Chapter VII: AGRICULTURE.--The Spectral Masdevallia.--Illustration (4)

Observation 34. August, 1881. Visited the Wallabout; found it filled up with earth. August 17. Visited the Flushing district; examined for the gemiasma the same localities above named, but found only a few dried up plants and plenty of spores. With sticks dug up the earth in various places near by. Early in September revisited the same, but found nothing more; the incrustation, not even so much as before. The weather was continuously for a long time very dry, so much so that vegetables and milk were scarce.

The grass and grounds were all dried up and cracked with fissures.

There must be some moisture for the development of the plants. Perhaps if I had been able to visit the spots in the early morning, it would have been much better, as about the same time I was studying the same vegetation on 165th Street and 10th Avenue, New York, and found an abundance of the plants in the morning, but none scarcely in the afternoon.

Should any care to repeat these observations, these limits should be observed and the old adage about "the early bird catching the worm," etc. Some may object to this directness of report, and say that we should report all the forms of life seen. To this I would say that the position I occupy is much different from yours, which is that of discoverer. When a detective is sent out to catch a rogue, he tumbles himself but little with people or things that have no resemblance to the rogue. Suppose he should return with a report as to the houses, plants, animals, etc., he encountered in his search; the report might be very interesting as a matter of general information, but rather out of place for the parties who desire the rogue caught. So in my search I made a special work of catching the gemiasmas and not caring for anything else. Still, to remove from your mind any anxiety that I may possibly not have understood how to conduct my work, I will introduce here a report of search to find out how many forms of life and substances I could recognize in the water of a hydrant fed by Croton water (two specimens only), during the present winter (1881 and 1882) I beg leave to subjoin the following list of species, not individuals, I was able to recognize. In this list you will see the Gemiasma verdans distinguished from its associate objects. I think I can in no other way more clearly show my right to have my honest opinion respected in relation to the subject in question.

PLATE VIII.--A, B, C, Large plants of Gemiasma verdans. A, Mature plant. B, Mature plant discharging spores and spermatia through a small opening in the cell wall. C, A plant nearly emptied. D, Gemiasma rubra; mature plant filled with microspores. E, Ripe plant discharging contents. F, Ripe plant, contents nearly discharged; a few active spermatia left behind and escaping. G, nearly empty plant. H, Vegetation in the SWEAT of ague cases during the paroxysm of sweating. I, Vegetation in the BLOOD of ague. J, Vegetation in the urine of ague during paroxysm. K, L, M, Vegetation in the urine of chronic cases of severe congestive type. N, Vegetation in BLOOD of Panama fever; white corpuscles distended with spores of Gemiasma. O, Gemiasma alba. P, Gemiasma rubra. Q, Gemiasma verdans. R, Gemiasma alba. O, P, Q, R, Found June 28,1867, in profusion between Euclid and Superior Streets, near Hudson, Cleveland, O. S, Sporangia of Protuberans.]

List of objects found in the Croton water, winter of 1881 and 1882. The specimens obtained by filtering about one barrel of water:

1. Acineta tuberosa.
2. Actinophrys sol.
3. Amoeba proteus.
4. " radiosa.
5. " verrucosa.
6. Anabaina subtularia.
7. Ankistrodesmus falcatus.
8. Anurea longispinis.
9. " monostylus.
10. Anguillula fluviatilis.
11. Arcella mitrata.
12. " vulgaris.
13. Argulus.
14. Arthrodesmus convergens.
15. Arthrodesmus divergens.
16. Astrionella formosa.
17. Bacteria.
18. Bosmina.
19. Botryiococcus.
20. Branchippus stagnalis.
21. Castor.
22. Centropyxis.
23. Chetochilis.
24. Chilomonads.
25. Chlorococcus.
26. Chydorus.
27. Chytridium.
28. Clatbrocystis æruginosa.
29. Closterium lunula.
30. " didymotocum.
31. " moniliferum.
32. Coelastrum sphericum.
33. Cosmarium binoculatum.
34. Cyclops quad.
35. Cyphroderia amp.
36. Cypris tristriata.
37. Daphnia pulex.
38. Diaptomas castor.
39. " sull.
40. Diatoma vulgaris.
41. Difflugia cratera.
42. " globosa.
43. Dinobryina sertularia.
44. Dinocharis pocillum.
45. Dirt.
46. Eggs of polyp.
47. " entomostraca.
48. " plumatella.
49. " bryozoa.
50. Enchylis pupa.
51. Eosphora aurita.
52. Epithelia, animal.
53. " vegetable.
54. Euastrum.
55. Euglenia viridis.
56. Euglypha.
57. Eurycercus lamellatus.
58. Exuvia of some insect.
59. Feather barbs.
60. Floscularia.
61. Feathers of butterfly.
62. Fungu, red water.
63. Fragillaria.
64. Gemiasma verdans.
65. Gomphospheria.
66. Gonium.
67. Gromia.
68. Humus.
69. Hyalosphenia tinctad.
70. Hydra viridis.
71. Leptothrix.
72. Melosira.
73. Meresmopedia.
74. Monactina.
75. Monads.
76. Naviculæ.
77. Nitzschia.
78. Nostoc communis.
79. OEdogonium.
80. Oscillatoriaceæ.
81. Ovaries of entomostraca.
82. Pandorina morum.
83. Paramecium aurelium.
84. Pediastrum boryanum.
85. " incisum.
86. " perforatum.
87. " pertusum.
88. " quadratum.
89. Pelomyxa.
90. Penium.
91. Peredinium candelabrum.
92. Peredinium cinc.
93. Pleurosigma angulatum.
94. Plumatella.
95. Plagiophrys.
96. Playtiptera polyarthra.
97. Polycoccus.
98. Pollen of pine.
99. Polyhedra tetraëtzica.
100. " triangularis.
101. Polyphema.
102. Protococcus.
103. Radiophrys alba.
104. Raphidium duplex.
105. Rotifer ascus.
106. " vulgaris.
107. Silica.
108. Saprolegnia.
109. Scenedesmus acutus.
110. " obliquus.
111. " obtusum.
112. " quadricauda.
113. Sheath of tubelaria.
114. Sphærotheca spores.
115. Spirogyra.
116. Spicules of sponge.
117. Starch.
118. Staurastrum furcigerum.
119. " gracile.
120. Staurogenum quadratum.
121. Surirella.
122. Synchoeta.
123. Synhedra.
124. Tabellaria.
125. Tetraspore.
126. Trachelomonas.
127. Trichodiscus.
128. Uvella.
129. Volvox globator.
130. " sull.
131. Vorticel.
132. Worm fluke.
133. Worm, two tailed.
134. Yeast.

