lard, and bacon are prominent staples in the farm routine, peanuts should be grown for consumption upon the land. In this way all the labor and cost of harvesting and selling the crop is obviated, and the farmer gets more per pound for the nuts thus converted into meat than he could get for them after the most careful harvesting; besides, the benefit to the soil is incalculable. Peanut hay, where the crop is properly harvested, is a valuable feed for horses, cattle, and sheep. It is a nutritious and safe feed for all animals, and all stock is fond of it. It is excellent for milch cows. The yield of hay per acre is about equal to that of other hay and fodder crops."

SCIEN

MILK IN SOLID FORM.

CIENTISTS and chemists interested in the problem of the preservation of milk and removing from it the danger of propagating disease, have been for years trying to devise a method whereby milk might be prepared in solid form and still retain those properties which make it of value while a liquid. Says the writer of an illustrated article on the subject in The Scientific American Supplement (New York):

"Condensed milk, the first step in this direction, while possessing many advantages, still has certain drawbacks which prevent its use for many purposes. The next step was, naturally, the complete conversion of milk into a solid or powdered form. The underlying principle in making both condensed and dry milk is extremely simple, and consists merely in evaporating a portion or all of the water contained therein. The difficulty lies in the manner in which this is done, for the dry milk to be of practical utility must be perfectly soluble and must, in effect, regain its original condition when dissolved in water.

"Strictly speaking, milk in dry form is not an entirely new product, for several brands of it have been on the market for a number of years. Most of these, however, possess the disadvantage of incomplete solubility, and are liable to leave numbers of small clots or lumps in the dissolved milk, and this frequently emits an unpleasant odor of cheese upon standing undisturbed for a short period. These forms of dry milk are manufactured by the so-called slow-evaporation or low-temperature process, for many scientists have maintained that rapid evaporation at high temperature would precipitate the albumin, and consequently make the product insoluble to a degree. That the reverse is true, appears to have been proven by Dr. John A. Just, of Syracuse, N. Y., who has been granted patents covering both his process for making dry milk and the product of the same, and this process is almost a complete contradiction of other methods now in use. The manufacturers of dry

Courtesy of "The Scientific American Suplement."

A HEAP OF DRY MILK.

milk, according to the Just method, as well as many others who have used it, claim really exceptional qualities for the product. These are perfect solubility, permitting the reconstitution of natural milk with all its organoleptic properties, the complete retention of all the nutritive principles and the assimilability of fresh milk, and perfect preservability and absolute sterility.

"The apparatus designed by Dr. Just is of extreme simplicity. It consists essentially of two hollow, polished metal cylinders placed side by side and slightly separated from each other. They are mounted in a strong iron framework, and revolve in opposite directions at a rate of appicximately six revolutions per minute.

Courtesy of "The Scientific American Supplement."

THE JUST MILK-DRYING MACHINE.

cylinders, and the evaporation begins as soon as the liquid comes into contact with the heated metal surface. The milk passes gradually between the cylinders, and is carried in a thin, uniform layer upon each until it reaches a knife-blade held in contact with the surface, which removes the solid, moist milk residue in continuous sheets. These sheets dry upon cooling, and are easily crumbled into a flaky white powder."

IS DISEASE BENEVOLENT?

THAT many of the most prominent symptoms of disease are

not malignant manifestations, but rather nature's efforts to apply a remedy, has often been noted. Pain itself is but nature's danger signal; inflammation is but the outward manifestation of the struggle between the leucocytes or white-blood corpuscles, and injurious foreign bodies of one sort or another. This view is extended by Sir Frederick Treves, in an address before the Philosophical Society in Edinburgh, setting forth what is termed in the daily press as a new theory of disease" and a " startling paradox." Sir Frederick's address is thus summarized in a special cable despatch to The Sun (New York, November 5):

