This experiment gives rise definitely to three conclusions. | being in water only at a blood-heat for five hours it had a Allowing for that decrease in the amounts of matter dis- specific gravity of 1007. solved, and caused by the hardening of the brain, it would appear

(2.) If that quantity be exceeded (see O., P., Q.) much more matter dissolves.

(3.) That while the influence of hardening the brain is confirmed by Q., it would appear that in healthy life, when the brain is of a very mobile character, similar quantities of alcohol to those here used would dissolve a considerable amount of matter from the brain.

The matters extracted in Experiments II. and III., remaining over that used previously, were united and analysed together. On extraction with ether a red-coloured solution was produced, from which alcohol precipitated 07 grm. kephaline, (C42H79NPO13), which was identified by its properties. The ether alcoholic mother-liquor contained 20 grms. more kephaline.

Experiment VI.-In another case an ox brain had a specific gravity of 1031; but after being in a solution of 38 per cent alcohol for five hours at blood-heat its specific gravity was only 1005, and on continuing the experiment for another five hours the specific grauity became 1007.

In Experiment V. the decrease in the specific gravity had not materially altered, whereas in Experiment VI., was brought out by swelling, for the weight of the brain where alcohol was used, the loss in specific gravity must have been introduced by the fixation of water, for the brain had gained materially in weight.

To sum up and conclude, it would appear from the results attending my investigation that alcohol has no more chemical effect on the brain-matter than water itself, so long as it is beneath a certain proportion to the total volume; but if that proportion be exceeded the brain principles, including kephaline, begin to dissolve and pass into solution, while the specific gravity of the brain is at the same time affected, both by the loss of matter and apparently the assimilation of more water. Meanwhile, The matter insoluble in ether was extracted with boiling water itself has a strong action on brain-matter, for it is 85 per cent alcohol. From the alcoholic solution capable of dissolving also certain principles slowly from 06 grm. of mixed cerebrine and myeline, C34H68N2O8 the brain, for instance, cerebrine, myeline, &c., but no and C42H83NPO,, was deposited on cooling. The mother-kephaline, and at the same time the brain-matter swells liquor contained a further quantity of 40 grms. and attains a smaller specific gravity.

The matter insoluble in alcohol was now exhausted with boiling water, and the extract on evaporation to dryness weighed 4 grms. It constituted ordinary water-extracts of brain.

The matter left insoluble by the water weighed 2.5 grms.,❘ and was chiefly albuminous in nature, making a total of 13.8 grms. matter.

Experiment IV. was designed to ascertain what influence (if any) was introduced by skinning the brain previous to extraction. This was done because the conditions obtaining in life are such as to allow more readily of the passage of alcohol-bearing liquid through the brain-matter than can be secured after death. The brain was skinned after extraction A. and before B. The results, while they sustain the conclusions previously given, are not indicative of any new feature.

It is extremely hard to follow these ideas into life, and to comprehend in what way each or all of these modes of action of water and alcohol on the brain may be influenced by the other matters present in blood. Thudichum has shown that the state of the brain in life must vary according to every change in the state of the blood, and there. fore what I have said of the action of water is probably true in life, in cases where the serum is very watery; but if the serum be rich in salts, those salts, by a power of combination which they have for the brain principles, would preserve the integrity of the latter. On the other hand, it is not so easy to see how any of the matters we know to exist in the blood could prevent alcohol, if it were present in sufficient quantity, either from hardening the brain or from dissolving traces of the principles to be henceforth carried away in the blood. If future physiological research should prove the absorption of alcohol to any extent by the brain, and its retention thereby, it would not be difficult to conceive, from what has gone before, how the alcohol would interfere with the life-functions of the brain and produce disease. Further researches are in hand.

In conclusion, I have the pleasure to acknowledge Dr. Thudichum's kindness in placing his laboratory at my disposal.

F. 1000 grms. water

G. 340 grms. A., 600 W., 34 p.c. alcohol

The matter extracted in this experiment was submitted to analysis, and found to contain no kephaline, but gave

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

I'I grms. of myeline (including any cerebrine present), and,Cup and Platter, or Notes on Food and its Effects. By 125 grms. of albumin; the rest was constituted of potassium chloride and extractives, including a trace of lactic acid.