More forms were found, but could not be determined by me. This list will give an idea of the variety of forms to be met with in the hunt for ague plants; still, they are as well marked in their physical characters as a potato is among the objects of nature. Although I know you are perfectly familiar with algæ, still, to make my report more complete, in case you should see fit to have it pass out of your hands to others, allow me to give a short account of the Order Three of Algæ, namely, the Chlorosporeæ or Confervoid Algæ, derived from the Micrographic Dictionary, this being an accessible authority.

Algae form a class of the thallophytes or cellular plants in which the physiological functions of the plant are delegated most completely to the individual cell. That is to say, the marked difference of purpose seen in the leaves, stamens, seeds, etc., of the phanerogams or flowering plants is absent here, and the structures carrying on the operations of nutrition and those of reproduction are so commingled, conjoined, and in some cases identified, that a knowledge of the microscopic anatomy is indispensable even to the roughest conception of the natural history of these plants; besides, we find these plants so simple that we can see through and through them while living in a natural condition, and by means of the microscope penetrate to mysteries of organism, either altogether inaccessible, or only to be attained by disturbing and destructive dissection, in the so called higher forms of vegetation. We say "so-called" advisedly, for in the Algæ are included the largest forms of plant life.

The Macrocystis pyrifera, an Algæ, is the largest of all known plants. It is a sea weed that floats free and unattached in the ocean. Covers the area of two square miles, and is 300 feet in depth (Reinsch). At the same time its structure on examination shows it to belong to the same class of plants as the minute palmellæ which we have been studying. Algæ are found everywhere in streams, ditches, ponds, even the smallest accumulations of water standing for any time in the open air, and commonly on walls or the ground, in all permanently damp situations. They are peculiarly interesting in regard to morphological conditions alone, as their great variety of conditions of organization are all variations, as it were, on the theme of the simple vegetable cell produced by change of form, number, and arrangement.

The Algæ comprehend a vast variety of plants, exhibiting a wonderful multiplicity of forms, colors, sizes, and degrees of complexity of structure, but algologists consider them to belong to three orders: 1. Red spored Algæ, called Rhodosporeæ or florideæ. 2. The dark or black spored Algæ, or Melanosporeæ or Fucoideæ. 3. The green spored Algæ, or Chlorosporeæ or Confervoideæ. The first two classes embrace the sea-weeds. The third class, marine and aquatic plants, most of which when viewed singly are microscopic. Of course some naturalists do not agree to these views. It is with order three, Confervoideæ, that we are interested. These are plants growing in sea or fresh water, or on damp surfaces, with a filamentous, or more rarely a leaf-like pulverulent or gelatinous thallus; the last two forms essentially microscopic. Consisting frequently of definitely arranged groups of distinct cells, either of ordinary structure or with their membrane silicified--Diatomaceæ. We note three forms of fructification: 1. Resting spores produced after fertilization either by conjugation or impregnation. 2. Spermatozoids. 3. Zeospores; 2, 4, or multiciliated active automobile cells--gonidia--discharged from the mother cells or plants without impregnation, and germinating directly. There is also another increase by cell division.

SYNOPSIS OF THE FAMILIES.

1. _Lemaneæ_.--Frond filamentous, inarticulate, cartilaginous, leathery, hollow, furnished at irregular distances with whorls or warts, or necklace shaped. Fructification: tufted, simple or branched, necklace shaped filaments attached to the inner surface of the tubular frond, and finally breaking up into elliptical spores. Aquatic.

2. _Batrachospermeæ_--Plants filamentous, articulated, invested with gelatine. Frond composed of aggregated, articulated, longitudinal cells, whorled at intervals with short, horizontal, cylindrical or beaded, jointed ramuli. Fructification: ovate spores and tufts of antheridial cells attached to the lateral ramuli, which consist of minute, radiating, dichotomous beaded filaments. Aquatic.

3. _Chaetophoraceæ_.--Plants growing in the sea or fresh water, coated by gelatinous substance; either filiform or a number of filaments being connected together constituting gelatinous, definitely formed, or shapeless fronds or masses. Filaments jointed, bearing bristle-like processes. Fructification: zoospores produced from the cell contents of the filaments; resting spores formed from the contents of particular cells after impregnation by ciliated spermatozoids produced in distinct antheridial cells. Coleochætæ.

4. _Confervaceæ_.--Plants growing in the sea or in fresh water, filamentous, jointed, without evident gelatine (forming merely a delicate coat around the separate filaments) Filaments very variable in appearance, simple or branched; the cells constituting the articulations of the filaments more or less filled with green, or very rarely brown or purple granular matter; sometimes arranged in peculiar patterns on the walls, and convertible into spores or zoospores. Not conjugating.

