The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-04-04
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

las most people are aware, vegetables
possess various medicinal qualities. Here
are some worth bearing in mind: Aspara-
gus is very cooling and easily digested.
Cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts
and broccoli are cooling, nutritive, laxa-
tive and purifying to the blood and also
act as tonics. but should not be eaten too
freely by delicate persons. Celery is good
for rheumatic and equity persons. Let
tuces are very wholesome. They are
slightly narcotic and lull and calm the
mind. Spinach is particularly good fer
rheumatism and govt and also in kidney
diseases. Onions are good for chest all
ments and colds, but do not agree with
all. Water crosses are excellent toncs
and cooling. Beetroot is very cooling and
highly nutritious, owing to the amount
of sugar it contains. Parsley is cooling
and purifying. Potatoes. parsnips, Car
rots, turnips and artichokes are highly
nutritious, but not so digestible as some
vegetables Potatoes are the most nour-
ishing and are fattening for nervous per-
sons. Tomatoes are health-giving and pu-
rlfy1ng, either eaten raw or cooked. Chilli,
cayenne, horseradish and mustard should
be used spalingly. They give zest to
the appetite and are valuable stomachics.
Radishes are the same, but are indigesti-
bic and should not be eaten by delicate
people.
The disinfection of the sick room and
the antiseptic methods which go far to-
ward the creation of modern surgery, says
Prof. f. w. Clarke in Popular Science
Monthly, all depend upon chemical pro-
ducts whose long hist increases year by
year. Crude drugs are now replaced by
active principles discovered in the labora-
tory-morphine, quinine and the like-and
instead of the bulky, nauseous draughtS
OF olden time, the invalid is given taste
less capsules of gelatin or compressed tab
let's of uniform strength and more accu-
rately graded powder. A great part OF
physiology consists of the study of chem
ical processes, the transformation of COM
pounds within the living organism, and
practically all this advance is the crea-
ton of the nineteenth century. Modern
oacterlology, al least in its practical ap-
plications, began with chemical discus
sion between Liebig and Pasteur as to
the nature of fermentation, step by step
the field of exploration has enlarged; as
the result of the investigation we have
preventive medicine. more perfect sani-
tation, and antiseptic surgery. The pto-
maines which cause disease and the anti
toxine which prevent it are alike chemical
in their nature and were discovered by
chemical methods. Physiology without
chemistry could not exist; even the phe-
nomena of respiration were meaningless
before the discovery of oxygen. The hui
man body is a chemical laboratory, and
without the aid of the chemist its mys-
terfes cannot be unraveled.
DIR. l.. Laloy, in a German scientific
publication, describes some of the won
derful ways in which members of the
plant and animal Kingdoms overcome the
difficulties of maintaining life in spite of
the vicissitudes of extreme cold in win
ter or drought in summer. Organisms
whose natural habitat is shallow ponds
or rivuets are subject to great stress of
circumstances when these places dry up,
as they often do if rains are not fire.
quent. AS a protection against this,
some forms have acquired the power of
suspending their life activities for lengths
of time that rival the reported sleep of
the Indian fakirs, who are said to be able
to go into a comatose condition in one
genera ton and wake up in the next. AS
the drought approaches, these organisms
undergo a gradual drying, mobile forms
lose their power of motion, and they
shrink up into mass apparently without
life, and remain in this condition until
the return of wet weather or until the
wind blows them into another pond,
where they resume their former activi-
ties. There is the same protection against
death by freezing. The same Individual
may go into the quiescent state and re-
vive again. or on reviving it may break
up into a number of spores, which de-
velop into new individuals. This charac-
teristic of one-celled animals served as
the basis for Weissmanns famous asser-
tion that the protocol are eternal, for as
each one ultimately breaks up to form
a number of new individuals, and there
is no dead body remaining, no death can
have occurred, and, according to his the
ory the habit of dying was acquired by
more highly organized animals, in which
all of the individual did not take direct
part in the formation of it's descendants.
The old time discussion of the hight
of ocean waves has been lately renewed
in Knowledge an English publication. In
the course of an article by Vaughan Cor
nish describing a series of observations,
the writer says that it was in the South
ern Indian Ocean, between the Cape of
Good Hope and the isles of St. Paul and
Amsterdam, in the region of almost con-
tinual westerly winds. that the largest
waves were observed. On Oct. 25, 1867
during a gale from the northwest, with
violent snow squalls, thirty waves were
measured at different times of day which
averaged 1888 feet in hight. The largest
of them were 1888 feet in hight. And of
these no fewer than six in succession
were observed, which followed one an
other with admirable regularity. They
lifted the corvette as if it had been a
whaleboat, then left her wallowing in a
deep trough, extending far on either hand
Lieut.. Paris, who made these observa-
lions, had to mount to the twenty-second
rung of the shrouds before he attained
the level of the crest. On the evening of
the same day waves even larger were
seen but not measured Those on board
the corvette seem to have agreed that
the waves of this Oct. rs were the largest
within their experience The hight of
the individual waves was often found to
vary in proportion of one to two. 1t was
only in very favorable conditions that
the average hight was OF or 0.S of the
extreme hight In the open ocean a
strong wind soon caused waves of as
much as 1914 feet. The distance from
crest to crest was found often to vary
in the proportion of to in two sue
| cessive waves. In a rising sea the wave
length increased more rapidly than the
hight, a process which was found to
continue for several days.
lis it not possible that in a healthy
normal condition we do all our thinking