I now wished to demonstrate by numbers, if possible, the fact that brain-matter (after death) increases in hardness, with loss of its penetrable character, when maintained at the temperature of the body, and immersed in water or water containing alcohol. 1 therefore devised experiments with that object in view, but, although some important results were obtained, they were not of the sort sought for. I had expected that the hardening might be accompanied by an increase in the specific gravity, brought about by contraction, but, as will be evident on consideration, this need not necessarily take place, and in fact did

not.

Experiment V.-The specific gravity of an ox brain reoved from the skull a few hours previously=1036. After

G. OVEREND DREWRY, M.D., and H. C. BARTLETT Ph.D., F.C.S. London: Henry King and Co., 1876. "CUP and Platter" is a pleasantly written little volume giving much practical information on the subject of food and its effects on the human system. It is the joint work of Dr. Drewry, a well-known physician, who has specially devoted himself to the study and treatment of diseases of the digestive organs, and Dr. Bartlett, who is equally well known as one of our food analysts. Amongst the more prominent merits of this little work may be

reckoned the sound common sense and candid courage

with which it exposes many of the mischievous fallacies which at present pass current with regard to the nutritious properties of certain descriptions of food.

In the introduction the general properties of food products and the processes of their digestion and assimilation are clearly and succinctly described, and the chapters

NEWS

present in use to a variety of electrical and magnetic measurements. Even the expert scientific calculator is often at a loss when he finds it necessary to convert the results obtained by one system into those of another. Mr. Day's little manual will, we think, be useful both to the beginner and to the practised electrician. The book contains nearly seven hundred examples of exercises relating to every kind of electrical and magnetic measurement. Telegraphic testing, the measurement of magnetic force, resistance of conductors, induction and condensers, and electro-magnetic measurement, coming in for the lion's share of attention. Copious examples relating to liquid and battery resistance, shunts, and derived circuits, heating effects of currents, &c., are also given. The problems are preceded by a short preface giving an account of the system of units of measurement adopted by the Units Committee of the British Association, and known to electricians as the c.g.s., or centimetre-gram-second system, and showing how to convert a measurement founded on one system of units into a measurement founded on another. The units employed by practical electricians such as the ohm, the farad, the volt, &c., are also defined and explained. This part of the book might perhaps have been extended with advantage. The answers to the examples are appended, but we think that for the sake of the weaker portion of electrical students a few worked-out problems might have been given. For those who are commencing laboratory practice or who are preparing for actual work in connection with electric telegraphy, Mr. Day's little book will form a necessary complement to the excellent manuals of Culley, Sabine, and Everett.

which follow give a lucid account of the various descrip- | great difficulty in applying any of the systems of units at tions of food in detail, the whole terminating with some excellent practical remarks on the scientific principles of cooking. In the chapter on water the remarks on filtering and filtering media are judicious, and the common error that a filter will last for an indefinitely long period is clearly pointed out. The authors dwell at considerable length on the pernicious effects of " previous sewage contamination" on drinking water, but their remarks on this subject might very well have been supplemented by a warning to their readers of the mischief arising from subsequent sewage gas contamination which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the water receives after it has found its way into the cistern. It is surely a waste of power and money to compel the different water companies to filter the water supplied by them to the public as long as householders are allowed to poison themselves and their families by using cisterns which are in direct communication with the house drain or water-closet through the waste-pipe. The next time that Dr. Drewry meets with a peculiarly puzzling case of derangement of the digestive organs we should advise him to ask his patient to allow him to look at his cistern as well as his tongue. In the following chapter the merits of condensed milk are rightly insisted on, and the authors' remarks on this valuable article of diet will do much to destroy the small amount of prejudice which still lingers among the public with regard to its wholesomeness. Messrs. Drewry and Bartlett, in the chapter on breadstuffs, are strongly in favour of the use of whole meal bread so as to receive the entire nutritive value of the wheat grain. The general public are hardly aware that the rage for white bread leads to the sacrifice of nearly 20 per cent of the flesh-forming constituents of the wheat. The thousand and one so-called farinaceous foods are very properly attacked at the end of this chapter. The pretensions which are contained in the advertisements of manufacturers of this class of foods have long been known by the merest tyro in dietetics to be false and mischievous, but the fallacy has never been so fully exposed as in the present work. In relation to this matter Dr. Harkwicke, the Coroner for West Middlesex, goes so far as to say that most of the deaths of infants under six months old arise from the use of corn flour and other kinds of starchy food. One of the largest firms in the trade coolly assert in their advertisement that when their corn flour is mixed with milk it closely resembles beef and bread! The vegetarian craze is reprobated, but we must take exception to one remark in which the authors give it as their opinion that "the cooling and laxative properties possessed by certain descriptions of fruit are those to which the greatest value must be attached." Surely the wholesome properties of the vegetable acids must have been overlooked when this paragraph was written. An eminent physician used to say that if each of his patients were to eat a couple of oranges before breakfast every morning he would lose half his practice. As a rule, we English, especially the middle classes, eat far too little fruit.

