Chapter VIII: MISCELLANEOUS.--The Raphael Celebration at (3)

James Broadwood was one of the first to see the importance of the invention, if it were transformed into a stable principle. He had tried iron tension bars in past years, but without success. It was now due to his firm to introduce a fixed stringed plate, instead of plates intended to shift, and in a few years to combine this plate with four solid tension bars, for which combination he, in 1827, took out a patent, claiming as the motive for the patent the string-plate; the manner of fixing the hitch-pins upon it, the fourth tension bar, which crossed the instrument about the middle of the scale, and the fastening of that bar to the wooden brace below, now abutting against the belly-rail, the attachment being effected by a bolt passing through a hole cut in the sound-board.

This construction of grand pianoforte soon became generally adopted in England and France. Messrs. Erard, who appear to have had their own adaptation of tension bars, introduced the harmonic bar in 1838. This, a short bar of gun metal, was placed upon the wrest-plank immediately above the bearings of the treble, and consolidated the plank by screws tapped into it of alternate pressure and drawing power. In the original invention a third screw pressed upon the bridge. By this bar a very light, ringing treble tone was gained. This was followed by a long harmonic bar extending above the whole length of the wrest-plank, which it defends from any tendency to rise, by downward pressure obtained by screws. During 1840-50, as many as five and even six tension bars were used in grand pianofortes, to meet the ever increasing strain of thicker stringing. The bars were strutted against a metal edging to the wrest-plank, while the ends were prolonged forward until they abutted against its solid mass on the key-board side of the tuning-pins. The space required for fixing them cramped the scale, while the strings were divided into separate batches between them. It was also difficult to so adjust each bar that it should bear its proportionate share of the tension; an obvious cause of inequality.

Toward the end of this period a new direction was taken by Mr. Henry Fowler Broadwood, by the introduction of an iron-framed pianoforte, in which the bars should be reduced in number, and with the bars the steel arches, as they were still called, although they were no longer arches but struts.

In a grand pianoforte, made in 1847, Mr. Broadwood succeeded in producing an instrument of the largest size, practically depending upon iron alone. Two tension bars sufficed, neither of them breaking into the scale: the first, nearly straight, being almost parallel with the lowest bass string; the second, presenting the new feature of a diagonal bar crossed from the bass corner to the string-plate, with its thrust at an angle to the strings.

There were reasons which induced Mr. Broadwood to somewhat modify and improve this framing, but with the retention of its leading feature, the diagonal bar, which was found to be of supreme importance in bearing the tension where it is most concentrated. From 1852, his concert grands have had, in all, one bass bar, one diagonal bar, a middle bar with arch beneath, and the treble cheek bar. The middle bar is the only one directly crossing the scale, and breaking it. It is strengthened by feathered ribs, and is fastened by screws to the wooden brace below. The three bars and diagonal bar, which is also feathered, abut firmly on the string plate, which is fastened down to the wooden framing by screws. Since 1862, the wooden wrest-plank has been covered with a plate of iron, the iron screw-pin plate bent at a right angle in front. The wrest-pins are screwed into this plate, and again in the wood below. The agraffes, which take the upward bearings of the strings, are firmly screwed into this plate. The long harmonic bar of gun metal lies immediately above the agraffes, and crossing the wrest-plank in its entire width, serves to keep it, at the bearing line, in position. This construction is the farthest advance of the English pianoforte.

Almost simultaneously with it has arisen a new development in America, which, beginning with Conrad Meyer, about 1833, has been advanced by the Chickerings and Steinways to the well known American and German grand pianoforte of the present day. It was perfected in America about in 1859, and has been taken up since by the Germans almost universally, and with very little alteration. Two distinct principles have been developed and combined--the iron framing in a single casting, and the cross or overstringing. I will deal with the last first, because it originated in England and was the invention of Theobald Boehm, the famous improver of the flute. In Grove's "Dictionary," I have given an approximate date to his overstringing as 1835, but reference to Boehm's correspondence with Mr. Walter Broadwood shows me that 1831 was really the time, and that Boehm employed Gerock and Wolf, of 79 Cornhill, London, musical instrument makers, to carry out his experiment. Gerock being opposed to an oblique direction of the strings and hammers, Boehm found a more willing coadjutor in Wolf. As far as I can learn, a piccolo, a cabinet, and a square piano were thus made overstrung. Boehm's argument was that a diagonal was longer within a square than a vertical, which, as he said, every schoolboy knew. The first overstrung grand pianos seen in London were made by Lichtenthal, of St. Petersburg; not so much for tone as for symmetry of the case; two instruments so made were among the curiosities of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Some years before this, Henry Pape had made experiments in cross stringing, with the intention to economize space. His ideas were adopted and continued by the London maker, Tomkisson, who acquired Pape's rights for this country. The iron framing in a single casting is a distinctly American invention, but proceeding, like the overstringing, from a German by birth. The iron casting for a square piano of the American Alpheus Babcock, may have suggested Meyer's invention; it was, however, Conrad Meyer, who, in Philadelphia, and in 1833, first made a real iron frame square pianoforte. The gradual improvement upon Meyer's invention, during the next quarter of a century, are first due to the Chickerings and then the Steinways. The former overstrung an iron frame square, the latter overstrung an iron frame grand, the culmination of this special make since of general American and German adoption. It will be seen that, in the American make, the number of tension bars has not been reduced, but a diagonal support has, to a certain extent, been accepted and adopted. The sound-board bridges are much further apart than obtains with the English grand, or with the Anglo-French Erard. The advocates of the American principle point out the advantages of a more open scale, and more equal pressure on the sound-board. They likewise claim, as a gain, a greater tension. I have no quite accurate information as to what the sum of the tension may be of an American grand piano. One of Broadwood's, twenty years ago, had a strain of sixteen and one-half tons; the strain has somewhat increased since then. The remarkable improvement in wiredrawing which has been made in Birmingham, Vienna, and Nuremberg, of late years, has rendered these high tensions of far easier attainment than they would have been earlier in the century.

