Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/395

Rh veins. Tight lacing, too, predisposes to varicose veins, in consequence of the abdominal viscera being pushed downward into the pelvis, causing undue pressure on the veins of the lower extremities. The hygienic use of clothes, the author said, is not so much to keep cold out as to keep heat in. In robust persons it is not at all necessary to put on extra clothing when preparing for out-door exercise: sufficient heat to prevent all risk of chill is generated in the body by exercise. But care should be taken to retain sufficient clothing after exercise, and, when at rest, to prevent the heat passing out of the body. The wearing of false hair prevents evaporation of the perspiration from the scalp, and so predisposes to baldness and other scalp-diseases.

Mr. Bond calls Urquhart, who introduced into England the Turkish bath, one of the benefactors of the age: this bath is, he says, stimulating and strengthening—a preventive as well as a curative in disease. Nor is this all: it promotes purity of mind and morals. He then suggests certain necessary precautions to be observed in the use of the Turkish and other baths. Coming to the subject of ventilation, he remarks on the feeling of lassitude felt by many persons in getting up in the morning. This is very often due to defective ventilation of the bedroom, or to the use of an undue amount of bedclothes. It is an error to suppose that a room can be ventilated by simply opening a window a little at the top: there must be an outlet as well as an inlet for the air. The best outlet is an ordinary fireplace, especially if there is a fire burning. Mr. Bond recommends for ventilation purposes the use of vertical pipes, communicating at the level of the floor with the outer air, and rising vertically to the height of four or five feet.

Marbleized Iron Utensils.—Sundry cooking-utensils of so-called "marbleized iron" have been subjected to chemical tests by Mr. William H. Dougherty, with the results given below, as stated in the "Proceedings" of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The author, having heard reports that the enamel contained lead and arsenic, poured into a new dish of this ware a pint of good ordinary "white-wine" vinegar. This was then slowly evaporated nearly to dryness; then distilled water was added, and the whole treated with hydrosulphuric acid. The resulting precipitate of sulphide of lead was now dissolved in nitric acid and reprecipitated with sulphuric acid in presence of alcohol as sulphate of lead, and weighed over 2 grains. This result was further confirmed by reducing the sulphate to metallic lead with the blowpipe. From this it appears that the vinegar had dissolved out of the enamel enough lead to make about three grains of acetate of lead. Similar results were obtained from another experiment, in which citric acid took the place of the vinegar. A can of tomatoes in an acid condition was, digested in another dish of this ware and filtered, the filtrate being treated as in the foregoing experiments. In this instance slight but positive evidence was found of the presence of lead. The author could detect no arsenic. He states the composition of the enamel to be as follows: oxide of lead, 12 per cent.; silica, 47; alumina, iron, lime, potash, and soda, 41 per cent.

Was Man preglacial?—The Anthropological Institute of London lately held a conference on "the present state of the question of the antiquity of man," in the course of which the evidences of man's antiquity in England were very fully considered. The papers read at the conference by Prof. Boyd Dawkins, Prof. McKendrick Hughes, and Mr. R. H. Tiddeman, as also the highly-interesting discussion which followed, are reported in Nature. Our contemporary devotes several pages to the proceedings of the conference, but we have only space to indicate one or two of the more important lines of argument. First, as regards the validity of the arguments of Croll, Geikie, and others, that because in river-deposits and caves the bones of animals which now live only in hot climates are associated with the bones and other memorials of man, and as after the glacial period there is no evidence of such hot climate in England, therefore all these remains are preglacial or interglacial. To this it was objected that these animals of hot climates had preyed on such boreal animals as the reindeer; that the hippopotamus and