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Sir Frederick then put forward this interesting theory: Cancer is apparently reproduced under inopportune circumstances. The type of exuberant growth which is the normal one is opportune when the structures of the body are being formed. In the absence of knowledge no one could tell the purpose of this out of place activity. If he were compelled to add to the list of pure surmises possible lines on which a remedy for cancer might be expected, he would point out that during the period of the development of childhood certain glands were in an active state which appeared in some way to control, limit, and modify the process of production, which might otherwise run riot. It was noteworthy that one such gland, the thymus, wasted and vanished after a period of the greatest bodily activity was over, and it was impossible not to wonder whether the introduction of an active principle, such as a gland, in a case of cancer would excite the influence late in life which it seemed to be intended that it should excite when the growth was alert in the young. A thymus extract had been largely tried in medicine, but it did not appear that any active principle had been isolated from the gland and used."

A writer in The Westminster Gazette (London), after reading Sir Frederick's address, makes it the subject of these lines:

Whoe'er thinks well to cure a cold,

Or cough, himself deceives.
No lozenge, linctus, should be sold-
Teste Sir Frederick Treves.

Neuralgic twinge should make you glad;
Sing praises if you sneeze;
Mere microbe slaughter is not sad;
Their deaths are not disease.

The gaping wound should cheer the soul,
Bring joy each broken bone;
The healed are sick-the ill are whole,
Alive the dead alone.

RACIAL SUPERIORITY AND INFERIORITY.

THAT

"

HAT there is no such thing, speaking broadly, as an inferior race," that is, a race that is and must always remain inferior by reason of natural limitations, is the contention of Prof. N. Colajanni, who holds the chair of statistics in the University of Naples. In a recently published volume entitled "Latins and Anglo-Saxons; Superior and Inferior Races," he sets out to destroy what he regards as the myth of pretended superior races. That one race may be and often is superior to another at a given period, he freely acknowledges; but he points out that their positions may be reversed in the following century, and that without infusion of new blood or other clearly traceable cause. Besides this, national and racial boundaries everywhere cross each other nowadays. Says a reviewer of the book in Cosmos (Paris, October 7):

"Well-known authors have vaunted the superiority of the AngloSaxons, and it has even been the fashion among the Latin races to blacken their own characters and to see no good qualities and no future success anywhere but among their neighbors and rivals.

"But, in the first place, in what does the superiority of a race consist? And even if there were originally noble races, dare we assert that at the present moment there exists a nation that has sprung from a single race? Everywhere ethnic characters are mixed and fused; the national sentiment, the idea of fatherland, does not correspond to the measurements of the anthropologists, and sometimes even contradicts them in peremptory fashion; the shapes of the skull, the figure, the color of the skin, hair, and eyes may differ, while the feelings, thoughts, and acts remain the same. "It is not, therefore, in ethnic factors but in the physical, moral,

and social constitution that we must look for the causes of a nation's greatness or decadence. The author, among the Latin races, notes only his own, and compares modern Italy with England, Germany, and the United States; but he extends his investigation back into the historic past and shows in a general way that the superiority and inferiority of races are phenomena that relate essentially to the moment when they are observed. Races are superior at one moment, and without the slightest change taking place in their anthropological composition they become inferior at another moment. All peoples and all races, or rather all nations, have contributed their quota to the patrimony of civilization, which is not the exclusive possession of some one of them, but may rather be represented as a torch passed from one to the other. The decadence of nations has always begun by attacking their constitution and inner life; it was a moral decadence before becoming intellectual and economic.

"Mr. Colajanni thinks that nations in decadence are not necessarily doomed to irremediable disaster, nor even to perpetual stagnation, but that they are capable of rising again to prosperity and greatness, even without the infusion of new blood into their veins. Provided that they do not give up hope in themselves they have no sufficient reason to despair of the future."-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

BU

A CURE FOR BAD TEMPER.