For me the great drawback to one unbroken casting is in the vibratory ring inseparable from any metal system that has no resting places to break the uniform reverberation proceeding from metal. We have already seen how readily the strings take up vibrations which are only pure when, as secondary vibrations, they arise by reversion from the sound-board. If vibration arises from imperfectly elastic wood, we hear a dull wooden thud; if it comes from metal, partials of the strings are re-enforced that should be left undeveloped, which give a false ring to the tone, and an after ring that blurs _legato_ playing, and nullifies the _staccato_. I do not pose as the obstinate advocate of parallel stringing, although I believe that, so far, it is the most logical and the best; the best, because the left hand division of the instrument is free from a preponderance of dissonant high partials, and we hear the light and shade, as well as the cantabile of that part, better than by any overstrung scale that I have yet met with. I will not, I say, offer a final judgment, because there may come a possible improvement of the overstrung or double diagonal scale, if that scale is persisted in, and inventive power is brought to bear upon it, as valuable as that which has carried the idea thus far.

I have not had time to refer other than incidentally to the square pianoforte, which has become obsolete. I must, however, give a separate historical sketch of the upright pianoforte, which has risen into great favor and importance, and in its development--I may say its invention--belongs to this present 19th century. The form has always recommended the upright on the score of convenience, but it was long before it occurred to any one to make an upright key board instrument reasonably. Upright harpsichords were made nearly four hundred years ago. A very interesting 17th century one was sold lately in the great Hamilton sale--sold, I grieve to say, to be demolished for its paintings. But all vertical harpsichords were horizontal ones, put on end on a frame; and the book-case upright grand pianos, which, from the eighties, were made right into the present century, were horizontal grands similarly elevated. The real inventor of the upright piano, in its modern and useful form, was that remarkable Englishman, John Isaac Hawkins, the inventor of ever-pointed pencils; a civil engineer, poet, preacher, and phrenologist. While living at Border Town, New Jersey, U. S. A., Hawkins invented the cottage piano--portable grand, he called it--and his father, Isaac Hawkins, to whom, in Grove's "Dictionary," I have attributed the invention, took out, in the year 1800[1], the English patent for it. I can fortunately show you one of these original pianinos, which belongs to Messrs. Broadwood. It is a wreck, but you will discern that the strings descend nearly to the floor, while the key-board, a folding one, is raised to a convenient height between the floor and the upper extremities of the strings. Hawkins had an iron frame and tension rods, within which the belly was entirely suspended; a system of tuning by mechanical screws; an upper metal bridge; equal length of string throughout; metal supports to the action, in which a later help to the repetition was anticipated--the whole instrument being independent of the case. Hawkins tried also a lately revived notion of coiled strings in the bass, doing away with tension. Lastly, he sought for a _sostinente_, which has been tried for from generation to generation, always to fail, but which, even if it does succeed, will produce another kind of instrument, not a pianoforte, which owes so much of its charm to its unsatiating, evanescent tone.

[Transcribers note 1: 3rd digit illegible, best guess from context.]

Once introduced into Hawkins' native country, England, the rise of the upright piano became rapid. In 1807, at latest, the now obsolete high cabinet piano was fairly launched. In 1811, Wornum produced a diagonal. In 1813, a vertical cottage piano. Previously, essays had been made to place a square piano upright on its side, for which Southwell, an Irish maker, took out a patent in 1798; and I can fortunately show you one of these instruments, kindly lent for this paper by Mr. Walter Gilbey. I have also been favored with photographs by Mr. Simpson, of Dundee, of a precisely similar upright square. I show his drawing of the action--the Southwell sticker action. W. F. Collard patented another similar experiment in 1811. At first the sticker action with a leather hinge to the hammer-butt was the favorite, and lasted long in England. The French, however, were quick to recognize the greater merit of Wornum's principle of the crank action, which, and strangely enough through France, has become very generally adopted in England, as well as Germany and elsewhere. I regret I am unable to show a model of the original crank action, but Mr. Wornum has favored me with an early engraving of his father's invention. It was originally intended for the high cabinet piano, and a patent was taken out for it in 1826. But many difficulties arose, and it was not until 1829 that the first cabinet was so finished. Wornum then applied it in the same year to the small upright--the piccolo, as he called it--the principle of which was, through Pleyel and Pape, adopted for the piano manufacture in Paris. Within the last few years we have seen the general introduction of Bord's little pianino, called in England, ungrammatically enough, pianette, in the action of which that maker cleverly introduced the spiral spring. And, also, of those large German overstrung and double overstrung upright pianos, which, originally derived from America, have so far met with favor and sale in this country as to induce some English makers, at least in the principle, to copy them.

I will conclude this historical sketch by remarking, and as a remarkable historical fact, that the English firms which in the last century introduced the pianoforte, to whose honorable exertions we owe a debt of gratitude, with the exception of Stodart, still exist, and are in the front rank of the world's competition. I will name Broadwood (whose flag I serve under), Collard (in the last years of the last century known as Longman and Clementi), Erard (the London branch), Kirkman, and, I believe, Wornum. On the Continent there is the Paris Erard house; and, at Vienna, Streicher, a firm which descends directly from Stein of Augsburg, the inventor of the German pianoforte, the favorite of Mozart, and of Beethoven in his virtuoso period, for he used Stein's grands at Bonn. Distinguished names have risen in the present century, some of whom have been referred to. To those already mentioned, I should like to add the names of Hopkinson and Brinsmead in England; Bechstein and Bluthner in Germany; all well-known makers.

