of asafcetida done up in small tin cans, and also a quantity of gutta-percha in narrow fibrous sticks or slabs, and of tolu balsam entirely freed from impurities. For the outside mould, the permanent g1ass shell must, of course, be used. The glass tubing was cut before-hand in our case into lengths of 10 cm., and these moulds were corked at one end, so that the tube of odorous matter was never quite so long as its shell. For the inside mould, we used an inhaling-tube, or the long straight part of one which had broken at the curve. The tube may be kept upright by digging a hole for the end of it in the cork. This end should be plugged to prevent the liquid from working up into the tube, through which it is sometimes necessary to pour 3