ULWER in one of his novels introduces as a humorous character a physician who insists on treating the emotions medically—a bit of satire directed against the early homeopathists. The laugh to-day would seem to be on the other side, for we find a theory of the emotions gaining ground in which the physical symptoms are regarded as the most important factor, and physicians of reputation do not hesitate to treat these with remedial agents. This is only carrying a little further the vague instinct which leads a man overcome by unrequited love, or jealousy, or grief to “take to drink," that is, to resort blindly to a stimulant to counteract the physical depression of the emotion. Now Sir Lauder Brunton, a famous English physician and surgeon, is quoted by a special London cable to the New York Herald as recommending a powder of bromid of potash and other drugs for counteracting the effects of irritating occurrences or depressing news. The result of this medical treatment is thus described:

"In the place of being much worried and unable to turn attention to other things, a person feels as if he had slept over the bad news or worry, and is able to obtain relief by turning his attention to something else."

Other portions of the interview with Sir Lauder are thus sum. marized and criticized by Modern Medicine:

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·

According to this despatch, Sir Lauder Brunton recommends the temper powders' as a means of preventing those constant explosions of temper on the part of a member of a family' which may affect the health of the other members, who have their appetites spoiled, their digestion impaired, their nerves shattered, and their pleasure in life destroyed by the mental suffering induced by the irritable temper of another. For these patients the best treatment is to administer temper powders to the offending perwhen the distressing symptoms of the other members of the family will be relieved.'

son,

This is, indeed, an easy way out of trouble; but it is a dangerous expedient, and in the end will only make worse trouble, for the effects of bromid of potash and other stupefying drugs are to leave the subject in a state of increased irritation when the effects have worn off. In order to cure bad temper, then, by this plan, the only effective method would be to keep the patient under the constant influence of the bromid of potash, opium, or some other nervedepressing drug.

'Bad temper, in a great proportion of cases, has for its foundation indigestion, nervous exhaustion, or some other physical ill, which may be relieved by the removal of causes and the adoption of suitable physiologic measures. In certain cases moral remedies are necessary, as well as physical."

A

CONTESTS IN WEATHER PREDICTION.

UNIQUE contest took place recently at the exposition at Liége, Belgium, under the auspices of the Belgian Society of astronomy, Meteorology, and Physical Geography. Seven experts in weather forecasting took part, and the jury consisted also of seven scientists, including one American, Professor Rotch of Blue Hill Observatory. Those who take seriously the efforts of certain persons to predict weather conditions at long range will be interested to learn that no estimate for more than twenty-four hours in advance was required. In order to save time and simplify the process, the predictions were based on old weather-maps, the contestant's forecast for the next twenty-four hours being compared with the actual map for the following day. Says the writer of a report printed in La Nature (Paris, October 21):

"It was required to forecast the chart of isobars [lines of equal barometric pressure] of the following day, from seven maps taken at random from the volumes of meteorologic bulletins between 1880 and 1902. Later it was required to forecast from three charts taken from volumes selected by lot, but chosen from these volumes by the jury in such way as to present situations of exceptional difficulty. At the close of this trial the best three of the contestants were invited to furnish verbally, and later in writing, explanations of the methods employed by them, with application to the particular cases in hand.

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The prize was unanimously awarded to Gabriel Guilbert, secretary of the Meteorological Commission of Calvados, at Caen, for his method, which enables him to forecast with precision displacements and variations of centers of high and low pressure over Europe. Tho this method can not yet give absolute certainty, it enables the forecaster to indicate in advance complete changes of situation that no other method has hitherto been able to foresee. "The jury also gave credit to the remarkable work of Mr. Durand-Gréville on crops and the valuable applications of it made by him to the forecasting of weather. The memoranda and explanations furnished by all the contestants also presented interesting features in other respects, but in general they were in line with the methods already employed.

The jury decided to publish a detailed report on the contest, which will be prepared by Mr. Brunhes [director of the Puy-deDome Observatory, and a member of the jury]."