* * * * *

THE POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF NITRATE OF SILVER, AND A RECENT CASE OF POISONING WITH THE SAME.

[Footnote: Read before the Medico Legal Society, April 5, 1883.]

By HENRY A. MOTT, JR., Ph.D., etc.

Of the various salts of silver, the nitrate, both crystallized and in sticks (lunar caustic, _Lapis infernalis_), is the only one interesting to the toxicologist.

This salt is an article of commerce, and is used technically and medicinally.

Its extensive employment for marking linen, in the preparation of various hair dyes (Eau de Perse, d'Egypte, de Chiene, d'Afrique), in the photographer's laboratory, etc., affords ample opportunity to use the same for poisoning purposes.

Nitrate of silver possesses an acrid metallic taste and acts as a violent poison.

When injected into a vein of an animal, even in small quantities, the symptoms produced are dyspnoea,[1] choking, spasms of the limbs and then of the trunk, signs of vertigo, consisting of inability to stand erect or walk steadily, and, finally retching and vomiting, and death by asphyxia. These symptoms, which have usually been attributed to the coagulating action of the salt upon the blood, have been shown not to depend upon that change, which, indeed, does not occur, but upon a direct paralyzing operation upon the cerebro-spinal centers and upon the heart; but the latter action is subordinate and secondary, and the former is fatal through asphyxia.

[Footnote 1: Nat. Dispensatory. Alf. Stille & John M. Maisch, Phila., 1879, p. 232.]

One-third of a grain injected into the jugular vein killed a dog in four and one-half hours, with violent tetanic spasms.[1]

[Footnote 1: Medical Jurisprudence. Thomas S. Traill, 1857, p 117.]

Devergie states that acute poisoning with nitrate of silver, administered in the shape of pills, is more frequent than one would suppose. Yet Dr. Powell[1] states that it should always be given in pills, as the system bears a dose three times as large as when given in solution. The usual dose is from one-quarter of a grain to one grain three times a day when administered as a medicine. In cases of epilepsy Dr. Powell recommends one grain at first, to be gradually increased to six. Clocquet[2] has given as much as fifteen grains in a day, and Ricord has given sixteen grains of argentum chloratum ammoniacale.

[Footnote 1: U.S. Dispensatory, 18th ed., p. 1049. Wood & Bache.]

[Footnote 2: Handbuch der Giftlehre, von A. W. M. Von Hasselt. 1862, p. 316.]

Cases of poisoning have resulted from sticks of lunar caustic getting into the stomach in the process of touching the throat (Boerhave)[1]; in one case, according to Albers, a stick of lunar caustic got into the trachea.

[Footnote 1: Virchow's Archiv, Bd. xvii., s. 135. 1859.]

Von Hasselt therefore urges the utmost caution in using lunar caustic; the sticks and holder should always be carefully examined before use. An apprentice[1] to an apothecary attempted to commit suicide by taking nearly one ounce of a solution of nitrate of silver without fatal result. It must be remarked, however, that the strength of the solution was not stated.

[Footnote 1: Handbuch der Giftlehre, von A. W. M. Von Hasselt. Zweiter Theil, 1862. p. 316.]

In 1861, a woman, fifty-one years old, died in three days from the effects of taking a six-ounce mixture containing fifty grains of nitrate of silver given in divided doses.[1] She vomited a brownish yellow fluid before death. The stomach and intestines were found inflamed. It is stated that silver was found in the substance of the stomach and liver.

[Footnote 1: Treatise on Poison. Taylor, 1875, p. 475.]

It is evident that the poisonous dose, when taken internally, is not so very small, but still it would not be safe to administer much over the amounts prescribed by Ricord, for in the case of the dog mentioned one third of a grain injected into the jugular vein produced death in four and one-half hours.

The circumstance that more can be taken internally is explained by the rapid decomposition to which this silver salt is liable in the body by the proteine substance and chlorine combinations in the stomach, the hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice, and salt from food.

The first reaction produced by taking nitrate of silver internally is a combination of this salt with the proteinaceous tissues with which it comes in contact, as also a precipitation of chloride of silver.

According to Mitscherlich, the combination with the proteine or albuminous substance is not a permanent one, but suffers a decomposition by various acids, as dilute acetic and lactic acid.

The absorption of the silver into the system is slow, as the albuminoid and chlorine combinations formed in the intestinal canal cannot be immediately dissolved again.

In the tissues the absorbed silver salt is decomposed by the tissues, and the oxide and metallic silver separate.

Partly for this reason and partly on account of the formation of the solid albuminates, etc., the elimination of the silver from the body takes place very slowly. Some of the silver, however, passed out in the fæces, and, according to Lauderer, Orfila, and Panizza, some can be detected in the urine.

Bogolowsky[1] has also shown that in rabbits poisoned with preparations of silver, the (often albuminous) urine and the contents of the (very full) gall bladder contained silver.

[Footnote 1: Arch. f. Path. Anatomie, xlvi., p. 409. Gaz. Med de Paris, 1868, No. 39. Also Journ. de l'Anatomie et de la Physiologie, 1873, p. 398.]

Mayencon and Bergeret have also shown that in men and rabbits the silver salt administered is quickly distributed in the body, and is but slowly excreted by the urine and fæces.

