The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1886-11-17
MODERN SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.
Application OF seieaee to the Useful Arts
What the Future Holds in Store.


/ What the Future Holds in Store
When new discovery Is announced,
society sits and stares at the discoverer as
If TO say, Wen, what are you going to do
about it? Capitalists dodge him when he
calls BY common consent he Is voted a
bore. BE is generally poor. A long
course OF meditation on mathematical
problems has impaired dazed air 70 his
physiognomy. His clothes are apt to be
shabby. His eyes have a hungry look.
de IS generally one-idea man: on all
other subjects than the one he has in
hand he Is apt to be duh and ill-informed.
Men of the world know that, as a rule,
such men are either enthusiasts or inn
| posters. II is safe betting that nine out
of ten new discoveries or inventions
viii turn out 10 be useless or frauds.
| The prudent capitalist never embarks
money in enterprises where the chances
are nine to one against success.
And yet there are great discoveries in
course of evolution which are destined
to revoluhonize the world, and to pile up
| fortunes for their patentees compared to
which the colossal wealth acquired by
the owners of the Bell telephone will
seem triaing. Take the one subject of
| aerial navigation. a hundred years have
/ elapsed since Montgolfier demonstrated
the navigabihty of the air The missing
ink with him was the power 10 direct
his balloon. Fifty years afterward John
| Wise believed he had discovered the
secret; he declared that the air lay in
strata, IN some Of which the wind was
invariable. The defect of his theory
was that his premises We're false-there
Is no aerial stratum in which the wind
Is invariable. Since 1880 Capt. Krebs
and others in France and Germany have
actually constructed dirigible balloons
/ Capt. Krehs made foul miles an hour
against the wind. OF course, this is not
very fast travelling; but the first railway
| carriage only made six miles an hour. If
| krebs can sail four miles an hour against
| the wind, he can, by perfecting his
machinery, sail forty. When he does,
railroad passenger travel viii be at an
end and the age of aerial travel viii
begin.
| In a late number of this journal we
noticed the progress that is being made
in the use of electricity as a motor. 1t
seems that large proportion of the boots
| and the clothing that is made in San
Francisco is to some extent sewed by
electricity. We say ito some extent,
because thus far the motors are only an
auxiliary to the sewing machines; the
human hand and foot are still required,
though their labor is reduced. But it is
obvious that the next step in the course
of invention viii be to devolve the whole
work upon the machine when it is once
started. One girl viii be able to manage
half dozen machines working stimuli
taneously. There Is no limit to the use
Of electricity as n motor, if once it can
be taught its business.
Surgery is a science which seems des-
tined to benefit largely by the progress
of science. We noticed the other day
the admirable use to which the telephone
had been put for purposes of ausculta-
ton, and for the diagnosis of throat and
lung diseases, where the patient could
not visit the doctor Here is a field of
wide promise for the scientist. The
tendency of medical and surgical science
is toward the adoption of specialties; men
of the highest scientific rank will evi-
IDENTIFY hereafter devote themselves to a
single organ, or to single class of
diseases, and viii deal with them exclu-
sively. Such men will be unable TO spare
time TO travel around visiting patients,
and in many cases patients will be I'M
able to visit them. The telephone will
bring the doctor to the sick mans bed
side, and with the assistance of photo
graph and a careful record of symptoms
from the family physician, the specialist
will be enabled to diagnose and prescribe.
Surgery has already derived some help
from the experiments which have been
made with the oxy-hydrogen and other
fierce lights, but the progress has not
been as large as might be wished. 1t
seems possible to make a light SO pierc-
ing that it will enable practiced eye TO
see through the tissues. When this is
accompl .hed the physician will call in
the aid Of the surgeon to deal with
diseases of the heart, the liver, the kid
neys, the bowels the lungs, the throat,
the brain: instead of an empirical dag
nosis based on external symptoms, the
surgeon viii see what the trouble is, not
through glass darkly, but clearly with his
own eyesight and the patient will have
better chance of recovery than now
when the doctor doses him with nitrate
of potash to cure pain which he calls
rheumatism because he doesn't know
what it is, and fills him up with quinins
TO antidote malarial poison.-San Fran
cisco Chronicle.