The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-01-30
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

To recent progress in sanitary science
Sir Joseph Tayrer, formerly surgeon gen
eral of the army in India, attributes the
fact that England's death-rate has de-
creased during the present century from
forty in the thousand to twenty in the
thousand.
A mountain explorer just returned from
Asia states that during four months
residence at a heighth of more than 1j,-
600 feet above the sea his pulse, normally
siXty-three beats per minute, seldom fell
below one hundred beats per minute, and
his respirations were often twice as
numerous as at ordinary levels
After many years of experimenting
German chemist claims to have succeeded
at last in coating instaTaneously all the
ordinary metals and their alloys with
thin film of brass, which can be varied
in color. He uses only single battery
cell, and obtains at will solid deposits of
various hues and brilliancy.
A new process Of separating mixed
cotton and wool rags consists in subject
ing them to the action of jet of super
heated steam. The wool melts under a
pressure of five atmospheres, and sinks
to the bottom of the receptacle; while
cotton ard other vegetable fibres stand,
thus remaining suitable for the paper
manufacturer. The liquid mud contain
ING the wool is then dried, and the
residue known as azotine, is valuable
for its nitrogen.
TRANSMISSION Of blood has been success
fully tried in the collapse of cholera by
a member of the Paris Faculty of medi-
cine. The patient, who was mOribund
when the remedy was tried, recovered
from the death coma in a few minutes,
and, from the moment of the
TRANSMISSION spontaneously and rapidly
improved. Human blood was employed
in the case; but experiments are to be
made with the blood of domestic ami
mails, particularly sheep and cattle.
According to the novel computation of
German histologist, who has been cal
culatng the aggregate cell forces of the
human brain, the cerebral mass is COM
posed of at least 800, 600, 600 of nerve
cells, each an independent body, organ
ism and microscopic brain, so far as con-
Germs its vital relations, but subordinated
to higher purpose in relation to the
function of the organ, each living a sep
arate life individually, though socially
subject to higher law of function. The
life term of a nerve cell he estimates to
be about sixty days, so that >, 900, 600 die
every day, about 200, 600 every hour and
nearly $500 every minute, to be sue
ceeded by an equal number of their
progeny; while once in every sixty days
a man has totally new brain.
Beside the vast quantities of solid par
ticles which are washed from the land
into the sea reducing the height of the
entire Mississippi basin at the estimated
rate of one foot in 5000 years-much
matter is dissolved by the water, an d
carried away in q stale N which it ordi-
narily escape notice. From data fur
nishcd by the Mississippi, the La Plata,
the Amazon and the st. Lawrence, Mr..
r. Mellard Reade, an English geologist,
! who has devoted much attention to the
chemical dcnudation of the earths sur
face, has calculated that the whole
American continent is losing in this way
an average of 100 tons per square mile
each year. Similar results have been
| obtained for Europe, leading Mr.. Reade
to infer that the whole of the land drain
| inc into the Atlantic Ocean from Ameri-
! ca, Africa, Europe and Asia contributes
: matter in solution, which, if reduced to
| rock at two tons to the cubic yard
would equal one cubic mile every six