Chronic poisoning shows itself in a peculiar coloring of the skin (Argyria Fuchs), especially in the face, beginning first on the sclerotic. The skin does not always take the same color; it becomes in most cases grayish blue, slaty sometimes, though, a greenish brown or olive color.

Von Hasselt thinks that probably chloride of silver is deposited in the rete malpighii, which is blackened by the action of light, or that sulphide of silver is formed by direct union of the silver with the sulphur of the epidermis. That the action of light is not absolutely necessary, Patterson states, follows from the often simultaneous appearance of this coloring upon the mucous membrane, especially that of the mouth and upon the gums; and Dr. Frommann Hermann[1] and others have shown that a similar coloring is also found in the internal parts.

[Footnote 1: Leh der Experiment. Tox. Dr. Hermann, Berlin, 1874, p. 211.]

Versmann found 14.1 grms. of dried liver to contain 0.009 grm. chloride of silver, or 0.047 per cent. of metallic silver. In the kidneys he found 0.007 grm. chloride of silver, or 0.061 per cent. of metallic silver; this was in a case of chronic poisoning, the percentage will be seen to be very small. Orfila Jun. found silver in the liver five months after the poisoning.

Lionville[1] found a deposit of silver in the kidneys, suprarenal gland, and plexus choroideus of a woman who had gone through a cure with lunar caustic five years before death.

[Footnote 1: Gaz. Med., 1868. No. 39.]

Sydney Jones[1] states that in the case of an old epileptic who had been accustomed to take nitrate of silver as a remedy, the choroid plexuses were remarkably dark, and from their surface could be scraped a brownish black, soot-like material, and a similar substance was found lying quite free in the cavity of the fourth ventricle, apparently detached from the choroid plexus.

[Footnote 1: Trans. Path. Soc., xi. vol.]

Attempts at poisoning for suicidal purposes with nitrate of silver are in most cases prevented from the fact that this salt has such a disagreeable metallic taste as to be repulsive; cases therefore of poisoning are only liable to occur by accident or by the willful administration of the poison by another person.

Such a case occurred quite recently, to a very valuable mare belonging to August Belmont.

I received on Dec. 6, 1882, a sealed box from Dr. Wm. J. Provost, containing the stomach, heart, kidney, portion of liver, spleen, and portion of rectum of this mare for analysis.

Dr. Provost reported to me that the animal died quite suddenly, and that there was complete paralysis of the hind quarters, including rectum and bladder.

The total weight of the stomach and contents was 18 lb., the stomach itself weighing 3 lb. and 8 oz.

Portions were taken from each organ, weighed, and put in alcohol for analysis.

The contents of the stomach were thoroughly mixed together and measured, and a weighed portion preserved for analysis.

The stomach, when cut open, was perfectly white on its inner surface, and presented a highly corroded appearance.

The contents of the stomach were first submitted to qualitative analysis, and the presence of a considerable quantity of nitrate of silver was detected.

The other organs were next examined, and the presence of silver was readily detected, with the exception of the heart!

The liver had a very dark brown color. A quantitative analysis of the contents of the stomach gave 59.8 grains of nitrate of silver. In the liver 30.5 grains of silver, calculated as nitrate, were found (average weight, 11 lb.). From the analysis made there was reason to believe that at least one-half an ounce of nitrate of silver was given to the animal. Some naturally passed out in the fæces and urine.

I was able to prepare several globules of metallic silver, as also all the well known chemical combinations, such as sulphide, chloride, oxide, iodide, bromide, bichromate of silver, etc.

From the result of my investigation I was led to the conclusion that the animal came to death by the willful administering of nitrate of silver, probably mixed with the food.

The paralysis of the hind quarters, mentioned by Dr. Provost, accords perfectly with the action of this poison, as it acts on the nerve centers, especially the cerebro-spinal centers, and produces spasms of the limbs, then of the trunk, and finally paralysis.

I might also state in this connection that, only two weeks previous to my receiving news of the poisoning of the mare, I examined for Mr. Belmont the contents of the stomach of a colt which died very mysteriously, and found large quantities of corrosive sublimate to be present.

Calomel is often given as a medicine, but not so with corrosive sublimate, which is usually employed in the arts as a poison.

It is to be regretted that up to the present moment, even with the best detectives, the perpetrator of this outrage has been at large. Surely the very limit of the law should be exercised against any man who would willfully poison an innocent animal for revenge upon an individual. Cases have been reported in England where one groom would poison the colts under the care of another groom, so that the owner would discharge their keeper and promote the other groom to his place.

A few good examples, in cases where punishment was liberally meted out, would probably check such unfeeling outrages.

* * * * *

TUBERCLE BACILLI IN SPUTA.

Prof. Baumgarten has just published in the _Ctbl. f. d. Med. Wiss_., 25, 1882, the following easy method to detect in the expectorated matter of phthisical persons the pathogenic tubercle bacilli:

Phthisical sputa are dried and made moist with very much diluted potash lye (1 to 2 drops of a 33 per cent. potash lye in a watch glass of distilled water). The tubercle bacilli are then easily recognized with a magnifying power of 400 to 500. By light pressure upon the cover glass the bacilli are easily pressed out of the masses of detritus and secretion. To prevent, however, the possibility of mistaking the tubercle bacilli for other septic bacteria, or vice versa, the following procedure is necessary: After the examination just mentioned, the cover glass is lifted up and the little fluid sticking to its under side allowed to dry, which is done within one or two minutes. Now the cover glass is drawn two or three times rapidly through a gas flame; one drop of a diluted (but not too light) common watery aniline solution (splendid for this purpose is the watery extract of a common aniline ink paper) is placed upon the glass. When now brought under the microscope, all the septic bacteria appear colored intensely blue, while the tubercle bacilli are absolutely colorless, and can be seen as clearly as in the pure potash lye. We may add, however, that Klebs considers his own method preferable.

