The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-11-06
POPULAR SCIENCE.

POPULAR SCIENCE.
During the last ten years an ocullst OF
Cronstadt, Russia, is said to have treated
thirty cases of photo-electric ophthal-
mia, new disease due to the action Of
the electric light on the eyes.
M. Cornu, the French scientist, believes
that the light of shooting stars cannot be
due to combustion or heat, as supposed.
but it is a phenomenon of static electric
ity developed by simple friction.
In a recent issue of Russian medical
journal, a contributor emphatically calls
attention to the common sunfowers as an
excellent and cheap substitute for quinine
in the treatment of malarial fevers of all
possible forms.
The German Government propose
forming 3 botanical garden in the Cam
eroons, for the purpose of determining
what plants, medicinal or commercial,
are the best for cultivation in the planta-
tions of Germany's African colonies.
It issaid to have been demonstrated at
the Paris Exposition that, by a combina-
tion of compressed air and water, it
will be possible to drive a train on
slides over a hundred miles an hour.
There is no smoke, no noise and scarcely
any perceptible motion.
Narrow chested recruits of the Prus-
sian army are to be measured monthly,
and those whose chests are not widened
by drill are to be discharged as predis-
posed to consumption. All are to be
considered narrow chested whose chests
are less in circumference than half the
length of their bodies.
The new and Ingenious process brought
forward in London for the production of
aluminium steel is likely, it is claimed, to
supercede all other methods. It consists
simply in melting pig iron in contact
with clay and certain fuz, the result
being a sonorous, incorrodlble alloy,
containing Its per cent. of aluminium.
In observations on eighty-two male
and twcnty-eight female convicts DR..
Fradenigo, of Italy, has found them more
liable to ear diseases than abiding
citizens, but has detected no constant
relation between the obtuseness of touch,
taste and smell so common in convicts
and the sharpness of vision credited
them.
DR.. Won Duhring has reported a case
in which tuberculosis was transmitted by
the earrings of girl who died from con-
sumption to another girl. Shortly after
the second girl commenced to wear the
earrings an ulcer, containing tubercle
bacilli, formed on her left ear and she
subsequently developed pulmonary con-
sumption.
An official report states that in Eng
land and Wales 546 persons were killed
by lightning during the twenty-nine
wears from 1852 to 1880. The inhab-
itants of rural districts are found to suf-
fer more from lightning than those OF
towns, while vicinity to the west and
south coasts reduces the chances of injury
by lightning, and distance from the
coast and high land seems to increase
them.
A new ice machine of great capacity
has recently been devised, in which the
sulphurous anhydride hitherto employed
for this purpose is replaced by mixture
Of sulphurous and carbonic anhydride
alone. The inventor of this arrange
ment explains the matter on the basis OF
the theory that some kind of molecular
action, or rather reaction, occurs between
the two gases when liquefed, in conse-
quence of which the pressure exerted by
the gas is much smaller than would be
expected.
By comparing modern skulls with
those of the same race in an old mon
astery in the Kedrou Valley, DR.. Digit,
of the American College of Beirut, Syria,
has shown that thirteen centuries have
added two inches to the circumference
and three and half cubic inches to the
capacity of the Caucasian skull. The
brain is developed in the parts presiding
over the moral and intellectual functions,
growing higher and longer, without in
crease of the lower portions, which give
breadth to the head and in which the sell
fish propensities are centred.