5. _Zygnemaceæ_.--Aquatic filamentous plants, without evident gelatine, composed of series of cylindrical cells, straight or curved. Cell contents often arranged in elegant patterns on the walls. Reproduction resulting from conjugation, followed by the development of a true spore, in some genera dividing into four sporules before germinating.

6. _OEdogoniaceæ_.--Simple or branched aquatic filamentous plants attached without gelatine. Cell contents uniform, dense, cell division accompanied by circumscissile debiscence of the parent cell, producing rings on the filaments. Reproduction by zoospores formed of the whole contents of a cell, with a crown of numerous cilia; resting spores formed in sporangial cells after fecundation by ciliated spermatozoids formed in antheridial cells.

7. _Siphonaceæ_--Plants found in the sea, fresh water, or on damp ground; of a membranous or horny byaline substance, filled with green or colorless granular matter. Fronds consisting of continuous tubular filaments, either free or collected into spongy masses of various shapes. Crustaceous, globular, cylindrical, or flat. Fructification: by zoospores, either single or very numerous, and by resting spores formed in sporangial cells after the contents have been impregnated by the contents of autheridial cells of different forms.

8 _Oscillatoriaceæ_.--Plants growing either in the sea, fresh water, or on damp ground, of a gelatinous substance and filamentous structure. Filaments very slender, tubular, continuous, filled with colored, granular, transversely striated substance; seldom blanched, though often cohering together so as to appear branched; usually massed together in broad floating or sessile strata, of a very gelatinous nature; occasionally erect and tufted, and still more rarely collected into radiating series bound together by firm gelatine and then forming globose lobed or flat crustaceous fronds. Fructification: the internal mass or contents separating into roundish or lenticular gonidia.

9. _Nostochacæ_.--Gelatinous plants growing in fresh water, or in damp situations among mosses, etc.; of soft or almost leathery substance, consisting of variously curled or twisted necklace-shaped filaments, colorless or green, composed of simple, or in some stages double rows of cells, contained in a gelatinous matrix of definite form, or heaped together without order in a gelatinous mass. Some of the cells enlarged, and then forming either vesicular empty cells or densely filled sporangial cells. Reproduction: by the breaking up of the filaments, and by resting spores formed singly in the sporanges.

10. _Ulvaceæ_.--Marine or aquatic algae consisting of membranous, flat, and expanded tubular or saccate fronds composed of polygonal cells firmly joined together by their sides.

Reproduced by zoospores formed from the cell contents and breaking out from the surface, or by motionless spores formed from the whole contents.

11. _Palmellaceæ_.--Plants forming gelatinous or pulverulent crusts on damp surfaces of stone, wood, earth, mud, swampy districts, or more or less regular masses of gelatinous substance or delicate pseudo-membranous expansion or fronds, of flat, globular, or tubular form, in fresh water or on damp ground; composed of one or many, sometimes innumerable, cells, with green, red, or yellowish contents, spherical or elliptical form, the simplest being isolated cells found in groups of two, four, eight, etc., in course of multiplication. Others permanently formed of some multiple of four; the highest forms made up of compact, numerous, more or less closely joined cells. Reproduction: by cell division, by the conversion of the cell contents into zoospores, and by resting spores, formed sometimes after conjugation; in other cases, probably, by fecundation by spermatozoids. All the unicellular algæ are included under this head.

12. _Desmidiaceæ_.--Microscopic gelatinous plants, of a screen color, growing in fresh water, composed of cells devoid of a silicious coat, of peculiar forms such as oval, crescentic, shortly cylindrical, cylindrical, oblong, etc., with variously formed rays or lobes, giving a more or less stellate form, presenting a bilateral symmetry, the junction of the halves being marked by a division of the green contents; the individual cells being free, or arranged in linear series, collected into fagot-like bundles or in elegant star like groups which are embedded in a common gelatinous coat. Reproduced by division and by resting spores produced in sporangia formed after the conjugation of two cells and union of their contents, and by zoospores formed in the vegetative cells or in the germinating resting spores.

13. _Diatomaceæ_.--Microscopic cellular bodies, growing in fresh, brackish, and sea water: free or attached, single, or embedded in gelatinous tubes, the individual cells (frustules) with yellowish or brown contents, and provided with a silicious coat composed of two usually symmetrical valves variously marked, with a connecting band or hoop at the suture. Multiplied by division and by the formation of new larger individuals out of the contents of individual conjugated cells; perhaps also by spores and zoospores.

14. _Volvocineæ_.--Microscopic cellular fresh water plants, composed of groups of bodies resembling zoospores connected into a definite form by their enveloping membranes. The families are formed either of assemblages of coated zoospores united in a definite form by the cohesion of their membranes, or assemblages of naked zoospores inclosed in a common investing membrane. The individual zoospore-like bodies, with two cilia throughout life, perforating the membranous coats, and by their conjoined action causing a free co-operative movement of the whole group. Reproduction by division, or by single cells being converted into new families; and by resting spores formed from some of the cells after impregnation by spermatozoids formed from the contents of other cells of the same family.

Plate IX.--Large group of malaria plants, Gemiasma verdans, collected at 165th Street, east of 10th Avenue, New York, in October, 1881, by Dr. Ephraim Cutter, and projected by him with a solar microscope. Dr. Cuzner--the artist--outlined the group on the screen and made the finished drawing from the sketch. He well preserved the grouping and relative sizes. The pond hole whence they came was drained in the spring of 1882, and in August was covered with coarse grass and weeds. No plants were found there in satisfactory quantity, but those figured on Plate VIII. were found half a mile beyond. This shows how draining removes the malaria plants.]