As the whole procedure does not take longer than ten minutes, it is to be recommended in general practice. The consequences of Koch's important discovery become daily more apparent, and their application more practicable.

* * * * *

[Concluded from SUPPLEMENT No. 384, page 6132.]

MALARIA.

By JAMES H. SALISBURY, A.M., M.D.

PRIZE ESSAY OF THE ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, FEB., 1882.

VIII.

Observations in Washington, D. C., September 5, 1879, 8:35 A.M., Boston time, near Congressional Cemetery.

1. Seized with sneezing on my way to cemetery. Examined nasal excretions and found no Palmellæ.

2. Pool near cemetery. Examined a spot one inch in diameter, raised in center, green, found Oedegonium abundant. Some desmids, Cosmarium binoculatum plenty. One or two red Gemiasmas, starch, Protuberans lamella, Pollen.

3. Specimen soft magma of the pool margin. Oedogonium abundant, spores, yeast plants, dirt.

4. Sand scraped. No organized forms but pollen, and mobile spores of some cryptogams.

5. Dew on grass. One stellate compound plant hair, one Gemiasma verdans, two pollen.

6. Grass flower dew. Some large white sporangia filled with spores.

7. Grass blade dew, not anything of account. One pale Gemiasma, three blue Gemiasmas, Cosmarium, Closterium. Diatoms, pollen, found in greenish earth and wet with the dew. Remarks: Observations made at the pool with clinical microscope, one-quarter inch objective. Day cloudy, foggy, hot.

8. Green earth in water way from pump near cemetery. Anabaina plentiful. Diatoms, Oscillatoriaceæ. Polycoccus species. Pollen, Cosmarium, Leptothrix, Gemiasma, old sporangia, spores many. Fungi belonging to fruit. Puccinia. Anguillula fluviatilis.

9. Mr. Smith's blood. Spores, enlarged white corpuscles. Two sporangia? Gemiasma dark brown, black. Mr. Smith is superintendent Congressional Cemetery. Lived here for seven years. Been a great sufferer with ague. Says the doctors told him that they could do no more for him than he could for himself. So he used Ayer's ague cure with good effect for six months. Then he found the best effect from the use of the Holman liver ague pad in his own case and that of his children. From his account one would infer that, notwithstanding the excellence of the ague pad, when he is attacked, he uses blue mass, followed with purgatives, then 20 grains of quinine. Also has used arsenic, but it did not agree with him. Also used Capsicum with good results. Had enlarged spleen; not so now.

2d specimen of Mr. Smith's blood. Stelline, no Gemiasma. 3d specimen, do. One Gemiasma. 4th specimen. None. 5th specimen. Skin scraped showed no plants. 6th specimen. Urine; amyloid bodies; spores; no sporangia.

United States Magazine store grounds. Observation 1. Margin of Eastern Branch River. Substance from decaying part of a water plant. Oscillatoriaceæ. Diatoms. Anguillula. Chytridium. Dirt. No Gemiasma.

Observation 2. Moist soil. Near by, amid much rubbish, one or two so-called Gemiasmas; white, clear, peripheral margin.

Observation 3. Green deposit on decaying wood. Oscillatoriaceæ. Protuberans lamella, Gemiasma alba. Much foreign matter.

Mr. Russell, Mrs. R., Miss R., residents of Magazine Grounds presented no ague plants in their blood. Sergeant McGrath, Mrs. M., Miss M., presented three or four sporangias in their blood. Dr. Hodgkins, some in urine. Dr. H.'s friend with chills, not positive as to ague. No plants found.

Observations in East Greenwich, R.I., Aug. 16, 1877.

1. At early morn I examined greenish earth, northwest of the town along the margin of a beautiful brook. Found the Protuberans lamella, the Gemiasma alba and rubra. Observation 2. Found the same. Observation 3. Found the same.

Observation 4. Salt marsh below the railroad bridge over the river.

The scrapings of the soil showed beautiful yellow and transparent Protuberans, beautiful green sporangias of the Gemiasma verdans.

Observation 5. Near the brook named was a good specimen of the Gemiasma plumba. While I could not find out from the lay people I asked that any ague was there, I now understand it is all through that locality.

Observation at Wellesley, Mass., Aug. 20, 1877.

No incrustation found. Examined the vegetation found on the margin of the Ridge Hills Farm pond. Among other things I found an Anguillula fluviatilis. Abundance of microspores, bacteria. Some of the Protococci. Gelatinous masses, allied to the protuberans, of a light yellow color scattered all over with well developed spores, larger than those found in the Protuberans. One or two oval sporanges with double outlines. This observation was repeated, but the specimens were not so rich. Another specimen from the same locality was shown to be made up of mosses by the venation of leaves.

Mine host with whom I lodged had a microscopical mount of the Protococcus nivalis in excellent state of preservation. The sporangia were very red and beautiful, but they showed no double cell wall.

In this locality ague is unknown; indeed, the place is one of unusual salubrity. It is interesting to note here to show how some of the algæ are diffused. I found here an artificial pond fed by a spring, and subject to overflow from another pond in spring and winter. A stream of living water as large as one's arm (adult) feeds this artificial pond, still it was crowded with the Clathrocyotis æruginosa of some writers and the Polycoccus of Reinsch. How it got there has not yet been explained.

The migration of the ague eastward is a matter of great interest; it is to be hoped that the localities may be searched carefully for your plants, as I did in New Haven.

