Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882

V >> Various >> Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882

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By S.S. BRADFORD, Ph.G.

Having had occasion during the last six years to manufacture lead
plaster in considerable quantities, it occurred to me that cotton seed
oil might be used instead of olive oil, at less expense, and with as
good results. The making of this plaster with cotton seed oil has been
questioned, as, according to some authorities, the product is not of
good consistence, and is apt to be soft, sticky, and dark colored;
but in my experience such is not the case. If the U. S. P. process is
followed in making this plaster, substituting for the olive oil cotton
seed oil, and instead of one half-pint of boiling water one and one-half
pint are added, the product obtained will be equally as good as that
from olive oil. My results with this oil in making lead plaster led me
to try it in making the different liniments of the Pharmacopoeia, with
the following results:

_Linimentum Ammoniae_.--This liniment, made with cotton seed oil, is of
much better consistency than when made with olive oil. It is not so
thick, will pour easily out of the bottle, and if the ammonia used is of
proper strength, will make a perfect liniment.

_Linimentum Calcis_.--Cotton seed oil is not at all adapted to making
this liniment. It does not readily saponify, separates quickly, and it
is almost impossible to unite when separated.

_Linimentum Camphorae_.--Cotton seed oil is far superior to olive oil in
making this liniment, it being a much better solvent of camphor. It has
not that disagreeable odor so commonly found in the liniment.

_Linimentum Chloroformi_.--Cotton seed oil being very soluble in
chloroform, the liniment made with it leaves nothing to be desired.

_Linimentum Plumbi Subacetatis_.--When liq. plumbi subacet. is mixed
with cotton seed oil and allowed to stand for some time the oil assumes
a reddish color similar to that of freshly made tincture of myrrh. When
the liquor is mixed with olive oil, if the oil be pure, no such change
takes place. Noticing this change, it occurred to me that this would be
a simple and easy way to detect cotton seed oil when mixed with olive
oil. This change usually takes place after standing from twelve to
twenty-four hours. It is easily detected in mixtures containing five
per cent., or even less, of the oils, and I am convinced, after making
numerous experiments with different oils, that it is peculiar to cotton
seed oil.--_American Journal of Pharmacy_.

* * * * *

THE FOOD AND ENERGY OF MAN.

[Footnote: From a lecture delivered at the Sanitary Congress, at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, September 28, 1882.]

By PROF. DE CHAUMONT, F.R.S.

Although eating cannot be said to be in any way a new fashion, it has
nevertheless been reserved for modern times, and indeed we may say the
present generation, to get a fairly clear idea of the way in which
food is really utilized for the work of our bodily frame. We must not,
however, plume ourselves too much upon our superior knowledge, for
inklings of the truth, more or less dim, have been had through all ages,
and we are now stepping into the inheritance of times gone by, using the
long and painful experience of our predecessors as the stepping-stone
to our more accurate knowledge of the present time. In this, as in many
other things, we are to some extent in the position of a dwarf on the
shoulders of a giant; the dwarf may, indeed, see further than the giant;
but he remains a dwarf, and the giant a giant.

The question has been much discussed as to what the original food of man
was, and some people have made it a subject of excited contention. The
most reasonable conclusion is that man is naturally a frugivorous or
fruit-eating animal, like his cousins the monkeys, whom he still so
much resembles. This forms a further argument in favor of his being
originated in warm regions, where fruits of all kinds were plentiful. It
is pretty clear that the resort to animal food, whether the result of
the pressure of want from failure of vegetable products, or a mere taste
and a desire for change and more appetizing food, is one that took place
many ages ago, probably in the earliest anthropoid, if not in the latest
pithecoid stage. No doubt some advantage was recognized in the more
rapid digestion and the comparative ease with which the hunter or fisher
could obtain food, instead of waiting for the ripening of fruits in
countries which had more or less prolonged periods of cold and inclement
weather. Some anatomical changes have doubtless resulted from the
practice, but they are not of sufficiently marked character to found
much argument upon; all that we can say being that the digestive
apparatus in man seems well adapted for digesting any food that is
capable of yielding nutriment, and that even when an entire change is
made in the mode of feeding, the adaptability of the human system
shows itself in a more or less rapid accommodation to the altered
circumstances.