In the chapter on stimulants the ingenious action of the different aldehyds, ethers, and alcohols, other than ethylic alcohol, which are found in all new spirits are clearly pointed out. The little work concludes with some capital hints on cookery and kitchen management. We regret to see that Messrs. Drewry and Bartlett have thought proper to introduce the names of several wellknown manufacturers of food products as having furnished them with "characteristic samples" of their manufactures. In a popular book like the present such "honourable mentions" savour too much of the puffing testimonial and ought to have been omitted.

Exercises in Electrical and Magnetic Measurement, with
Answers. By R. E. DAY, M.A. London: Longmans,
Green, and Co., 1876.

ELECTRICAL students, more especially those who are weak
in geometry and mathematics generally, usually find

CORRESPONDENCE.

SOLID WATER.

To the Editor of the Chemical News. SIR,-Your readers will be amused with the following correspondence which has recently appeared in the Athenæum anent a communication on "Solid Water" which I made to the last meeting of the British Association:

"ATHENÆUM," September 23, 1876.

"Prof. Guthrie's note, 'On Solid Water,' was a description of what he formerly called 'cryohydrates,' aqueous solutions of various salts of such strength that when reduced to certain definite temperatures-all below o° C.the salt and the water solidify together. Surely there is nothing new in the fact of water becoming solid by associating with various compounds in their crystallisation? But of course a scientific man cannot go before the public at the British Association and not be sensational."

"In the Athenæum for September 23 your reporter for the Chemical Section of the late meeting of the British Association, in noticing my communication on solid water as it exists in certain compounds, expresses himself as follows:

666

"Surely there is nothing new in the fact of water becoming solid by associating with various compounds in their crystallisation? But of course a scientific man cannot go before the public at the British Association and not be sensational.'

"To the first part of this expression I have only to say that I did not, and do not, pretend to be the discoverer of water of crystallisation as it is ordinarily understood. A great many salts (Epsom salts, blue vitriol, alum, &c.) were known, before your reporter and I were born, to contain water; but others (sal-ammoniac, saltpetre, &c.)

This experiment gives rise definitely to three conclusions. | being in water only at a blood-heat for five hours it had a Allowing for that decrease in the amounts of matter dis- specific gravity of 1007. solved, and caused by the hardening of the brain, it would appear

NEWS

present in use to a variety of electrical and magnetic measurements. Even the expert scientific calculator is often at a loss when he finds it necessary to convert the results obtained by one system into those of another. Mr. Day's little manual will, we think, be useful both to the beginner and to the practised electrician. The book contains nearly seven hundred examples of exercises relating to every kind of electrical and magnetic measurement. Telegraphic testing, the measurement of magnetic force, resistance of conductors, induction and condensers, and electro-magnetic measurement, coming in for the lion's share of attention. Copious examples relating to liquid and battery resistance, shunts, and derived circuits, heating effects of currents, &c., are also given. The problems are preceded by a short preface giving an account of the system of units of measurement adopted by the Units Committee of the British Association, and known to electricians as the c.g.s., or centimetre-gram-second system, and showing how to convert a measurement founded on one system of units into a measurement founded on another. The units employed by practical electricians such as the ohm, the farad, the volt, &c., are also defined and explained. This part of the book might perhaps have been extended with advantage. The answers to the examples are appended, but we think that for the sake of the weaker portion of electrical students a few worked-out problems might have been given. For those who are commencing laboratory practice or who are preparing for actual work in connection with electric telegraphy, Mr. Day's little book will form a necessary complement to the excellent manuals of Culley, Sabine, and Everett.