In this connection I desire to say something about the presence of the Gemiasmas in the Croton water. The record I have given of finding the Gemiasma verdans is not a solitary instance. I did not find the gemiasmas in the Cochituate, nor generally in the drinking waters of over thirty different municipalities or towns I have examined during several years past. I have no difficulty in accounting for the presence of the Gemiasmas in the Croton, as during the last summer I made studies of the Gemiasma at Washington Heights, near 165th St. and 10th Ave., N.Y.

Plate VIII. is a photograph of a drawing of some of the Gemiasmas projected by the sun on the wall and sketched by the artist on the wall, putting the details in from microscopical specimens, viewed in the ordinary way. This should make the subject of another observation.

I visited this locality several times during August and October, 1881. I found an abundance of the saline incrustation of which you have spoken, and at the time of my first visit there was a little pond hole just east of the point named that was in the act of drying up. Finally it dried completely up, and then the saline and green incrustations both were abundant enough. The only species, however, I found of the ague plants was the Gemiasma verdans. On two occasions of a visit with my pupils I demonstrated the presence of the plants in the nasal excretions from my nostrils. I had been sneezing somewhat.

There is one circumstance I would like to mention here: that was, that when, for convenience' sake, my visits were made late in the day, I did not find the plants abundant, still could always get enough to demonstrate their presence; but when my visits were timed so as to come in the early morning, when the dew was on, there was no difficulty whatever in finding multitudes of beautiful and well developed plants.

To my mind this is a conclusive corroboration of your own statements in which you speak of the plants bursting, and being dissipated by the heat of the summer sun, and the disseminated spores accumulating in aggregations so as to form the white incrustation in connection with saline bodies which you have so often pointed out.

I also have repeated your experiments in relation to the collection of the mud, turf, sods, etc., and have known them to be carried many hundred miles off and identified. I have also found the little depressions caused by the tread of cattle affording a fine nidus for the plants. You have only to scrape the minutest point off with a needle or tooth pick to find an abundance by examination. I have not been able to explore many other sites, nor do I care, as I found all the materials I sought in the vicinity of New York.

To this I must make one exception; I visited the Palisades last summer and examined the localities about Tarrytown. This is an elevated location, but I found no Gemiasmas. This is not equivalent to saying there were none there. Indeed, I have only given you a mere outline of my work in this direction, as I have made it a practice to examine the soil wherever I went, but as most of my observations have been conducted on non-malarious soils, and I did not find the plants, I have not thought it worth while to record all my observations of a negative character.

I now come to an important part of the corroborative observations, to wit, the blood.

I have found it as you predicted a matter of considerable difficulty to find the mature forms of the Gemiasmas in the blood, but the spore forms of the vegetation I have no difficulty in finding. The spores have appeared to me to be larger than the spores of other vegetations that grow in the blood. They are not capable of complete identification unless they are cultivated to the full form. They are the so-called bacteria of the writers of the day. They can be compared with the spores of the vegetation found outside of the body in the swamps and bogs.

You said that the plants are only found as a general rule in the blood of old cases, or in the acute, well marked cases. The plants are so few, you said, that it was difficult to encounter them sometimes. So also of those who have had the ague badly and got well.

Observation at Naval Hospital, N.Y., Aug., 1877. Examined with great care the blood of Donovan, who had had intermittent fever badly. Negative result.

The same was the result of examining another case of typho-malarial (convalescent); though in this man's blood there were found some oval and sometimes round bodies like empty Gemiasmas, 1/1000 inch in diameter. But they had no well marked double outline. There were no forms found in the urine of this patient. In another case (Donovan,) who six months previous had had Panama fever, and had well nigh recovered, I found no spores or sporangia.

Observations made at Washington, D.C., Sept., 1879. At this time I examined with clinical microscope the blood of eight to ten persons living near the Congressional Cemetery and in the Arsenal grounds. I was successful in finding the plants in the blood of five or more persons who were or had been suffering from the intermittent fever.

In 1877, at the Naval Hospital, Chelsea, I accidentally came across three well marked and well defined Gemiasmas in the blood of a marine whom I was studying for another disease. I learned that he had had intermittent fever not long before.

Another positive case came to my notice in connection with micrographic work the past summer. The artist was a physician residing in one of the suburban cities of New York. I had demonstrated to him Gemiasma verdans, showed how to collect them from the soil in my boxes. And he had made outline drawings also, for the purposes of more perfectly completing his drawings. I gave him some of the Gemiasmas between a slide and cover, and also some of the earth containing the soil. He carried them home. It so happened that a brother physician came to his house while he was at work upon the drawings. My artist showed his friend the plants I had collected, then the plants he collected himself from the earth, and then he called his daughter, a young lady, and took a drop of blood from her finger. The first specimen contained several of the Gemiasmas. The demonstration, coming after the previous demonstrations, carried a conviction that it otherwise would not have had.

AGUE PLANTS IN THE URINE.

I have found them in the urine of persons suffering or having suffered from intermittent fever.

When I was at the Naval Hospital in Brooklyn one of the accomplished assistant surgeons, after I had showed him some plants in the urine, said he had often encountered them in the urine of ague cases, but did not know their significance. I might multiply evidence, but think it unnecessary. I am not certain that my testimony will convince any one save myself, but I know that I had rather have my present definite, positive belief based on this evidence, than to be floundering on doubts and uncertainties. There is no doubt that the profession believe that intermittents have a cause; but this belief has a vagueness which cannot be represented by drawings or photograph. Since I have photographed the Gemiasma, and studied their biology, I feel like holding on to your dicta until upset by something more than words.