Food, then, is any substance which can be taken into the body and
applied to use, either in building up or repairing the tissues and
framework of the body itself, or in providing energy and producing
animal heat, or any substance which, without performing those functions
directly, controls, directs, or assists their performance. With this
wide definition it is evident that we include all the ordinary articles
recognized commonly as food, and that we reject all substances
recognized commonly as poisons. But it will also include such substances
as water and air, both of which are essential for nutrition, but are not
usually recognized as belonging to the list of food substances in the
ordinary sense. When we carry our investigation further, we find that
the organic substances may be again divided into two distinct classes,
namely, that which contains nitrogen (the casein), and those that do not
(the butter and sugar).

On ascertaining this, we are immediately struck with the remarkable fact
that all the tissues and fluids of the body, muscles (or flesh),
bone, blood--all, in short, except the fat--contain nitrogen, and,
consequently, for their building up in the young, and for their repair
and renewal in the adult, nitrogen is absolutely required. We therefore
reasonably infer that the nitrogenous substance is necessary for this
purpose. Experiment has borne this out, for men who have been compelled
to live without nitrogenous food by dire necessity, and criminals on
whom the experiment has been tried, have all perished sooner or later in
consequence. When nitrogenous substances are used in the body, they
are, of course, broken up and oxidized, or perhaps we ought to say more
accurately, they take the place of the tissues of the body which wear
away and are carried off by oxidation and other chemical changes.

Now, modern science tell us that such changes are accompanied with
manifestations of energy in some form or other, most frequently in
that of heat, and we must look, therefore, upon nitrogenous food
as contributing to the energy of the body in addition to its other
functions.

What are the substances which we may class as nitrogenous. In the first
place, we have the typical example of the purest form in _albumin_,
or white of egg; and from this the name is now given to the class of
_albuminates_. The animal albuminates are: Albumin from eggs, fibrin
from muscles, or flesh, myosin, or synronin, also from animals, casein
(or cheesy matter) from milk, and the nitrogenous substances from blood.
In the vegetable kingdom, we have glutin, or vegetable fibrin, which is
the nourishing constituent of wheat, barley, oats, etc.; and legumin,
or vegetable casein, which is the peculiar substance found in peas and
beans. The other organic constituents--viz., the fats and the starches
and sugars--contain no nitrogen, and were at one time thought to be
concerned in producing animal heat.

We now know--thanks to the labors of Joule, Lyon Playfair, Clausius,
Tyndall, Helmholtz, etc.--that heat itself is a mode of motion, a form
of convertible energy, which can be made to do useful or productive
work, and be expressed in terms of actual work done. Modern experiment
shows that all our energy is derived from that of food, and, in
particular from the non-nitrogenous part of it, that is, the fat,
starch, and sugar. The nutrition of man is best maintained when he is
provided with a due admixture of all the four classes of aliment which
we have mentioned, and not only that, but he is also better off if he
has a variety of each class. Thus he may and ought to have albumen,
fibrine, gluten, and casein among the albuminates, or at least two of
them; butter and lard, or suet, or oil among the fats; starch of wheat,
potato, rice, peas, etc., and cane-sugar, and milk-sugar among the
carbo-hydrates. The salts cannot be replaced, so far as we know. Life
may be maintained in fair vigor for some time on albuminates only, but
this is done at the expense of the tissues, especially the fat of the
body, and the end must soon come; with fat and carbo hydrates alone
vigor may also be maintained for some time, at the expense of the
tissues also, but the limit is a near one, In either of these cases we
suppose sufficient water and salts to be provided.

We must now inquire into the quantities of food necessary; and this
necessitates a little consideration of the way in which the work of
the body is carried on. We must look upon the human body exactly as a
machine; like an engine with which we are all so familiar. A certain
amount of work requires to be done, say, a certain number of miles of
distance to be traversed; we know that to do this a certain number of
pounds, or hundredweights, or tons of coal must be put into the fire of
the boiler in order to furnish the requisite amount of energy through
the medium of steam. This amount of fuel must bear a certain proportion
to the work, and also to the velocity with which it is done, so both
quantity and time have to be accounted for.