From the description I think you have placed your plants in the right family. And evidently they come in the genera named, but at present there is in the authorities at my command so much confusion as to the genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like Nageli, Kutzing, Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would be quite unwise for me to settle here, or try to settle here, questions that baffle the naturalists who are entirely devoted to this specialty. We can safely leave this to them. Meantime let us look at the matter as physicians who desire the practical advantages of the discovery you have made. To illustrate this position let us take a familiar case. A boy going through the fields picks and eats an inedible mushroom. He is poisoned and dies. Now, what is the important part of history here from a physician's point of view? Is it not that the mushroom poisoned the child? Next comes the nomenclature. What kind of agaricus was it? Or was it one of the gasteromycetes, the coniomycetes, the hyphomycetes, the ascomycetes, or one of the physomycetes? Suppose that the fungologists are at swords' points with each other about the name of the particular fungus that killed the boy? Would the physicians feel justified to sit down and wait till the whole crowd of naturalists were satisfied, and the true name had been settled satisfactorily to all? I trow not; they would warn the family about eating any more; and if the case had not yet perished, they would let the nomenclature go and try all the means that history, research, and instructed common sense would suggest for the recovery.

This leads me here to say that physicians trust too much to the simple dicta of men who may be very eminent in some department of natural history, and yet ignorant in the very department about which, being called upon, they have given an opinion. All everywhere have so much to learn that we should be very careful how we reject new truths, especially when they come from one of our number educated in our own medical schools, studied under our own masters. If the subject is one about which we know nothing, we had better say so when asked our opinion, and we should receive with respect what is respectfully offered by a man whom we know to be honest, a hard worker, eminent in his department by long and tedious labors. If he asks us to look over his evidence, do so in a kindly spirit, and not open the denunciations of bar room vocabularies upon the presenter, simply because we don't see his point. In other words, we should all be receptive, but careful in our assimilation, remembering that some of the great operations in surgery, for example, came from laymen in low life, as the operation for stone, and even the operation of spaying came from a swineherd.

It is my desire, however, to have this settled as far as can be among scientists, but for the practical uses of practicing physicians I say that far more evidence has been adduced by you in support of the cause of intermittent fever than we have in the etiology of many other diseases. I take the position that so long as no one presents a better history of the etiology of intermittent fever by facts and observations, your theory must stand. This, too, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary.

Certainly you are to be commended for having done as you have in this matter. It is one of the great rights of the profession, and duties also, that if a physician has or thinks he has anything that is new and valuable, to communicate it, and so long as he observes the rules of good society the profession are to give him a respectful hearing, even though he may have made a mistake. I do not think you had a fair hearing, and hence so far as I myself am concerned I indorse your position, and shall do so till some one comes along and gives a better demonstration. Allow me also to proceed with more evidence.

Observation at West Falmouth, Mass., Sept 1, 1877. I made five observations in like manner about the marshes and bogs of this town, which is, as it were, situated on the tendo achillis of Cape Cod, Mass. In only one of these observations did I find any palmellæ like the ague plants, and they were not characteristic.

Chelsea, Mass., near the Naval Hospital, September 5, 1877. Three sets of observations. In all spores were found and some sporangia, but they were not the genuine plants as far as I could judge. They were Protococcaceæ. It is not necessary to add that there are no cases of intermittent fever regarded as originating on the localities named. Still, the ancient history of New England contains some accounts of ague occurring there, but they are not regarded as entirely authentic.

Observation. Lexington, Mass, September 6, 1877. Observation made in a meadow. There was no saline incrustation, and no palmellæ found. No local malaria.

Observation. Cambridge, Mass. Water works on the shore of Fresh Pond. Found a few palmellæ analogous to, but not the ague palmellæ.

Observation. Woburn, Mass, September 27, 1877, with Dr. J. M. Moore. Found some palmellæ, but scanty. Abundance of spores of cryptogams.

Observation. Stonington, Conn., August 15, 1877. Examined a pond hole nearly opposite the railroad station on the New York Shore Line. Found abundantly the white incrustation on the surface of the soil. Here I found the spores and the sporangias of the gemiasmas verdans and rubra.

Observation 2. Repetition of the last.

Observation 3. I examined some of an incrustation that was copiously deposited in the same locality, which was not white or frosty, but dark brown and a dirty green. Here the spores were very abundant, and a few sporangias of the Gemiasma rubra. Ague has of late years been noted in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Observations in Connecticut. Middlefield near Middletown, summer of 1878. Being in this locality, I heard that intermittent fever was advancing eastward at the rate of ten miles a year. It had been observed in Middlefield. I was much interested to see if I could find the gemiasmas there. On examining the dripping of some bog moss, I found a plenty of them.

Observations in Connecticut. New Haven. Early in the summer of 1881 I visited this city. One object of my visit was to ascertain the truth of the presence of intermittent fever there, which I had understood prevailed to such an extent that my patient, a consumptive, was afraid to return to his home in New Haven. At this time I examined the hydrant water of the city water works, and also the east shore of the West River, which seemed to be too full of sewage. I found a plenty of the Oscillatoreaceæ, but no Palmellæ.

