The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-04-14
SCIENTIFIC.
ALCOHOL AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE

ALCOHOL AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE.
DR.. Lewis D. Mason, of the Inebriate
Asylum, Fort Hamilton, F. Y, dis
cussing The Etiology of Dipsomania
and the Heredity Of Alcoholic Inebrie-
ty, determines as facts that alcoholism
in ~progenitOrs will produce physical
and mental degradation in their de-
scendants, with the disorders that
arise from a defective nerve Organiza-
ton; and all grades of mental weaken
ing, from slight enlightenment of intel
lect to insanity and complete idiocy;
and that the laws regulating these
changes are similar to those that govern
congential degenerative changes from
other causes. The offspring Of the con
frmed drunkard will inherit either the
original vice or "some of it's countless
PrOtean transformations" In another
paper-on Pathological Changes in
Chronic Alcoholism-Dr. Mason ex-
hibits alcohol as modifying the scrum
and the anatomical elements of the
blood, besides being an irritant and
directly producing modification and
degeneration of tissue, and therefore
as being most evidently a disease pro-
duCing agent. Contrasting the little
pIORICSS UldG LdS OCCh h1du0 LII U11O
study of the pathology Of chronic al
to alcoholism with the great advance
that has been achieved in knowledge
of micrObic diseases, he adds: "AlcO-
hOl has not any micrObe, but the grand
total of it's mortality will exceed the
combined effect of all the bacteria that
have ever passed the microscopic field
or developed in the culture-tube of the
bacteriOlogist." The subject is now,
however. beginning to receive some of
the attention it deServes.-POpuLdr
Science Monthly for March.
TIKI CENTENARY OF THE MICROSCOPE.
1t is generally thought that the in
ventlon of the microscope goes back to
the close of. the fifteenth century, Or,
to be more precise, to the year 1890,
when in the city of Middleburg, in
Holland, two spectacIe-makers, named
Jansen, invented both the telescope
and the microscope. This date for the
invention, according to which it's third
centenary would arrive in 1890, does
not rest on authentic documents, but
is based on assertions published in
1866 by the physician Peter BOrel. He
denied that Calico, Drebbel, and
others, deserved the credit of having
invented the telescope; and in order to
demonstrate that the invention of that
instrument, as well as of the micro
scope, was due to the ~Janssens, pro-
duced some documents which showed
that the two spectacle-makers, having
invented the telescopei in 1890, presented
a specimen of it to Prince Maurice,
Stakeholder of the Netherlands, and to
the Archduke Albert. Later on how
ever, the telescope of Prince Maurice
became a microscope, in a letter of
William Borelli, who declared that he
had always heard in Niddleburg, his
native city, that the Jenssens had in
vented these optical instruments, and
further that, when he was ambassador
at London, in 1919, he had seen in the
hands of Drebbel the identical micro
scope that the Janssens had presented
to Prince Maurice.
Professor Cow, however, i'm a work
which demonstrates the excellence Of
his Judgment and his vast erudition,
has collected a series of documents,
which not only seem to restore the
merit of the invention of the micro
scope to Calico, but show the various
vicissitudes of the discovery itself.
Inc HTSG u1uG O1 Gu0 CHARACTERIZATION Ol
the Holland telescope into a microscope
is found in a little book published in
161Oby Wodderborn, a pupil of Calico.
Speaking of the wonderful qualities Of
the telescope, Wodderborn adds, in
praise of Calico, that with the instru-
ment could be perfectly distinguished
the organs of motion and sensibilty in
the smallest animalcules," so that the
particular formation of multiplied eyes
in very small animals could be per
ceived. This new application of the
telescope by himself Calico did not
deny, thoughhe never directly affirmed
it. In the National Library at Paris
is preserved a letter by Canon Tarde,
in which he speaks of visiting Calico
in Florence, in 1914, when the latter
was sick in bed. Notwithstanding, to
Tarde Calico gave ample explanation
of a microscope then in his possession.
Whether the invention of the simple
microscope be due to Jansen or Calico,
to Drebbel is due the merit of having
produced, at Rome, in 1924, the com
pound microscope. The difference be-
tween the two hardly needs explana-
ton. The simple microscope magnifes