No lecture on diet would be complete without a reference to the vexed
question of alcohol. I am no teetotal advocate, and I repudiate the
rubbish too often spouted from teetotal platforms, talk that is,
perhaps, inseparable from the advocacy of a cause that imports a good
deal of enthusiasm. I am at one, however, in recognizing the evils of
excess, and would gladly hail their diminution. But I believe that
alcohol properly used may be a comfort and a blessing, just as I know
that improperly used it becomes a bane and a curse. But we are now
concerned with it as an article of diet in relation to useful work, and
it may be well to call attention markedly to the fact that its use in
this way is very limited. The experiments of the late Dr. Parkes, made
in our laboratory, at Netley, were conclusive on the point, that beyond
an amount that would be represented by about one and a half to two pints
of beer, alcohol no longer provided any convertible energy, and that,
therefore, to take it in the belief that it did do so is an error.
It may give a momentary stimulus in considerable doses, but this is
invariably followed by a corresponding depression, and it is a maxim now
generally followed, especially on service, never to give it before or
during work. There are, of course, some persons who are better without
it altogether, and so all moderation ought to be commended, if not
enjoyed.

There are other beverages which are more useful than the alcoholic,
as restoratives, and for support in fatigue. Tea and coffee are
particularly good. Another excellent restorative is a weak solution
of Liebig's extract of meat, which has a remarkable power of removing
fatigue. Perhaps one of the most useful and most easily obtainable is
weak oatmeal gruel, either hot or cold. With regard to tobacco, it also
has some value in lessening fatigue in those who are able to take it,
but it may easily be carried to excess. Of it we may say, as of alcohol,
that in moderation it seems harmless, and even useful to some extent,
but, in excess, it is rank poison.

There is one other point which I must refer to, and which is especially
interesting to a great seaport like this. This is the question of
scurvy--a question of vital importance to a maritime nation. A paper
lately issued by Mr. Thomas Gray, of the Board of Trade, discloses the
regrettable fact that since 1873 there has been a serious falling off,
the outbreaks of scurvy having again increased until they reached
ninety-nine in 1881. This, Mr. Gray seems to think, is due to a neglect
of varied food scales; but it may also very probably have arisen from
the neglect of the regulation about lime-juice, either as to issue or
quality, or both. But it is also a fact of very great importance that
mere monotony of diet has a most serious effect upon health; variety
of food is not merely a pandering to gourmandism or greed, but a real
sanitary benefit, aiding digestion and assimilation. Our Board of Trade
has nothing to do with the food scales of ships, but Mr. Gray hints that
the Legislature will have to interfere unless shipowners look to it
themselves. The ease with which preserved foods of all kinds can be
obtained and carried now removes the last shadow of an excuse for
backwardness in this matter, and in particular the provision of a large
supply of potatoes, both fresh and dried, ought to be an unceasing care;
this is done on board American ships, and to this is doubtless owing in
a great part the healthiness of their crews. Scurvy in the present
day is a disgrace to shipowners and masters; and if public opinion is
insufficient to protect the seamen, the legislature will undoubtedly
step in and do so.

And now let me close by pointing out that the study of this commonplace
matter of eating and drinking opens out to us the conception of the
grand unity of nature; since we see that the body of man differs in no
way essentially from other natural combinations, but is subject to
the same universal physical laws, in which there is no blindness, no
variableness, no mere chance, and disobedience of which is followed as
surely by retribution as even the keenest eschatologist might desire.

* * * * *

RATTLESNAKE POISON.

By HENRY H. CROFT.

Some time since, in a paper to which I am unfortunately unable to refer,
a French chemist affirmed that the poisonous principle in snakes, or
eliminated by snakes, was of the nature of an alkaloid, and gave a name
to this class of bodies.

Mr. Pedler has shown that snake poison is destroyed or neutralized
by means of platinic chloride, owing probably to the formation of an
insoluble double platinic chloride, such as is formed with almost if not
all alkaloids.

In this country (Texas) where rattlesnakes are very common, and persons
camping out much exposed to their bites, a very favorite anecdote, or
_remedia_ as the Mexicans cull it, is a strong solution of iodine in
potassium iodide.[1]

[Footnote 1: The solution is applied as soon as possible to the wound,
preferably enlarged, and a few drops taken internally. The common
Mexican _remedia_ is the root of the _Agave virginica_ mashed or chewed
and applied to the wound, while part is swallowed.

