Now that we know of radium emanation, we have a scientific explanation of the difference between natural curative waters when drunk at the spring and the same waters after being bottled and exported. Things may be chemically identical, and yet different—a reflection that should help to prevent us from becoming too dogmatic. This discovery about mineral waters has led to the invention of what may be called "artificial genuine waters"; they are mineral waters artificially impregnated with radium emanation. These have been used curatively with success. Following their use came that of radium baths, and then radium air-baths and radium inhalers. Patients can be put into a room whose air is impregnated with emanation, or they can inhale through a nozzle connected with a bottle. One naturally wonders how many more influences there may be in nature which have not yet been detected, and how many hygienic beliefs are consequently based on imperfect knowledge. What happens to the fresh air after it has been drawn into a building, heated in an apparatus, and distributed? Chemically the same it may be, but it differs a good deal in its effects from the air outside. And there is the question of prepared foods; is it enough that they be chemically the same as the natural product?
. . . . . .
The devising of new luxuries is of doubtful advantage; for not only is luxury itself enervating, but it is often not even achieved, for our needs and susceptibilities increase with their satisfaction.
Soon it will not be necessary to have any circulation in your feet; nor to use warm foot-gear or warm your feet at the fire. The carpet on which you tread will itself be warm; or if it is not, you can make it so in a moment by merely pressing the ubiquitous and indispensable button in the wall. Stoop down and examine this magic carpet; it looks just like any ordinary unpretending piece of floor-furniture. But unravel some of its threads and you will find that they contain that all-pervading nerve of modern life—a wire. Upon a woolen thread is wound a tape made up of fine strands of nickel wire; over this again goes more wool, and so the wire is made invisible and flexible. A cord ending in a plug connects the carpet with the wall or the lighting fixture. One would think there was risk of the carpet going up in a puff of blue smoke; nor is one much reassured by the statement, in a scientific paper, that "when overheated, the resistance rises and cuts down the current, so that an automatic regulating action is given which prevents overheating." The rise of resistance would increase the quantity of heat generated, whereas the lessening of the current strength would only reduce the quantity of heat in the proportion of the square root of the diminution in current strength.
. . . . . .
A new method of chemical analysis has been discovered by Sir J. J. Thomson. It makes use of the Crookes vacuum tube, which, as is well known, consists of a glass vessel containing a residuum of air or other gas in a highly rarefied state. A platinum wire is sealed into each end of the tube, each wire connected with an electrode within the tube. A high-potential electric current is transmitted across the rarefied gas, being carried by the particles, which, owing to the rarefaction, have a greater freedom of movement. When these charged particles strike the walls of the tube or an obstacle placed in their path they produce beautiful luminous effects. Professor Thomson, in his new method of analysis, pierces the negative electrode with a tube of very fine bore, and it is found that the charged particles of gas pass through this tube into the space behind, where they will produce luminosity on a screen in their path. Now, as is known, these particles can be deflected from their straight path and caused to take curved paths by certain electric and magnetic methods. But the amount of deflection so produced varies according to the mass and velocity of the particle. Professor Thompson has so arranged the experiment that the amount of deflection produced in the various particles present is indicated by the spot at which they strike the screen. If they proceeded in a straight path, they would strike the screen in the center; the more they are deflected, the further from the center is the point at which they strike. This affords a means of analysing the composition of the gases present; but it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the amount of deflection depends not only on the mass and velocity of the particles but upon the amount of electric charge they are carrying. But this merely multiplies or divides the results by integral quantities.
It was found by these experiments that no matter what gas was being examined, hydrogen was always present, and also carbon, nitrogen, and mercury; mercury would be likely to be present in the air of a laboratory. In examining marsh gas (CH4), besides curves corresponding to marsh gas, carbon, and hydrogen, there were found other curves which by calculation would correspond to CH, CH2, and CH3, compounds which are not known to the chemist and which must be momentary transition stages in the decomposition of marsh gas.
This method of analysis is rapid, can be performed with minute quantities, and is not hindered by the presence of impurities, for these register themselves without interfering with the other elements.
Two prophecies by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine were that chemistry and biology were the twin magicians of the coming time, and that it would soon be admitted by men of science that the Occult teaching is true—that every cell, atom, and speck in the universe is alive.
The microscopic germ is every day pushing more to the front and threatening to elbow the mere molecule out of the field. Even familiar chemical reactions will not come off if nothing else but the chemicals concerned is present; there has to be something to start the reaction, something electrical or who knows what. So we are told. Any day we may expect to hear that the electrons are alive; at any rate they are pretty lively and capable for "dead" things.