The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-02-09
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
"A woman's brain declines in weight
after the age of 30

Experience in the Texas oil fields
shows that the only effective way of
extinguishing burning oil is by the use
of steam.
Austrian shoe manufacturers will
advance the prices of shoes 10 per cent.
on account of the increased cost of
leather.
"A cooperative wedding gift fad has
been started in London. Groups of
friends of the happy pair unite in Civ
ing things worth while.
Rose Melville, who has won note
as Sis Hopkins, is lying i'll with pneu
monia at Detroit and is said to be in
a dangerous condition.
Wives of Siamese noblemen cut
their hair so that it sticks straight up
from their heads, the average length
being about an inch and d half.
"A Moscow beggar has for thirty
years worn, as self-iniicted atonement
for sins committed at the beginning
of that peroid, an iron chain from
which depend two heavy weights.
"A sportsman in a rowboat off Cat
alma Island on the California coast
was completely surrounded by a school
of small whales a few days ago. This
species is usually called "black fish,"
Prof. Koch has discovered a sue
cessful method of destroying ship rats.
An apparatus is used to fill the hold
of the ship with a>eertain gas. The
new system will in future, be used in
the German navy and on the big
German steamship lines.
A mercury vapor lamp made in
candescent by the passage of an cleo
trio current through the vapor was
recently exhibited in London. 1t is
said to yield a given amount of light
with but a fraction of the power re-
quired by the carbon filament lamp.
Spy Oak" said to be the largest
tree in New York state, standing on
the Pelham road, Westchester has
been condemned as unsafe, and will
probably soon be cut down, it having
become hollow and in danger of fall
ing. 1t is said that many spies and
deserters were hanged from it's
branches in Revolutionary times.
Some missionaries lately returned
from Japan say there is a great de-
mand for American teachers there.
Salaries ranging from SIS to $135 a
month are offered them and houses
are provided in addition. The govern
ment is devoting great attention to
the development of educational insti-
tutions. There are now a number of
American teachers in the big schools.
"A project is on foot in Berlin to
make use of Prof. Pupins invention
fAY f,YrY int fo1o
phone line. The cost of the application
and some technical difficulties have
prevented the trial of their invention
on the Atlantic cable, but it is thought
by these Berlin projectors that it is
entirely feasible to use it between
points On the Mediterranean, the Bal
tic and the North Seas. They expect
to establish direct telephone connec-
ton between Berlin and London, and
Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
1t is reported from Germany that
an experimenter there has found alum
mum an excellent substitute for
milestone in giving a fine, keen edge
to blades. When examined with a mi
croscope, the edge of a knife that that
Sharpened on the metal appeared much
straighter and smoother than one
sharpened on a stone. One peculiar ef-
feet of the honing is that the surface
of the aluminium becomes coated with
a greasy substance with a great
| power of adhesion to steel, and to this
is attributed the fine edge produced.
1t is claimed that almost a specific
for typhoid fever has been devised by
NJ. Chantemesse. The mortality from
typhoid in Paris hospitals not using the
serum varied from II to 10. 3 per cent,
while in DR.. Chantemesse's hospital,
where serum was used in every one of
1856 patients, the mortality was but 81
per cent. So far in Paris 1856 patients
have received the serum treatment,
with but II deaths, or a mortality with
the serum treatment was 6 per cent
The best result so far attained in the
German army was a mortality of 9.5
per cent. in typhoid fever Chante-
messe explains the effect of this serum
in that it is not only both anti-infec-
tious and antitoXic. but, above all, it
excites phagocytosis. Besides, he d.
reefs attention to the necessity of iso-
lating typhoid fever patients for the
protection of other patients. This he
considers an important means of pro-
phyylaXis.
DIR. George M. Gould's theory, ad-
vanced in a recently published book,
that eve strain is largely responsible
for dyspepsia, has aroused much inter-
est here among physicians and laymen,
says New York dispatch. Dr. Gould
says the physician has failed to be a
pathologist. He has endeavored to cure
the immediate suffering. He has not
tried to penetrate back Of it to it's orig
lnal cause. He has always gone on the
assumption that indigestion is a sick
ness of the digestive organs. Not until
DR.. Weir MitchelPs articles of TWEEN
ty-fiVe years ago, says the author, did
any one imagine that the digestion was
only the buffer, the whipping block for
the eyes. 1.-The reflex result of eve
strain" continues DR.. Gould, must be
shunted everywhere except back to the
eye itself. In women it goes to the
head, and the world is fun of those tor
tured with nervous or bilious head
aches. In many, especially in men
working much with their eyes. the re-
f1eX is to the digestional organs, with
indigestion and liver arrangements, an
orexia- etc. as the result The truth
that eye strain induces these functional
gastric, intestinal and hillary disorders
cannot much longer be ignored. When
acted upon it will constitute one of the
greatest advances in practical medicine
that has ever been made"
In an interesting article in
the Medical Record, DR.. H.
R. Tuthill says: when we con-
slider the fact that we carry disease
producing germs about in our months
and on the surface of our body, and
that the air which surrounds us may
I e,.-