Great faith is placed in this root by all residents here, who are seldom
I without it, but, I have had no experience of it myself; and the
internal administration is no doubt useless.

Even the wild birds know of this root; the queer paisano (? ground
woodpecker) which eats snakes, when wounded by a _vibora de cascabel_,
runs into woods, digs up and eats a root of the agave, just like the
mongoose; but more than that, goes back, polishes off his enemy, and
eats him. This has been told me by Mexicans who, it may be remarked, are
not _always_ reliable.]

I have had occasion to prove the efficacy of this mixture in two cases
of _cascabel_ bites, one on a buck, the other on a dog; and it occurred
to me that the same explanation of its action might be given as above
for the platinum salt, viz., the formation of an insoluble iodo compound
as with ordinary alkaloids if the snake poison really belongs to this
class.

Having last evening killed a moderate sized rattlesnake--_Crotalus
horridus_--which had not bitten anything, I found the gland fully
charged with the white opaque poison; on adding iodine solution to a
drop of this a dense light-brown precipitate was immediately formed,
quite similar to that obtained with most alkaloids, exhibiting under the
microscope no crystalline structure.

In the absence of iodine a good extemporaneous solution for testing
alkaloids, and perhaps a snake poison antidote, may be made by adding a
few drops of ferric chloride to solution of potassium of iodide; this
is a very convenient test agent which I used in my laboratory for many
years.

Although rattlesnake poison could be obtained here in very considerable
quantity, it is out of my power to make such experiments as I could
desire, being without any chemical appliances and living a hundred miles
or more from any laboratory. The same may be said with regard to books,
and possibly the above iodine reaction has been already described.

Dr. Richards states that the cobra poison is destroyed by potassium
permanganate; but this is no argument in favor of that salt as an
antidote. Mr. Pedler also refers to it, but allows that it would not be
probably of any use after the poison had been absorbed. Of this I
think there can be no doubt, remembering the easy decomposition of
permanganate by most organic substances, and I cannot but think that the
medicinal or therapeutic advantages of that salt, taken internally, are
equally problematical, unless the action is supposed to take place in
the stomach.

In the bladder of the same rattlesnake I found a considerable
quantity of light-brown amorphous ammonium urate, the urine pale
yellow.--_Chemical News_.

Hermanitas Ranch, Texas.

* * * * *

THE CHINESE SIGN MANUAL.

[Footnote: Dr. D. J. Macgowan, in Medical Reports of China. 1881.]

Two writers in _Nature_, both having for their theme "Skin-furrows on
the Hand," solicit information on the subject from China.[1] As the
subject is considered to have a bearing on medical jurisprudence and
ethnology as well, this report is a suitable vehicle for responding to
the demand.

[Footnote 1: Henry Faulds, Tzukiyi Hospital, Tokio, Japan. W. J.
Herschel, Oxford, England.--_Nature_, 28th October and 25th November,
1880.]