The daily press announce that a forecasting contest has also been arranged for this side of the water, but as it is to be held under private auspices and apparently invites the participation of all sorts of long-distance and other "freak" forecasters, there is little chance that scientific students of the weather will be induced to take part. Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

Alcohol as a Medicine.-It is not overstating the matter, thinks The Hospital (London), to say that our grandfathers, lay and medical alike, regarded alcohol, especially in the form of spirit, as the prime resource in cases of severe illness or injury. Even to-day the majority of householders look upon the brandy-bottle as a fetish to charm away disease and death. This idea the journal just quoted characterizes as a "monstrous superstition," which, it says, is slowly and reluctantly, but none the less surely, yielding, in the light of modern scientific knowledge. The writer goes on:

"Yesterday we were taught that shock was to be counteracted by large doses of brandy; to-day those who have studied the problem most carefully in the laboratory and by the sick-bed, and who are entitled to direct professional opinion on the matter, inform us that to administer alcohol to the individual suffering from shock is to increase the danger to his life. Thirty years ago the leaders of professional opinion in this country thought it was iniquitous to withhold alcohol from patients suffering from typhoid fever. Now, as we learn from a paper written by Dr. Dawson Burns for presentation to the International Congress against Alcoholism, which meets at Budapest this week, the London Temperance Hospital is able to show for a period of 33 years a mortality of only 14.4 per cent. in all cases of typhoid fever treated in the hospital,

the mortality for the last 10 years being 12.27 per cent. The majority of these patients were not given alcohol. It will be seen that the results are not inferior to those obtained at other metropolitan institutions. For example, the mortality among cases treated in the Metropolitan Asylums Board hospitals during the year 1904 was 14.58 per cent. We are far from being in agreement with the intemperate and wholesale condemnations of alcohol that are so constantly thrust upon us by the self-styled temperance reformer. We maintain that in moderation alcoholic drinks are pleasant and harmless. But we desire to point out that the value of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the treatment of acute diseases is not so great as medical men have hitherto supposed."

speed trial last July. The daring photographer, with his camera, is suspended from the starboard anchor crane of the battle ship. The photograph is not taken as a mere curiosity but is a regular feature of the trial, the shape of the bow-wave being an important evidence of the effectiveness of the vessel's lines. Several of these photographs were taken on the trial, of which the paper quoted above says in addition:

"This was the regular quarterly trial called for by the navy regulations, but was at the same time a race in which the battle-ships Wisconsin and Oregon were also involved. The Ohio is said to have been sixteen miles ahead of the Wisconsin at the finish, while the Oregon was out of sight in the rear. The Pocahontas coal used was reported to be of good quality, but as a matter of fact it was, mostly slack, due to a low supply. The blowers were run simply for ventilating purposes, and at a very low rate of revolution. It is thought that had the coal been really of first quality,

and the blowers run to their full capacity, the result would have exceeded in speed that obtained upon the builders' trial trip, namely, 17.83 knots. The mean depth of water varied from 15 to 38 fathoms."

SOME

SOME EVILS OF COLD STORAGE.

COME of the limitations and abuses of the methods of refrigeration now generally employed in the transportation and storage of flesh foods, are discussed by Dr. John C. Hemmeter, in a letter to the Maryland Medical Journal abstracted in The Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette (New York). The latter paper remarks that the use of cold in the preservation of dressed meats is almost free from objection, and its failure in the preservation of fish, and especially of undrawn poultry, has not come prominently into view. It goes on:

"The immediate environment of such large cities as New York and Philadelphia is simply a complex of smaller cities, and in the case of New York one can say that from the colossal metropolis to Albany in one direction, along both sides of the banks of the Hudson, from New York to Boston along the coast in a northerly direction, and from New York to Philadelphia in a southerly direction, we simply have a chain of larger and smaller cities with insufficient agricultural land intervening to supply the animal and vegetable food for the multitude of human beings within the great cities. Cold storage has therefore become a necessity in order to preserve the large number of killed poultry that comes chiefly from our great West. There can be therefore no question of abolition of cold storage for animal food. In fact, some goods, like beef, mutton, etc., are improved and rendered more digestible by cold storage. This is due to the fact that the carcasses of slaughtered beeves are not preserved in their entirety, and not until the viscera and entrails have been removed.) Poultry, game, and fish, altho preserved on ice, will undergo a slow putrefactive change; the muscular part of the animal gradually becomes soaked with toxic substances. If the animal is taken out of cold storage, very few moments suffice for a rapid absorption of toxins by the muscular part of the poultry or fish, as the case may be. A law should be enforced in the large cities prohibiting the cold storage of poultry, game, and fish still containing the viscera and intestines.

Dr. Hemmeter believes the percentage of human beings that have become infected with tuberculosis by way of the intestinal canal is underestimated rather than overestimated. For the infection to take place by means of food, no lesion of the intestinal wall is necessary, no epithelial desquamation, no local changes of any character, no previous inflammatory process. Inasmuch as tubercle bacilli can enter the intestinal wall without leaving any trace of their passage, it is impossible to say how many infections of the human organism with tuberculosis may have taken place through the gastro-intestinal canal, for the bacilli once having entered the lymph stream may become arrested in other places, especially in the lungs, and give rise to the formation of tubercles. The question should command the attention of the very best of our hygienists. Chemists and physiologists of acknowledged ability should be given charge in a systematic investigation of this problem."

Height of the Atmosphere.-This has been determined by Prof. TJ. J. See, of Washington, by a new method, to be 211 kilometers [131 miles], with an uncertainty of less than 10 per cent. Says the Revue Scientifique (Paris, October 14):

"The method consists in noting the time of sunset and that of the complete disappearance of the blue of the sky: this latter may be observed easily with the naked eye, and with precision when the air is quite clear. Trigonometry gives the distance of the sun below the horizon at the instant when the blue changes to black, and thus we can always calculate the height at which the illuminated particles are found. . . . The instant of disappearance is a little uncertain. . . but nevertheless the method would appear not to be more doubtful than that based on the observation of shooting stars, which gives a height of about 175 kilometers [109 miles]. It may be recalled that Lord Rayleigh attributes the blue color of the sky to the reflection of the sun's light by the small particles of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper layers of the atmosphere. This theory

is in some sort confirmed by the coincidence of the result obtained by Professor See with that furnished by the shooting-star method." -Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGest.

SCIENCE BREVITES.

THAT the amount of water in the brain and nerves decreases rapidly with age, has been demonstrated in the case of the white rat by Professor Donaldsen of Johns Hopkins University. Says the Revue Scientifique (Paris, October 14): 'In the brain, the percentage falls from 89 to 77 from birth to the end of the first year; in the spinal marrow the fall is from 86 to 69. In the brain the decrease is most rapid during the first eight days of life; in the spine it is slower. If we consider the increase of solids, we thus see that in the nerve-tissue they augment more rapidly than the weight of the organ. Speaking generally, the percentage of water in the central nervous system is in strict correlation with the age of the animal and almost independent of the absolute weight of the body.Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

EXPERIMENTS on the behavior of animals during a total eclipse are by no means a novelty. An attempt was made, during the recent eclipse in Europe, to observe its effect on carrier pigeons, but this "columbo-astronomic experiment" as a writer in the Revue Scientifique (Paris, September 16) somewhat grandiloquently calls it, was unsuccessful, owing to the rainy weather that prevailed. It was hoped that the result might throw some light on the question of the means by which carrier-pigeons find and preserve the proper direction of flight. During totality some pigeons that were released started off in exactly the opposite direction to that of their cotes, while, when the eclipse had nearly ceased, some other pigeons took the right direction at once. This the writer (Professor Thauziès of the lycée at Perigueux) does not regard as of much importance, however, owing to the bad weather. Several birds also attracted attention during the eclipse by their eccentric flight, rising first to a great height, "then descending on the roofs, to mount again soon afterward, describing huge curves in space, alternating with extraordinary zigzags and dizzy plunges."-Transla tion made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

