MISCELLANEOUS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1736, 12 September 1879, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The application of alcohol to wounds as an antiseptic is extensively practised in France. Is not this a revival, in principle, of the brandy and salt remedy, which had a good reputation for efficiency forty or fifty years ago ? As the alcohol is diluted with half its weight of water, it is neither more nor less than proof spirit. M. Perrin, who has made numerous experiments with the new remedy, says that it renders albuminous liquids non-putrescible, that it has considerable coagulating power, readily stops bleeding from small vessels, quickly moistens cotton, and penetrates into the tissues. In military surgery he regards alcohol as a specific. He sometimes applies it to wounds in wadding saturated with it, a drainage tube being added; and at other times, in cases of contused wounds and complicated fractures, he practises alcoholic injections

and irrigations. The brandy and salt remedy used to be regarded as especially valuable for burns and scalds. In England, Profes c cr Lister uses carbolic acid in spray form, but M. Perrin, who has tried both, gives the preference to alcohol. He thinks that carbolic acid destroys the putrefactive germs, but that alcohol prevents their formation. The " Papier Zeitung " says indelible pencil marks may be produced as follows : Any ordinary drawing paper is slightly warmed, and then rapidly and carefully laid on the surface of a bath consisting of a warmed solution of bleached colophonium (resin) in alcohol until the entire surface is moistened. It is then dried in a current of hot air. The surface of the paper becomes smooth, but readily takes the impression of a lead pencil. In order to make the lead pencil impressions indelible, the paper is warmed for a short time on a stove. This surface of the paper becomes smooth, but readily takes the impression of a lead pencil. In order to make the lead pencil impressions indelible, the paper is warmed for a short time on a stove. This method may prove valuable for the preservation of working drawings when a lack of time will not permit the draughtsman to finish them in ink. Mr Henry A. Severn, of Heme Hill, has invented a very clever instrument, called a tell-tale compass, by which the captain or master of a ship, when down in his cabin, may know whether or not the ship is sailing her course, or is wandering from it. He uses the constant position of the compass-card and the varying one of the ship so as to produce an electric contact, which rings a bill in case the angle made by the lino of actual progress to be steered exceeds a certain deviatiou on either side ; and he proposes that the bell rung in case of deviation on one side shall be different in tone from that rung in case of deviation on the other side. His invention is a veritable symbol of the chief inventions of the age, which are always employed in superseding the responsibilities of indiv-dual watchfulness by mechanical warnings that allow of intermittent zeal. — "Spectator." The invasion of field crickets in 1866 cost Algeria 50,000.000 (frs.), and caused the famine of the next year, in which 200,000 natives died literally of hunger. A single band of these animals, observed in the province of Algiers, contained 50,000 tons of them. This flood of animal matter would furnish a manure containing neirly 1000 tons of nitrogen. In view of this fact, and the possibility of future invasions, MM. Durand and Hamel have lately devoted attention to finding a means of stopping and burying such swarms, aand it would appear they have succeeded. Their cricket barriers (which are described in a recent number of " La Technologiste) are now manufactured and sold by M. Lambert. These barriers are formed of calico stretched on posts ; they are arranged not in a straight line, but in lines forming angles, and the crickets advancing to the angle, fall into a pit dug there. The crickets are treated in the pit with green vitriol (with a view to the nature of the manure).