Dr. Faulds' observations on the finger-tips of the Japanese have an
ethnic bearing and relate to the subject of heredity. Mr. Herschel
considers the subject as an agent of Government, he having charge for
twenty years of registration offices in India, where he employed finger
marks as sign manuals, the object being to prevent personation and
repudiation. Doolittle, in his "Social Life of the Chinese," describes
the custom. I cannot now refer to native works where the practice of
employing digital rugae as a sign manual is alluded to. I doubt if its
employment in the courts is of ancient date. Well-informed natives think
that it came into vogue subsequent to the Han period; if so, it is in
Egypt that earliest evidence of the practice is to be found. Just as the
Chinese courts now require criminals to sign confessions by impressing
thereto the whorls of their thumb-tips--the right thumb in the case of
women, the left in the case of men--so the ancient Egyptians, it
is represented, required confessions to be sealed with their
thumbnails--most likely the tip of the digit, as in China. Great
importance is attached in the courts to this digital form of signature,
"finger form." Without a confession no criminal can be legally executed,
and the confession to be valid must be attested by the thumb-print
of the prisoner. No direct coercion is employed to secure this; a
contumacious culprit may, however, be tortured until he performs the
act which is a prerequisite to his execution. Digital signatures are
sometimes required in the army to prevent personation; the general
in command at Wenchow enforces it on all his troops. A document thus
attested can no more be forged or repudiated than a photograph--not so
easily, for while the period of half a lifetime effects great changes
in the physiognomy, the rugae of the fingers present the same appearance
from the cradle to the grave; time writes no wrinkles there. In the
army everywhere, when the description of a person is written down, the
relative number of volutes and coniferous finger-tips is noted. It
is called taking the "whelk striae," the fusiform being called "rice
baskets," and the volutes "peck measures." A person unable to write, the
form of signature which defies personation or repudiation is required in
certain domestic cases, as in the sale of children or women. Often when
a child is sold the parents affix their finger marks to the bill of
sale; when a husband puts away his wife, giving her a bill of divorce,
he marks the document with his entire palm; and when a wife is sold, the
purchaser requires the seller to stamp the paper with hands and feet,
the four organs duly smeared with ink. Professional fortune tellers in
China take into account almost the entire system of the person whose
future they attempt to forecast, and of course they include palmistry,
but the rugae of the finger-ends do not receive much attention. Amateur
fortune-tellers, however, discourse as glibly on them as phrenologists
do of "bumps"--it is so easy. In children the relative number of volute
and conical striae indicate their future. "If there are nine volutes,"
says a proverb, "to one conical, the boy will attain distinction without
toil."

Regarded from an ethnological point of view, I can discover merely that
the rugae of Chinamen's fingers differ from Europeans', but there is so
little uniformity observable that they form no basis for distinction,
and while the striae may be noteworthy points in certain medico-legal
questions, heredity is not one of them.

* * * * *

LUCIDITY.

At the close of an interesting address lately delivered at the reopening
of the Liverpool University College and School of Medicine, Mr. Matthew
Arnold said if there was one word which he should like to plant in the
memories of his audience, and to leave sticking there after he had gone,
it was the word _lucidity_. If he had to fix upon the three great wants
at this moment of the three principal nations of Europe, he should say
that the great want of the French was morality, that the great want of
the Germans was civil courage, and that our own great want was lucidity.
Our own want was, of course, what concerned us the most. People were apt
to remark the defects which accompanied certain qualities, and to think
that the qualities could not be desirable because of the defects which
they saw accompanying them. There was no greater and salutary lesson for
men to learn than that a quality may be accompanied, naturally perhaps,
by grave dangers; that it may actually present itself accompanied by
terrible defects, and yet that it might itself be indispensable. Let him
illustrate what he meant by an example, the force of which they would
all readily feel. Seriousness was a quality of our nation. Perhaps
seriousness was always accompanied by certain dangers. But, at any rate,
many of our French neighbors would say that they found our seriousness
accompanied by so many false ideas, so much prejudice, so much that was
disagreeable, that it could not have the value which we attributed to
it. And yet we knew that it was invaluable. Let them follow the same
mode of reasoning as to the quality of lucidity. The French had a
national turn for lucidity as we had a national turn for seriousness.
Perhaps a national turn for lucidity carried with it always certain
dangers. Be this as it might, it was certain that we saw in the French,
along with their lucidity, a want of seriousness, a want of reverence,
and other faults, which greatly displeased us. Many of us were inclined
in consequence to undervalue their lucidity, or to deny that they
had it. We were wrong: it existed as our seriousness existed; it was
valuable as our seriousness was valuable. Both the one and the other
were valuable, and in the end indispensable.

What was lucidity? It was negatively that the French have it, and he
would therefore deal with its negative character merely. Negatively,
lucidity was the perception of the want of truth and validness in
notions long current, the perception that they are no longer possible,
that their time is finished, and they can serve us no more. All through
the last century a prodigious travail for lucidity was going forward
in France. Its principal agent was a man whose name excited generally
repulsion in England, Voltaire. Voltaire did a great deal of harm in
France. But it was not by his lucidity that he did harm; he did it by
his want of seriousness, his want of reverence, his want of sense for
much that is deepest in human nature. But by his lucidity he did good.

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