In September I revisited the city, taking with me a medical gentleman who, residing in the South, had had a larger experience with the disease than I. From the macroscopical examination he pronounced a case we examined to be ague, but I was not able to detect the plants either in the urine or blood. This might have been that I did not examine long enough. But a little later I revisited the city and explored the soil about the Whitney Water Works, whence the city gets its supply of water, and I had no difficulty in finding a good many of the plants you describe as found by you in ague cases. At a still later period my patient, whom I had set to use the microscope and instructed how to collect the ague plants, set to work himself. One day his mother brought in a film from off an ash pile that lay in the shade, and this her son found was made up of an abundance of the ague plants. By simply winding a wet bandage around the slide, Mr. A. was enabled to keep the plants in good condition until the time of my next visit, when I examined and pronounced them to be genuine plants.

I should here remark that I had in examining the sputa of this patient sent to me, found some of the ague plants. He said that he had been riding near the Whitney Pond, and perceived a different odor, and thought he must have inhaled the miasm. I told him he was correct in his supposition, as no one could mistake the plants; indeed, Prof. Nunn, of Savannah, Ga., my pupil recognized it at once.

This relation, though short, is to me of great importance. So long as I could not detect the gemiasmas in New Haven, I was very skeptical as to the presence of malaria in New Haven, as I thought there must be some mistake, it being a very good cloak to hide under (malaria). There is no doubt but that the name has covered lesions not belonging to it. But now the positive demonstrations above so briefly related show to my mind that the local profession have not been mistaken, and have sustained their high reputation.

I should say that I have examined a great deal of sputa, but, with the exception of cases that were malarious, I have not encountered the mature plants before. Of course I have found them as you did, in my own excretions as I was traveling over ague bogs.

[_To be continued_.]

* * * * *

ICHTHYOL.

DR. P.G. UNNA, of Hamburg, has lately been experimenting on the dermato therapeutic uses of a substance called ichthyol, obtained by Herr Rudolph Schroter by the distillation of bituminous substances and treatment with condensed sulphuric acid. This body, though tar-like in appearance, and with a peculiar and disagreeable smell of its own, does not resemble any known wood or coal tar in its chemical and physical properties. It has a consistence like vaseline, and its emulsion with water is easily washed off the skin. It is partly soluble in alcohol, partly in ether with a changing and lessening of the smell, and totally dissolves in a mixture of both. It may be mixed with vaseline, lard, or oil in any proportions. Its chemical constitution is not well established, but it contains sulphur, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and also phosphorus in vanishing proportions, and it may be considered comparable with a 10 per cent, sulphur salve. Over ordinary sulphur preparations it has this advantage, that the sulphur is in very intimate and stable union, so that ichthyol can be united with lead and mercury preparations without decomposition. Ichthyol when rubbed undiluted on the normal skin does not set up dermatitis, yet it is a resolvent, and in a high degree a soother of pain and itching. In psoriasis it is a fairly good remedy, but inferior to crysarobin in P. inveterata. It is useful also locally in rheumatic affections as a resolvent and anodyne, in acne, and as a parasiticide. The most remarkable effects, however, were met with in eczema, which was cured in a surprisingly short time. From an experience in the treatment of thirty cases of different kinds--viz., obstinate circumscribed moist patches on the hands and arms, intensely itching papular eczema of the flexures and face, infantile moist eczemas, etc.--he recommends the following procedure. As with sulphur preparations, he begins with a moderately strong preparation, and as he proceeds reduces the strength of the application. For moist eczema weaker preparations (20 to 30 per cent. decreased to 10 per cent.) must be used than for the papular condition (50 per cent. reduced to 20 per cent.), and the hand, for example, will require a stronger application than the face, and children a weaker one than adults; but ichthyol may be used in any strength from a 5 per cent. to a 40 to 50 per cent. application or undiluted. For obstinate eczema of the hands the following formula is given as very efficacious: R. Lithargyri 10.0; coq.c. aceti, 30.0; ad reman. 20.0; adde olei olivar., adipis, aa 10.0; ichthyol 10.0, M. ft. ung. Until its internal effects are better known, caution is advised as to its very widespread application, although Herr Schroter has taken a gramme with only some apparent increase of peristalsis and appetite.--_Lancet_.

* * * * *

AUTOPSY TABLE.

The illustration represents an autopsy table placed in the Coroner's Department of the New York Hospital, designed by George B. Post and Frederick C. Merry.

An amphitheater, fitted up for the convenience of the jury and those interested when inquests are held, surrounds the table, which is placed in the center of the floor, thus enabling the subject to be viewed by the coroner's jury and other officials who may be present.

The mechanical construction of this table will be readily understood by the following explanation:

The top, indicated by letter, A, is made of thick, heavy, cast glass, concaved in the direction of the strainer, as shown. It is about eight feet long and two feet and six inches wide, in one piece, an opening being left in the center to receive the strainer, so as to allow the fluid matter of the body, as well as the water with which it is washed, to find its way to the waste pipe below the table, and thus avoid soiling or staining the floor,

The strainer is quite large, with a downward draught which passes through a large flue, as shown by letter, F, connected above the water seal of the waste trap and trunk of the table to the chimney of the boiler house, as indicated by the arrows, carrying down all offensive odors from the body, thereby preventing the permeating of the air in the room.

The base of the table, indicated by letter, B, represents a ground swinging attachment, which enables the turning of the table in any direction.

D represents the cold water supply cock and handle, intersecting with letter, E, which is the hot water cock, below the base, as shown, and then upward to a swing or ball joint, C, then crossing under the plate glass top to the right with a hose attachment for the use of the operator. Here a small hose pipe is secured, for use as may be required in washing off all matter, to insure the clean exposure of the parts to be dissected. The ball swing, C, enables the turning of the table in any direction without disturbing the water connections. This apparatus has been in operation since the building of the hospital in 1876, and has met all the requirements in connection with its uses.--_Hydraulic Plumber_.