which follow give a lucid account of the various descrip- | great difficulty in applying any of the systems of units at tions of food in detail, the whole terminating with some excellent practical remarks on the scientific principles of cooking. In the chapter on water the remarks on filtering and filtering media are judicious, and the common error that a filter will last for an indefinitely long period is clearly pointed out. The authors dwell at considerable length on the pernicious effects of " previous sewage contamination" on drinking water, but their remarks on this subject might very well have been supplemented by a warning to their readers of the mischief arising from subsequent sewage gas contamination which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the water receives after it has found its way into the cistern. It is surely a waste of power and money to compel the different water companies to filter the water supplied by them to the public as long as householders are allowed to poison themselves and their families by using cisterns which are in direct communication with the house drain or water-closet through the waste-pipe. The next time that Dr. Drewry meets with a peculiarly puzzling case of derangement of the digestive organs we should advise him to ask his patient to allow him to look at his cistern as well as his tongue. In the following chapter the merits of condensed milk are rightly insisted on, and the authors' remarks on this valuable article of diet will do much to destroy the small amount of prejudice which still lingers among the public with regard to its wholesomeness. Messrs. Drewry and Bartlett, in the chapter on breadstuffs, are strongly in favour of the use of whole meal bread so as to receive the entire nutritive value of the wheat grain. The general public are hardly aware that the rage for white bread leads to the sacrifice of nearly 20 per cent of the flesh-forming constituents of the wheat. The thousand and one so-called farinaceous foods are very properly attacked at the end of this chapter. The pretensions which are contained in the advertisements of manufacturers of this class of foods have long been known by the merest tyro in dietetics to be false and mischievous, but the fallacy has never been so fully exposed as in the present work. In relation to this matter Dr. Harkwicke, the Coroner for West Middlesex, goes so far as to say that most of the deaths of infants under six months old arise from the use of corn flour and other kinds of starchy food. One of the largest firms in the trade coolly assert in their advertisement that when their corn flour is mixed with milk it closely resembles beef and bread! The vegetarian craze reprobated, but we must take exception to one remark in which the authors give it as their opinion that "the cooling and laxative properties possessed by certain descriptions of fruit are those to which the greatest value must be attached." Surely the wholesome properties of the vegetable acids must have been overlooked when this paragraph was written. An eminent physician used to say that if each of his patients were to eat a couple of oranges before breakfast every morning he would lose half his practice. As a rule, we English, especially the middle classes, eat far too little fruit.

is

In the chapter on stimulants the ingenious action of the different aldehyds, ethers, and alcohols, other than ethylic alcohol, which are found in all new spirits are clearly pointed out. The little work concludes with some capital hints on cookery and kitchen management. We regret to see that Messrs. Drewry and Bartlett have thought proper to introduce the names of several wellknown manufacturers of food products as having furnished them with "characteristic samples" of their manufactures. In a popular book like the present such "honourable mentions" savour too much of the puffing testimonial and ought to have been omitted.

Exercises in Electrical and Magnetic Measurement, with
Answers. By R. E. DAY, M.A. London: Longmans,
Green, and Co., 1876.

ELECTRICAL students, more especially those who are weak
in geometry and mathematics generally, usually find

CORRESPONDENCE.

SOLID WATER.

To the Editor of the Chemical News. SIR,-Your readers will be amused with the following correspondence which has recently appeared in the Athenaeum anent a communication on "Solid Water" which I made to the last meeting of the British Association:—

"ATHENÆUM," September 23, 1876.