In relation to the belief that no Algæ are parasitic, I would state on Feb. 9, 1878, I examined the spleen of a decapitated speckled turtle with Professor Reinsch. We found various sized red corpuscles in the blood in various stages of formation; also filaments of a green Alga traversing the spleen, which my associate, a specialist in Algology, pronounced one of the Oscillatoriaceæ. These were demonstrated in your own observations made years ago. They show that Algæ are parasitic in the living spleen of healthy turtles.

This leads to the remark that all parasitic growths are not nocent. I understand you take the same position. Prof. Reinsch has published a work in Latin, "Contributiones ad Algologiam," Leipsic, 1874, in which he gives a large number of drawings and descriptions of Algæ, many of them entophytic parasites on other animals or Algæ. Many of these he said were innocent guests of their host, but many guest plants were death to their host. This is for the benefit of those who say that the Gemiasmas are innocent plants and do no harm. All plants, phanerogams or cryptogams, can be divided into nocent or innocent, etc., etc. I am willing to change my position on better evidence than yours being submitted, but till then call me an indorser of your work as to the cause and treatment of ague.

Respectfully, yours, ------

There are quite a number of others who have been over my ground, but the above must suffice here.

I wish to conclude this paper by alluding to some published investigations into the cause of ague, which are interesting, and which I welcome and am thankful for, because all I ask is investigations--not words without investigations.

The first the Bartlett following:

Dr. John Bartlett is a gentleman of Chicago, of good standing in the profession. In January, 1874, he published in the _Chicago Medical Journal_ a paper on a marsh plant from the Mississippi ague bottoms, supposed to be kindred to the Gemiasmas. In a consideration of its genetic relations to malarious disease, he states that at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1871, near the great ague bottoms of the Mississippi, with Dr. J. P. Safford, he procured a sod containing plants that were as large as rape seeds. He sent specimens of the plants to distinguished botanists, among them M. C. Cook, of London, England. Nothing came of these efforts.

2. In August, 1873, Dr. B. visited Riverside, near Chicago, to hunt up the ague plants. Found none, and also that the ague had existed there from 1871.

3. Lamonot, a town on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, was next visited. A noted ague district. No plants were found, and only two cases of ague, one of foreign origin. Dr. B. here speaks of these plants of Dr. Safford's as causing ague and being different from the Gemiasmas. But he gives no evidence that Safford's plants have been detected in the human habitat. In justice to myself I would like to see this evidence before giving him the place of precedence.

4. Dr. B., Sept. 1, 1873, requested Dr. Safford to search for his plants at East Keokuk. Very few plants and no ague were found where they both were rife in 1871.

5. Later, Sept. 15, 1873, ague was extremely prevalent at East Keokuk, Iowa, where two weeks before no plants were found; they existed more numerously than in 1871.

6. Dr. B. traced five cases of ague, in connection with Dr. Safford's plants found in a cesspool of water in a cellar 100 feet distant. It is described as a plant to be studied with a power of 200 diameters, and consisting of a body and root. The root is a globe with a central cavity lined with a white layer, and outside of these a layer of green cells. Diameter of largest plant, one-quarter inch. Cavity of plant filled with molecular liquid. Root is above six inches in length, Dr. B. found the white incrustation; he secured the spores by exposing slides at night over the malarious soil resembling the Gemiasmas. He speaks of finding ague plants in the blood, one-fifteen-hundredth of an inch in diameter, of ague patients. He found them also in his own blood associated with the symptoms of remittent fever, quinine always diminishing or removing the threatening symptoms. Professors Babcock and Munroe, of Chicago, call the plants either the Hydrogastrum of Rabenhorst, or the Botrydium of the Micrographic Dictionary, the crystalline acicular bodies being deemed parasitic. Dr. B. deserves great credit for his honest and careful work and for his valuable paper. Such efforts are ever worthy of respect.

There is no report of the full development found in the urine, sputa, and sweat. Again, Dr. B. or Dr. Safford did not communicate the disease to unprotected persons by exposure. While then I feel satisfied that the Gemiasmas produce ague, it is by no means proved that no other cryptogam may not produce malaria. I observed the plants Dr. B. described, but eliminated them from my account. I hope Dr. B. will pursue this subject farther, as the field is very large and the observers are few.

When my facts are upset, I then surrender.

"NOTES ON MARSH MIASM (LIMNOPHYSALIS HYALINA). BY ABR. FREDRIK EKLUND, M.D., STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, PHYSICIAN OF THE FIRST CLASS IN THE SWEDISH ROYAL NAVY.

[Footnote: Translated from the _Archives de la Medecine Navale_, vol. xxx., no. 7, July, 1878, by A. Sibley Campbell, M.D., Augusta, Ga.]

Before giving a succinct account of the discovery of paludal miasma and of its natural history, I ought in the first place to state that I have not had the opportunity of reading or studying the great original treatise of Professor Salisbury. I am acquainted with it only through a resume published in the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_ for the year 1866, new series, vol. li. p. 51. At the beginning of my investigations I was engaged in a microscopic examination of the water and mud of swampy shores and of the marshes, also with a comparison of their microphytes with those which might exist in the urine of patients affected with intermittent fevers. Nearly three months passed without my being able to find the least agreement, the least connection. Having lost nearly all hope of being able to attain the end which I had proposed, I took some of the slime from the marshes and from the masses of kelp and Confervæ from the sea shores, where intermittent fevers are endemic, and placed them in saucers under the ordinary glass desiccators exposed on a balcony, open for twenty-four hours, the most of the time under the action of the burning rays of the sun. With the evaporated water deposited within the desiccators, I proceeded to an examination, drop by drop. I at length found that which I had sought so long, but always in vain.

