Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1885-09-16
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
ICompiled for the SPEcTAT&.J


Paris, by DIR. Boudet, included modifiea-
tions of the telephone adapting the instru
ment to a variety of medical uses. In one
form the pulsations of blood vessels and all
sorts of internal operations were very strik-
ingly made audible, the observer being able
to hear at will the movements in any part
of the body. Another telephone appliance
detected the presence of stones in the blad-
der, and even made known their character
when present. DR.. Boudet also employs
the telephone as measuring instrument for
accurately estimating the nervous and mus
cular excitement in the different phases OF
disease.
Oleoze, the favorite German preparation
for Disgusting the taste of most unpleasant
remedies, is said to have this composition
One part each of the oils of lavender, cloves,
cinnamon, thyme, citron, mace and orange
flowers, three parts of balsam of Peru, and
240 parts of spirits.
Speaking upon the water supply of an
cient Roman towns, Prof. W. H. Corfield
has presented the Sanitary Institute of Great
Britain a strong argument against attempts
to purify water that has once become foul,
commencing the wisdom of the Romans in
drawing the water for their towns from un-
questionably pure sources.
In southern Russia vineyards are freed
from phylloxera by planting hemp near the
infected vines. The parasites are attracted
to the hemp by its strong odor, and the
roots prove to be poisonous to them.
From nearly 400 singers including no
| Germans or Italians-Dr. Lennox Browne
has secsred testimony that the use of alco-
hol and tobacco in lures the singing voice.
A German chemist, j. IT,, Otto, finds az
terial blood to contain more sugar than the
blood of the veins. ~
ANCIENT AsTRoNoMY.-Ab $40 B. c.,
Thales OF Miletus taught the globular form
Of the earth, the five zones, some of the
principal circles of the sphere, the opacity
of the moon and the true causes of lunar
eclipses, and predicted an eclipse. About
506 B. c., Pythagoras demonstrated, from
the varying attitudes of the stars by change
of place, that the earth must be round, that
thare might be antipodes on the opposite
part of the globe that Venus was the
morning and evening star; that the uni
verse consisted of twelve spheres-the
sphere of the earth, of the water, OF the
air, of fire, Of the moon, of the sun, of
Saturn, and of the stars. In 290 B. c., Ar
istarchus of Samos maintained that the
earth turned on its own axis and revolved
about the sun, which doctrine was regarded
by his contemporaries as so absurd that he
nearly lost his life.
SCIENTIFIC SoCIETIEs.-The British AS
sociation for the Advancement of Science
was organized in 1881 the American As
sociation, in 1S41 and the French Asso-
citation, in 1872. The members of each of
these bodies include nearly every scientific
man of its respective country, and much
real progress undoubtedly results from the
interchange of ideas at the annual meetings
of the societies.
In England is supported to some extent
the theory that direct relationship exists
between scarlet fever and diphtheria and
at a recent meeting of a British medical
association facts were presented which tend
ed to show that scarlet fever had been con-
tracted from diphtheria patients, and diph-
liberia from scarlet fever patients. ---.
The Towering plants and ferns of Ceylon,
according to DR.. Trimen, embrace 1071 ge
nera, or 3249 regular species. There are
also 4OS varieties, Of which some may prove
to be distinct species.
The PRosAIc PRESENT." The age of
romance in SCIENCE" said Prof. J. P. Les
ley in his presidential address to the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of
Science, sis part of the forgotten past. The
new world has grown gray-headed in fifty
years, intolerant of the responsibility, the
sportiveness, the poetry, the music, the su-
perstitions, the affections, of it's youth
dealing only in hard facts, and in their
causes and consequences weighing and
measuring all things analyzing all things;
collating, comparing, and classifying in
sisting upon investigation at all points for
mulating rigid laws scoffing at the unseen
and unknowable : and transmitting the fear
of God and the hopes of heaven into zeal
for the exact determination of the units of
force, and a confident expectation that rail-
roads will soon traverse all the unoccupied
regions of the earth, and malleable steel re-
place wood in the mechanic arts"
Tromholt endorses the view, said to have
been first advanced by Weyprecht, that the
zone in which the aurora borealis appears
is changing periodically, being farthest
south at the equinoxes and farthest north
at the solstices. Observations made in many
places seem to prove the correctness of the
theory.
The American Indians are found by Mat
thews to have knowledge of animals and
plants incomparably superior to that of the
average white man, or Of the white man
who has not made zoology or botany sub
ject of study.
The director of the Buda-Pesth Bureau
of Statistics, Josef Korosi, has calculated
from carefully prepared mortality tables
that the possession of wealth, and the re-
sulting exemption from privation, lengthen
the average life nearly ten years.
Bromine exposed in a closed room over
night is said to efectually destroy all in
sects and disease germs.
OM1NoUs PROPHECIES CONCERNING 1886.
Somebody has unearthed an old prophecy
for the year 1886 of decidedly uncomfort-
able nature. It appears that in the church
of Oberemmel, near the city of Treveri, N
Germany, there is a stone tablet some CEN
turies old, on which is cut the prophetic
verse-in prose it may be rendered.
"When Mark shall bring us Easter and
Anthony shall sing praises at Pentecost,
and John swing the censor at the feast of
Corpus Domini, then shall the whole earth
resound with weepings and wailings."
Now, it so happens that next year Easter
falls on st. Marks day, Pentecost on that
of St. Anthony of Padua, and the Corpus
Domini comes on st. John the Baptist IS
day, June "a. Here, then, are the first con-
ditions of the prophecy fulfilled, so that
believers in prophecies and anxious minded
persons gener'lly have only to sit down
and think Of everything disagreeable that
can possibly happen to this poor old plenet
and the dwellers thereon between January
and December, 1886. And, really, if the
cyclones and earthquakes and epidemics
and ''wars and rumors of wars" of the
years 1SS2-9-4-5 are to be eclipsed, the pros
pect is not an agreeable one.-London
Globe.
Wise's speeches are too filthy and abusive
f0, 1oIx To nd @1o ,Je