IN an editorial on The Public Schools and the Public Health," in The Medical Examiner and Practitioner, reference is made to a recent address by Dr. J.S. Lankford, of the Board of Education of San Antonio, Texas, in which the doctor contends that if a serious intention exists to utilize the hygienic information acquired during the last few years, it can be done only by cooperation with school children and their teachers. His opinion seems to be that by beginning sufficiently early in life certain thought habits can be enforced upon the children which they will retain and transmit, so that the next generation will do, as by instinct, those things which to-day the present generation does only by compulsion. In San Antonio the children of the public schools, guided by their teachers, have done what the adults would not even raise their hands to do-the children practically exterminated the stegomyia. Object lessons were given to the children, the mosquito was permitted to develop through all its stages, of course in confinement, while the stereopticon and limelight showed the development and life history of the parasite. Dr. Lankford believes that San Antonio will escape an epidemic of the yellow fever and should it do so the credit, he insists, will belong to the children and not to their parents.

RABBITS are not the only European visitors that Australia would be glad to get rid of. The English starlings first introduced to that country from Great Britain for the destruction of insects, and protected by law, have completely changed their habits, and have now become a serious pest to fruit-flowers. Says The London Times: The few pairs of these birds taken to Australia some years ago have increased to myriads, and have become so destructive to the fruit industry that the regulations framed for their protection by law have been repealed, and energetic steps are advocated for their eradication. The fruit destroyed by them includes peaches, pears, cherries, figs, apricots, plums, grapes, strawberries, and apples, and both vine-growing and fruit-growing are seriously threatened if the pest is not suppressed. From many districts it is reported that fruit-growing will have to be given up unless some radical steps are taken. As many as ten cases of apples have been destroyed by a flock of these birds in less than half-an-hour. Valuable insect-eating birds, such as kingfishers, diamondbirds, tree-swallows, and tree-creepers, are being driven out of their nesting-places in tree hollows by swarms of starlings, and before long the birds so useful to the farmer and fruit-grower will be driven out of the country. The starling is said to raise five broods in a year and to multiply with amazing rapidity. In one district three years ago not one was to be seen; now there are thousands. The Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria and similar associations are uniting in a request to the Government to take active steps to eradicate the pest.

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THAT hundreds of "erratic," "sensitive," or "queer" people are really more or less mentally unbalanced is asserted in a recent issue of The Journal of the Kansas Medical Society, by Dr. C. C. Goddard, of the University of Kansas. These," says the doctor, "are borderland peculiarities and types of neuropsychoses. Many an aborted paranoiac [victim of insane delusions] creates hell in neighborhoods and families; is constantly quarreling with friends and neighbors; creating litigation on all subjects of dispute and makes the living of a great many lawyers; imagines every one is trying to annoy, rob, or smirch his reputation; all these are well over the border and can be put in the class of mental aberration. Many a morbid religionist, going about not daring to smile or see an amusing thing in life, carrying a visage of gloom, with a thorough pessimistic nature, fearing to offend and thereby be eternally damned by a God. that is supposed to stand for love, but by them is made to represent misery and sorrow, are, without a question, within the territory of mental alienation. So many sane and insane travel the road of life together, making it difficult to distinguish one from the other, while peculiarities of ideation are propagated and handed down to future ages; until finally it is a question, Is any one fit to sit in judgment upon his fellow? for often the judge is crazier than the subject." After taking up the topics of hysteria and moral perversion, the author asks, "Who then is insane?" and answers, "As his neurons are, so the man is," intimating that the sanity or insanity of an individual depends entirely upon the condition of his nerve-cells, including all their processes.