* * * * *

THE EXCITING PROPERTIES OF OATS.

Experiments have been recently made by Mr. Sanson with a view to settling the question whether oats have or have not the excitant property that has been attributed to them. The nervous and muscular excitability of horses was carefully observed with the aid of graduated electrical apparatus before and after they had eaten a given quantity of oats, or received a little of a certain principle which Mr. Sanson succeeded in isolating from oats. The chief results of the inquiry are as follows: The pericarp of the fruit of oats contains a substance soluble in alcohol and capable of exciting the motor cells of the nervous system. This substance is not (as some have thought) vanilline or the odorous principle of vanilla, nor at all like it. It is a nitrogenized matter which seems to belong to the group of alkaloids; is uncrystallizable, finely granular, and brown in mass. The author calls it "avenine." All varieties of cultivated oats seem to elaborate it, but they do so in very different degrees. The elaborated substance is the same in all varieties. The differences in quantity depend not only on the variety of the plant but also on the place of cultivation. Oats of the white variety have much less than those of the dark, but for some of the former, in Sweden, the difference is small; while for others, in Russia, it is considerable. Less than 0.9 of the excitant principle per cent. of air-dried oats, the dose is insufficient to certainly affect the excitability of horses, but above this proportion the excitant action is certain. While some light-colored oats certainly have considerable excitant power, some dark oats have little. Determination of the amount of the principle present is the only sure basis of appreciation, though (as already stated) white oats are likely to be less exciting than dark. Crushing or grinding the grain weakens considerably the excitant property, probably by altering the substance to which it is due; the excitant action is more prompt, but much less strong and durable. The action, which is immediate and more intense with the isolated principle, does not appear for some minutes after the eating of oats; in both cases it increases to a certain point, then diminishes and disappears. The total duration of the effect is stated to be an hour per kilogramme of oats ingested.

* * * * *

FILARIA DISEASE.

The rapid strides which our knowledge has made during the past few years in the subject of the filaria parasite have been mainly owing to the diligent researches of Dr. Patrick Manson, who continues to work at the question. In the last number of the _Medical Reports for China_, Dr. Manson deals with the phenomenon known as "filarial periodicity," and with the fate of embryo parasites not removed from the blood. The intimate pathology of the disease, and the subject of abscess caused by the death of the parent filaria, also receive further attention. An endeavor to explain the phenomenon of "filarial periodicity" by an appeal to the logical "method of concomitant variations" takes Manson into an interesting excursion which is not productive of any positive results; nor is any more certain conclusion come to with regard to the fate of the embryos which disappear from the blood during the day time. Manson does not incline to the view that there is a diurnal intermittent reproduction of embryos with a corresponding destruction. An original and important speculation is made with respect to the intimate pathology of elephantiasis, chyluria, and lymph scrotum, which is thoroughly worthy of consideration. Our readers are probably aware that the parent filaria and the filaria sanguinis hominis may exist in the human body without entailing any apparent disturbance. The diameter of an embryo filaria is about the same as that of a red blood disk, one three-thousandth of an inch. The dimensions of an ovum are one seven-hundred-and-fiftieth by one five-hundredth of an inch. If we imagine the parent filaria located in a distal lymphatic vessel to abort and give birth to ova instead of embryos, it may be understood that the ova might be unable to pass such narrow passages as the embryo could, and this is really the hypothesis which Manson has put forward on the strength of observations made on two cases. The true pathology of the elephantoid diseases may thus be briefly summarized: A parent filaria in a distant lymphatic prematurely expels her ova; these act as emboli to the nearest lymphatic glands, whence ensues stasis of lymph, regurgitation of lymph, and partial compensation by anastomoses of lymphatic vessels; this brings about hypertrophy of tissues, and may go on to lymphorrhoea or chyluria, according to the site of the obstructed lymphatics. It may be objected that too much is assumed in supposing that the parent worm is liable to miscarry. But as Manson had sufficient evidence in two cases that such abortions had happened, he thinks it is not too much to expect their more frequent occurrence. The explanation given of the manner in which elephantoid disease is produced applies to most, if not all, diseases, with one exception, which result from the presence of the parasite in the human body. The death of the parent parasite in the afferent lymphatic may give rise to an abscess, and the frequency with which abscess of the scrotum or thigh is met with in Chinese practice is, in Manson's opinion, attributable to this. Dr. Manson's report closes with an account of a case of abscess of the thigh, with varicose inguinal glands, in which fragments of a mature worm were discovered in the contents of the abscess.--_Lancet_.

* * * * *

THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.

(_M. chimæra_.)

Of all orchids no genus we can just now call to mind is more distinct or is composed of species more widely divergent in size, form, structure, and color than is this one of Masdevallia. It was founded well nigh a century ago by Ruiz and Pavon on a species from Mexico, M. uniflora. which, so far as I know, is nearly if not quite unknown to present day cultivators. When Lindley wrote his "Genera and Species" in 1836, three species of Masdevallias only were known to botanists but twenty-five years later, when he prepared his "Folio Orchidaceæ," nearly forty species were; known in herbaria, and to-day perhaps fully a hundred kinds are grown in our gardens, while travelers tell us of all the gorgeous beauties which are known to exist high up on the cloud-swept sides of the Andes and Cordilleras of the New World. The Masdevallia is confined to the Western hemisphere alone, and as in bird and animal distribution, so in the case of many orchids we find that when any genus is confined to one hemisphere, those who look for another representative genus in the other are rarely disappointed. Thus hornbills in the East are represented by toucans in the West, and the humming bird of the West by the sunbird of the East, and so also in the Malayan archipelago. Notably in Borneo we find bolbophyls without pseudo bulbs, and with solitary or few flowered scapes and other traits singularly suggestive at first sight of the Western Masdevallia. Thus some bolbophyl, for example, have caudal appendages to their sepals, as in Masdevallias, and on the other hand some Masdevallias have their labellums hinged and oscillatory, which is so commonly the case as to be "almost characteristic" in the genus Bolbophyllum or Sarcopodium. Speaking generally, Masdevallias, coming as most of them do from high altitudes, lend themselves to what is now well known as "cool treatment," and cultivators find it equally necessary to offer them moisture in abundance both at the root and in the atmosphere, also seeing that when at home in cloud-land they are often and well nigh continually drenched by heavy dews and copious showers.

