Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/138

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��very importani knuwledge that Uip piesetice of mi- t^robes in /oods is Indispensable to digestion; I hat is to aay, of actions necessary to the elaboration of mat- ters destined to aerve for the nutrition of the animai body. Tho total ftbuence of microbes renders the nccomplishtnent of these actions impossible. We can recogiilie the importance of an exact dctermlna- lion of the part played by microbes iu digestion; for this knowledge would lead In interesting views, and perliaps to practical results, regarding the meclianls in and treatment of different forms of dyspepsia.

— The enterprising sclentllic publisher, Doin, of Paris, sends out with the Drat number of Rteve *ci- tnl^lque tor this year the first number of a new jour- nal, called Journal de» nocift&i Kcifntifigueii, which is to appear weekly, and to contain a brief report of the meetings of the principal scientific societies of the great cities of Europe. The plan of the journal is an excellent one, and one which should secure it an ample subscription list. It costs only tifleen francs, postage paid, to anjr part of the universal postal union. The first number contains reports of the French academy of sciences, the academy of medi- cine, and the geographical, anthropological, and biological societies of Paris, the societies of public medicine and of sur^-ery, as well aa of the academy of medldne of Belgium and Vienna, and the clinical society of London, It forms a i]narlo of ten pi^s,

— Among recent deaths we note the following: Benjamin Sllliman. at New Haven, Jan. 14, at the age of sUiy-nlne; John Birmingham, astronomer, at Millbrook, Tuam (Ireland!. Sept. 7, at the age of sixty-eight; AntolneQuet, physicist, at Paris, Nov. £0, at the age of seventy-tour; Dr. E. V. Ekstrand, botan- ist, at Upaala, Nov. 10; A. Keferstein, lepidopterolo- glst. at Erfurt, Nov. 2S; Dr. Wllheim Rfippeil, the first scientific explorer of Nubia and Abyssinia, at Frankfort-on-Main, Dec 11, at the age of ninety; Auguste Chevrolat, one of the founders of the French pnlomological society, at Paris, Dec. 10, at the age of eighty- five.

— With the completion of volume X. (for 18S2|. Dr. L. Just wilt resign the editorship of the llotanineheH

Jahresbericht, which will then be privately conducted by Dr. E. Eoehne of Berlin, and Dr. T. Geyler of Friui kf ort-OD-Mal n.

— By the will of Mr. George Bentham, who died In September last, theLlnnean society of London, and the Royal society scientific relief fund, will receive, Xature states, a thousand pounds each. The residue of his real and personal estate is to hi- held upon trust, to apply the same in preparing And publishing botanical works, or in the purchase of books or speci- mens (or the botanical establishment at Kew, or In such other manner as his trustees, of whom Sir Joseph Hooker is one, may consider beat for the jinimolion of botanical science.

— A "Report on the Egyptian provinces of the Sudan, Red Sea, and Equator, compiled In the Intel- ligence branch quartermaster-general's department.

���horse-guards," has just )>een published b office at London tor three shillings and siajieDce, and will be found of great service to those following the current event* In upper Egypt, especially as it contains a capital map, and deacHptlons of all the routes of travel in the Egyptian Sudan knovm In July last.

— The capuehlii. Father Massaga, who has spent Ihirty-five years as missionary in the African desert, has been commanded by the pope to write his mem- oirs, that they may be published by the curia. The memoirs will be in ten volumes, and will be illus- trated by a Vifuncse artist.

— We learn from Nature that the German govern- ment has granted another sum of £7,50(1 for the sci- entific invesitigalion of Central Africa, and £1,900 (or ilie working-out of the materials collected by German polar expeditions.

— James ilackaon, secretary of the French geiv giaphical society, has issued a new edition of his list of velocities. The first velocity given is that of ihn Mer de Glace, — according to Tyndall, .OOOOOOP of a metre per second. The last, 403,500,000 metres per second, is that of the electricity In a wire connecting the inside and outside of a Leyden jar. What ii meant by the latter velocity is not quite clear, when we consider that we can no more speak of the velo- city of the conduction of electricity llian we can of the velocity of the conduction of heat.

— Dr. Zuilnski has published in a IVarsaw medical jouroal the results of a long series of experiment* made by him, both upon liuman beings and animals, with a view of verifying the pi] y Biological effects of I lobacco-smoke. Ho found, in the flrst place, that it I is a. distinct poison, even in small duses. Upon men its action is very slight when not inhaled In larye quan- lilles; hut it would 6oon become powerful if the ' smoker got into the habit of "swallowing the smoke:' and Dr. Zulinski ascertained that this toxical prop- erty is not due exclusively to the nicotine, biit that ti^bacco-smoke, even when disengaged of the nico- tine, contains a second toilcat principle called coli- dine, and also oxide of carbon and hydrocyanic acid. The effects produced by tobacco depend, he says, to a great extent upon the nature of the tobacco and the way In which it is smoked. The cigar-smoker absorbs more poison than the cigarette-smoker, and the latter, in turn, than those who smoke pipes; whElo the smoker who takes the precaution of using a nai^le, or any other apparatus which conducts the smoke through water, reduces the deleterious effects of tobacco to a minimum. Dr. Zulinski consider the ailificially lightened tobaccos to be more danger- ous than the darker- colored ones.

— The article on economy of fuel, on p. 74 of this volume, contains an error to which a correspondeal calls attention. It should have stated that the Oregon consumes 337 tons of coal per day, which gives com- busllon at the rate of over 1,500 pounds of coal for each mile traversed.

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