"Prof. Guthrie's note, 'On Solid Water,' was a description of what he formerly called 'cryohydrates,' aqueous solutions of various salts of such strength that when reduced to certain definite temperatures-all below o° C.the salt and the water solidify together. Surely there is nothing new in the fact of water becoming solid by associating with various compounds in their crystallisation? But of course a scientific man cannot go before the public at the British Association and not be sensational."

"In the Athenæum for September 23 your reporter for the Chemical Section of the late meeting of the British Association, in noticing my communication on solid water as it exists in certain compounds, expresses himself as follows:

Surely there is nothing new in the fact of water becoming solid by associating with various compounds in their crystallisation? But of course a scientific man cannot go before the public at the British Association and not be sensational.'

"To the first part of this expression I have only to say that I did not, and do not, pretend to be the discoverer of water of crystallisation as it is ordinarily understood. A great many salts (Epsom salts, blue vitriol, alum, &c.) were known, before your reporter and I were born, to contain water; but others (sal-ammoniac, saltpetre, &c.)

were only known in the anhydrous state.
pretend to have discovered the facts, whatever their im-
Now, I do
portance may be, (1) that all crystalloid bodies soluble in
water are capable, at temperatures below o° C., of uniting
with water to form solids containing definite quantities of
water; (2) that the temperatures of solidification of these
bodies, which I call cryohydrates, determine the limiting
temperatures of freezing mixtures.

"With regard to the second part of your reporter's remark, namely, the accusation of sensationalism, I am constrained to say that it is as discourteous as it is unfounded, and I shall be glad to learn that, on reflection, your reporter regrets having allowed an expression of such questionable taste to have escaped him.

To the Editor of the Chemical News. SIR,--Had Mr. Wanklyn paused to make a few enquiries have found that at the time the Analyst published the before writing to you, he would not, I am sure, have dragged my name into this discussion, because he would article and report which originally gave him offence, I was enjoying a ramble in Switzerland, and I can safely say never wasting a thought either on butter or Mr. Dittmar. In fact Mr. Wanklyn and myself have precisely the same amount of responsibility for the contents of the Analyst Committee of Publication, and that we each of us neglected for September, viz., that we were both members of the those who did their duty by attending. our obligations as such, and stayed away from the meeting, and therefore we ought to be the last to throw stones at

My position as one of the "registered proprietors " of the paper was simply taken to get the Society out of the difficulty that, not being corporate, they could not legally hold a copyright, and I will have much pleasure in handing sibility) to any other member who may be public spirited over the position (involving, as it does, pecuniary responenough to accept it. I trust Mr. Wanklyn will withdraw his remarks so far as I am personally concerned.— I am, &c.,

South London Central Public Laboratory,
Kennington Cross, S.E., October 7, 1876.

We must decline to continue this controversy. There seems to be no difference as to facts between Prof. Guthrie and ourselves. We neither denied Prof. Guthrie ON the merit, if there be any, of having discovered the formation of solid water under particular circumstances, nor, as far as we are aware, have we imputed to him any desire of denying the existence of hydrates known before his researches. As to our suggesting a more appropriate designation for the class of bodies discovered by himdoes Prof. Guthrie seriously believe this to be our concern? With regard to the title chosen by Prof. Guthrie for his paper at Glasgow, we have only to say that this is not a question of fact but of taste, and that upon it we hall continue to differ from Prof. Guthrie."

With a journal which, after transgressing in this manner, refuses to apologise when invited to do so I can, of course, hold no further communication. readers may permit me to state that there is no "controversy" in the case. I have endeavoured to inform the

To the Editor of the Chemical News. SIR,The pamphlet published by Dr. Adams on the above subject has occasioned some discussion in the CHEMICAL is a note which seems to suggest a doubt whether the NEWS, and in your number of September 22nd, there chemists who made experiments for Dr. Adams had previously satisfied themselves of the purity of their reagents. I may state that I was expected to give evidence in the particular case referred to in the pamphlet, and that I not by Dr. Adams, but made them again in his presence when only made "blank experiments" when originally consulted he came to my laboratory to see the experiments repeated.

Considering the abundant evidence adduced by Dr. Adams, I think it may reasonably be conceded that