The parasite of intermittent fever, which I have termed Limnophysalis hyalina, and which has been observed before me by Drs. J. Lemaire and Gratiolet (_Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires de l'Academie des Sciences_, Paris, 1867, pp. 317 and 318) and B. Cauvet (_Archives de Medecine Navale_, November, 1876), is a fungus which is developed directly from the mycelium, each individual of which possesses one or several filaments, which are simple or dichotomous, with double outlines, extremely fine, plainly marked, hyaline, and pointed. Under favorable conditions, that is, with moisture, heat, and the presence of vegetable matter in decomposition, the filaments of mycelium increase in length. From these long filaments springs the fungus. The sporangia, or more exactly the conidia, are composed of unilocular vesicles, perfectly colorless and transparent, which generally rise from one or both sides of the filaments of the mycelium, beginning as from little buds or eyes; very often several (two to three) sporangia occur placed one upon the other, at least on one side of the mycelium.

With a linear magnitude of 480, the sporangia have a transverse diameter of one to five millimeters, or a little more in the larger specimens. The filaments of mycelium, under the same magnitude, appear exceedingly thin and finer than a hair. The shape of the conidia, though presenting some varieties, is, notwithstanding, always perfectly characteristic. Sometimes they resemble in appearance the segments of a semicircle more or less great, sometimes the wings of butterflies, double or single. It is only exceptionally that their form is so irregular.

Again, when young, they are perfectly colorless and transparent; sometimes they are of a beautiful violet or blue color (mykianthinin mykocyanin). Upon this variety of the Limnophysalis hyalina depends the vomiting of blue matters observed by Dr. John Sullivan, at Havana, in patients affected with pernicious intermittent fever (algid and comatose form). In the perfectly mature sporangia, the sporidia have a dark brown color (mykophaein). From the sporidia, the Italian physicians, Lanzi and Perrigi, in the course of their attempts at its cultivation, have seen produced the Monilia penicinata friesii, which is, consequently, the second generation of the Limnophysalis hyalina, in which alternate generation takes place, admitting that their observations may be verified. The sporangia are never spherical, but always flat. When they are perfectly developed, they are distinctly separated from their filament of mycelium by a septum--that is to say, by limiting lines plainly marked. It is not rare, however, to see the individual sporangia perfectly isolated and disembarrassed of their filament of mycelium floating in the water. It seems to me very probable that these isolated sporangia are identical with the hyaline coagula so accurately described by Frerichs, who has observed them in the blood of patients dying of intermittent fevers. But if two sporangia are observed with their bases coherent without intermediary filaments of mycelium, it seems to me probable that the reproduction has taken place through the union, which happens in the following manner: Two filaments of mycelium become juxtaposed; after which the filaments of mycelium disappear in the sporangia newly formed, which by this same metamorphosis are deprived of the faculty of reproducing themselves through the filaments of myclium of which they are deprived. The smallest portion of a filament of mycelium evidently possesses the faculty of producing the new individuals.

It is unquestionable that the Limnophysalis hyalina enter into the blood either by the bronchial mucous membrane, by the surface of the pulmonary vesicles, or by the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal, most often, no doubt, by the last, with the ingested water; this introduction is aided by the force of suction and pressure, which facilitates their absorption. It develops in the glands of Lieberkuhn, and multiplies itself; after which the individuals, as soon as they are formed, are drawn out and carried away in the blood of the circulation.

The Limnophysalis hyalina is, in short, a solid body, of an extreme levity, and endowed with a most delicate organization. It is not a miasm, in the common signification of the term; it does not carry with it any poison; it is not vegetable matter in decomposition, but it flourishes by preference amid the last.

In regard to other circumstances relative to the presence of this fungus, there are, above all, two remarkable facts, namely, its property of adhering to surfaces as perfectly polished as that of a mirror, and its power of resistance against the reagents, if we except the caustic alkalies and the concentrated mineral acids. This power of resisting the ordinary reagents explains in a plausible manner why the fungus is not destroyed by the digestive process in the stomach, where, however, the acid reaction of the gastric juice probably arrests its development--is that of the schistomycetes in general--and keeps it in a state of temporary inactivity. This property of adhering to smooth surfaces explains perhaps the power of the Eucalyptus globulus in arresting the progress of paludal miasm (?). But it is evident that other trees, shrubs, and plants of resinous or balsamic foliage, as, for example, the Populus balsamifera, Cannabis sativa, Pinus silvestris, Pinus abies, Juniperus communis, have equally, with us, the same faculty; they are favorable also for the drying of the soil, and the more completely, as their roots are spreading, more extended, and more ramified.

In order to demonstrate the presence of the limnophysalis in the blood of patients affected with intermittent fever during the febrile stage, properly speaking, it appeared necessary for me to dilute the blood of patients with a solution of nitrate of potassa, having at 37.5°C. the same specific gravity as the serum of the blood. With capillary tubes of glass, a little dilated toward the middle, of the same shape and size as those which are used in collecting vaccine lymph, I took up a little of the solution of nitrate of potassa above indicated. After this I introduced the point of an ordinary inoculating needle under the skin, especially in the splenic region, where I ruptured some of the smallest blood-vessels of the subcutaneous cellular tissue. I collected some of the blood which flowed out or was forced out by pressure, in the capillary tubes just described, containing a solution of potassa; after which I melted the ends with the flame of a candle. With all the intermittent fever patients whose blood I have collected and diluted during the febrile stage, properly speaking, I have constantly succeeded in finding the Limnophysalis hyalina in the blood by microscopic examination.