Science.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1175, 14 October 1882, Page 4 (Supplement)

Science.

RARE DONE MEAT INJURIOUS. There are no indications that the mania for undercooked beefsteaks is on the decline ; in restaurants, only such are served. This refers to robust people, but weakly persons continue to patronize pounded raw chops and steaks, and the juice of uncooked meat. M. Toussaint exposes the grave dangers of patronising such a dietary, as, if the meat be unsound, the germs of disease will inevitably pass into the system. He states no contagious malady possesses greater virulence than tubercular affections, or consumption, and that is the form of the disease most to be encountered in meat sent to the market. In the slaughter-houses, an ox, etc., is not rejected as unfit for food, unless the lung be entirely affected, but gray granulations may still exist and produce infection. M. Toussaint took the lung of a cow not very much affected with consumption ; he placed it under a press and collected the juice ; he inoculated rabbits and young pigs with the liquid as it came from the press, and after he had heated another portion to 114 deg. F., the result was, all the subjects died within a very short period. He extracted the juice in the same manner from the thigh of a pig, dead from consumption, previously cooking the flesh, to correspond with that served in hotels, etc., according to the latest fashion. Then he inoculated rabbits with such grilled juice, and they also invariably died of consumption. There are cases where the consumption of raw iqeat is necessary; here duty suggests to ascertain well the origin of such meat; in all other cases it is prudent to only eat meats suitably cooked, that is, meat whose interior has been acted upon by a temperature of 150 deg. or 160deg.— Kansas City Science Review. STANDARD TIME FOR THE WORLD. At one of the sessions of the American Society of Civil Engineers in Washington, a repch t on the standard time was presented by Mr. Sanford Fleming, chairman of a committee appointed to investsgate the subject at a meeting of the society in Montreal last year. In response to the request of the society, at its meeting in January, the committee has submitted to a large number of persons directly interested in the matter, the following scheme for the establishment of a prime meridian, and an uniform standard of time, with a series of questions to which replies were requested. To these questions some hundreds of replies were returned, 97 per cent, of the writers approving of the scheme, and 92 per cent, favouring a numbering of the hours from 1 to 24 consecutively. The scheme under discussion proposes : First— To establish one universal standard time, common to all peoples throughout the world, for the use of railways, telegraphs, and steamboats, for the purposes of trade and commerce, for general scientific observations, and for every ordinary local purpose. Second— lt is proposed that standard time everywhere shall be based on the one unit measure of time denoted by the diurnal revolution of the earth, as determined by the mean solar passage at one particular meridian, to be selected as a time zero.

Third— The time zero to coincide with the initial or prime meridian, to be common to all nations for computing terrestrial longitude. Fourth— The time zero and prime* meridian of the world to be established with the concurrence of civilised nations generally. Fifth — For the purpose of regulating time everywhere it is proposed that the unit measure, determined as above, shall be divided into 24 equal parts, and that these parts shall be defined by standard time meridians established around the globe, 15 degrees of longitude, or one hour distant from each other.

Sixth — It is proposed that standard time shall be determined, and disseminated under governmental authority; that time signal stations be established at important centres for the purpose of disseminating correct time with precision, and that all the railway and local public clocks be controlled electrically from the public time station, or otherwise kept in perfect agreement. Seventh — The adoption of the system in the United States and Canada, would, exclusive of Newfoundland and Alaska, have the effect of reducing the standards of time to four. These four standards, precisely one hour apart, would govern the time of the whole country, each would have the simplest possible relation to the other, and all would have equally simple relations to the other standards of tha world.

Finally— lt is proposed to have only one series of hours in the day, extending from midnight to midnight, and numbering from I to 24 without interruption, to number the hours between midnight and noon (1 to 12) precisely as at present, and to denote the hours, between noon and midnight, by letters of the alphabet. The society adopted resolutions, requesting Congress to take the initiative step toward establishing a time system, on the basis of this scheme, by endeavouring to establish a prime meridian, which shall be common to all nations.