Of all the cultivated Masdevallias, none are so weirdly strange and fascinating as is the species M. chimæra, which is so well illustrated in the accompany engraving. This singular plant was discovered by Benedict Roezl, and about 1872 or 1873 I remember M. Lucien Linden calling upon me one day, and among other rarities showing me a dried flower of this species. I remember I took up a pen and rapidly made a sketch of the flower, which soon after appeared (1873, p. 3) in _The Florist_, and was perhaps the first published figure of the plant. It was named by Professor Reichenbach, who could find for it no better name than that of the mythical monster Chimæra, than which, as an old historian tells us, no stranger bogy ever came out of the earth's inside. Our engraving shows the plant about natural size, and indicates the form and local coloring pretty accurately. The ground color is yellowish, blotched with lurid brownish crimson, the long pendent tails being blood color, and the interior of the sepals are almost shaggy. The spectral appearance of the flower is considerably heightened by the smooth, white, slipper-like lip, which contrasts so forcibly in color and texture with the lurid shagginess around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in describing this species in the _Botanical Magazine_, t. 6, 152, says that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in a rage, and certainly the likeness is a close one.

Grown in shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a partially shaded structure, all the chimæroid section of Masdevallia succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as they have a Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at all sorts of deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will show that for convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower with a stick, this much arrangement being a necessity, so as to enable the tails to lie diagonally across the picture. From tip to tip the flower represented is 9 inches, or not so much by 7 inches as the flower measured in Messrs. Backhouse's nursery at York.--_The Garden_.

* * * * *

SURVEY OF THE BLACK CAÑON.

It is rumored again that a survey is soon to be made through the heaviest portion of the Black Canon of the Gunnison. For a long distance the walls of syenite rise to the stupendous height of 3,000 feet, and for 1,800 feet the walls of the cañon are arched not many feet from the bed of the river. If the survey is successful, and the Denver and Rio Grande is built through the cañon, it will undoubtedly be the grandest piece of engineering on the American continent. The river is very swift, and it is proposed to build a boat at the western end, and provision it for a length of time, allowing it to float with the stream, but controlled by ropes. If the boat goes, the chances are that the baby road goes, too.--_Gunnison (Colo.) Review_.

* * * * *

THE ANCIENT MISSISSIPPI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

[Footnote: This lecture was delivered in the Chapel of the State University, at Columbia, as an inaugural address on January 10, 1883, and illustrated by projections. The author has purposely avoided the very lengthy details of scientific observation by which the conclusions have been arrived at relating to the former wonderful condition of the Mississippi, and the subsequent changes to its present form: as a consideration of them would not only cause him to go beyond the allotted time, but might, perhaps, prove tiresome.]

By J. W. SPENCER, B.A.Sc., Ph.D., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the State University of Missouri.

Physical geology is the science which deals with the past changes of the earth's crust, and the causes which have produced the present geographical features, everywhere seen about us. The subject of the present address must therefore be considered as one of geology rather than of geography, and I propose to trace for you the early history of the great Mississippi River, of which we have only a diminished remnant of the mightiest river that ever flowed over any terrestrial continent.

By way of introduction, I wish you each to look at the map of our great river, with its tributaries as we now see it, draining half of the central portion of the continent, but which formerly drained, in addition, at least two of our great lakes, and many of the great rivers at the present time emptying into the colder Arctic Sea.

Let us go back, in time, to the genesis of our continent. There was once a time in the history of the earth when all the rocks were in a molten condition, and the waters of our great oceans in a state of vapor, surrounding the fiery ball. Space is intensely cold. In course of time the earth cooled off, and on the cold, solid crust geological agencies began to work. It is now conceded by the most accomplished physicists that the location of the great continents and seas was determined by the original contraction and cooling of the earth's crust; though very greatly modified by a long succession of changes, produced by the agencies of "water, air, heat, and cold," through probably a hundred million of years, until the original rock surface of the earth has been worked over to a depth of thirty or forty miles.

Like human history, the events of these long _æons_ are divided into periods. The geologist divides the past history of the earth and its inhabitants into five Great Times; and these, again, into ages, periods, epochs, and eras.

At the close of the first Great Time--called Archæan--the continent south of the region of the great lakes, excepting a few islands, was still submerged beneath a shallow sea, and therefore no portion of the Mississippi was yet in existence. At the close of the second great geological Time--the Palæozoic--the American continent had emerged sufficiently from the ocean bed to permit the flow of the Ohio, and of the Mississippi, above the mouth of the former river, although they were not yet united.

Throughout the third great geological Time--the Mesozoic--these rivers grew in importance, and the lowest portions of the Missouri began to form a tributary of some size. Still the Ohio had not united with the Mississippi, and both of these rivers emptied into an arm of the Mexican Gulf, which then reached to a short distance above what is now their junction.

In point of time, the Ohio is probably older than the Mississippi, but the latter river grew and eventually absorbed the Ohio as a tributary.

In the early part of the fourth great geological Time--the Cenozoic--nearly the whole continent was above water. Still the Gulf of Mexico covered a considerable portion of the extreme Southern States, and one of its bays extended as far north as the mouth of the Ohio, which had not yet become a tributary of the Mississippi. The Missouri throughout its entire length was at this time a flowing river.

I told you that the earth's crust had been worked over to a depth of many miles since geological time first commenced. Subsequently, I have referred to the growth of the continent in different geological periods. All of our continents are being gradually worn down by the action of rains, rills, rivulets, and rivers, and being deposited along the sea margins, just as the Mississippi is gradually stretching out into the Gulf, by the deposition of the muds of the delta. This encroachment on the Gulf of Mexico may continue, yea, doubtless will, until that deep body of water shall have been filled up by the remains of the continent, borne down by the rivers; for the Mississippi alone carries annually 268 cubic miles of mud into the Gulf, according to Humphreys and Abbot. This represents the valley of the Mississippi losing one foot off its whole surface in 6,000 years. And were this to continue without any elevation of the land, the continent would all be buried beneath the sea in a period of about four and a half million years. But though this wasting is going on, the continent will not disappear, for the relative positions of the land and water are constantly changing; in some cases the land is undergoing elevation, in others, subsidence. Prof. Hilgard has succeeded in measuring known changes of level, in the lower Mississippi Valley, and records the continent as having been at least 450 feet higher than at present (and if we take the coast survey soundings, it seems as if we might substitute 3,000 feet as the elevation), and subsequently at more than 450 feet lower, and then the change back to the present elevation.

Let us now study the history of the great river in the last days of the Cenozoic Time, and early days of the fifth and last great Geological Time, in which we are now living--the Quaternary, or Age of Man--an epoch which I have called _the "Great River Age_."

It is to the condition of the Mississippi during this period and its subsequent changes to its present form that I wish particularly to call your attention. During the Great River age we know that the eastern coast of the continent stood at least 1,200 feet higher than at present. The region of the Lower Mississippi was also many hundred feet higher above the sea level than now. Although we have not the figures for knowing the exact elevation of the Upper Mississippi, yet we have the data for knowing that it was very much higher than at the present day.

_The Lower Mississippi_, from the Gulf to the mouth of the Ohio River, was of enormous size flowing through a valley with an average width of about fifty miles, though varying from about twenty-five to seventy miles.

In magnitude, we can have some idea, when we observe the size of the lower three or four hundred miles of the Amazon River, which has a width of about fifty miles. But its depth was great, for the waters not only filled a channel now buried to a depth of from three to five hundred feet, but stood at an elevation much higher than the broad bottom lands which now constitute those fertile alluvial flats of the Mississippi Valley, so liable to be overflowed.

From the western side, our great river received three principal tributaries--the Red River of the South, the Washita, and the Arkansas, each flowing in valleys from two to ten miles in width, but now represented only by the depauperated streams meandering from side to side, over the flat bottom lands, generally bounded by bluffs.

The Mississippi from the east received no important tributaries south of the Ohio; such rivers as the Yazoo being purely modern and wandering about in the ancient filled-up valley as does the modern Mississippi itself.

So far we find that the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio differed from the modern river in its enormous magnitude and direct course.

From the mouth of the Ohio to that of the Minnesota River, at Fort Snelling, the characteristics of the Mississippi Valley differ entirely from those of the lower sections. It generally varies from two to ten miles in width, and is bounded almost everywhere by bluffs, which vary in height from 150 to 500 feet, cut through by the entrances of occasional tributaries.

The bottom of the ancient channel is often 100 feet or more below the present river, which wanders about, from side to side, over the "bottom lands" of the old valley, now partly filled with debris, brought down by the waters themselves, and deposited since the time when the pitch of the river began to be diminished. There are two places where the river flows over hard rock. These are at the rapids near the mouth of the Des Moines River, and a little farther up, at Rock Island. These portions of the river do not represent the ancient courses, for subsequent to the Great River Age, according to General Warren, the old channels became closed, and the modern river, being deflected, was unable to reopen its old bed.

The Missouri River is now the only important tributary of this section of the Mississippi from the west. Like the western tributaries, farther south, it meanders over broad bottom lands, which in some places reach a width of ten miles or more, bounded by bluffs. During the period of the culmination, it probably discharged nearly as much water as the Upper Mississippi. At that time there were several other tributaries of no mean size, such as the Des Moines, which filled valleys, one or two miles wide, but now represented only by shrunken streams.

The most interesting portion of our study refers to the ancient eastern tributaries, and the head waters of the great river.

The greater portion of the Ohio River flows over bottom lands, less extensive than those of the west, although bounded by high bluffs. The bed of the ancient valley is now buried to a depth of sometimes a hundred feet or more. However, at Louisville, Ky., the river flows over hard rock, the ancient valley having been filled with river deposits on which that city is built, as shown first by Dr. Newberry, similar to the closing of the old courses of the Mississippi, at Des Moines Rapids and Rock Island. However, the most wonderful changes in the course of the Ohio are further up the river. Mr. Carll, of Pennsylvania, in 1880, discovered that the Upper Alleghany formerly emptied into Lake Erie, and the following year I pointed out that not only the Upper Alleghany, but the whole Upper Ohio, formerly emptied into Lake Erie, by the Beaver and Mahoning Valleys (reversed), and the Grand River (of Ohio). Therefore, only that portion of the Ohio River from about the Pennsylvania-Ohio State line sent its waters to the Mexican Gulf, during the Great River Age.