Two remarkable and wonderful cases of recovery from bullet-wounds have lately taken place in the metropolis. In one case, that of a girl who was shot by her lover, the bullet is deeply imbedded in the head, too deep to admit of any operation; yet the patient has been discharged from the hospital convalescent. The other case was one of attempted suicide, the sufferer having shot himself in the head with a revolver. In this case, too, the bullet is still in the brain, and in such a position as to prevent the operation of extraction. In spite of this, the patient has been discharged from hospital care, and it is said that he suffers no inconvenience from the consequences of his rash act. A curious coincidence in connection with these cases is that both shots were fired on the same day, the 19th of June, and that both cases were treated at the London Hospital. ‘The times have been,’ says Shakspeare, ‘that, when the brains were out, the man would die.’ The poet puts these words into the mouth of Macbeth, when that wicked king sees the ghost of the murdered Banquo rise before him. In the cases just cited, we have a reality which no poet could equal in romance. People walking about in the flesh with bullets in their brains are certainly far more wonderful things than spectres. These marvellous recoveries from what, a few years ago, would have meant certain death, must be credited to surgical skill and the modern antiseptic method of treating wounds.
Magistrates are continually deploring the use of the revolver among the civil community, and hardly a week passes but some terrible accident or crime is credited to the employment of that weapon. That it is a most valuable arm when used in legitimate warfare, the paper lately read before the Royal United Service Institution by Major Kitchener amply proved. According to this paper, every nation but our own seems to consider that the revolver is the most important weapon that cavalry can be armed with. In Russia, for instance, all officers, sergeant-majors, drummers, buglers, and even clerks, carry revolvers. In Germany, again, there is a regular annual course of instruction in the use of the weapon. In our army, however, the revolver seems to be in a great measure ignored, excepting by officers on active foreign service.
A new method of detecting the source of an offensive odour in a room is given by The Sanitarian newspaper. In the room in question, the smell had become so unbearable that the carpet was taken up, and a carpenter was about to rip up the flooring to discover, if possible, the cause. By a happy inspiration, the services of some sanitary inspectors in the shape of a couple of bluebottle flies were first called into requisition. The flies buzzed about in their usual aggravating manner for some minutes, but eventually they settled upon the crack between two boards in the floor. The boards were thereupon taken up, and just underneath them was found the decomposing body of a rat.
The extent to which the trade in frozen meat from distant countries has grown since the introduction, only a few years back, of the system of freezing by the compression and subsequent expansion of air, is indicated by the constant arrival in this country of vast shiploads of carcases from the antipodes. The largest cargo of dead-meat ever received lately arrived in the Thames from the Falkland Islands on board the steamship Selembria. This consisted of thirty thousand frozen carcases of sheep. This ship possesses four engines for preserving and freezing the meat, and the holds are lined with a non-conducting packing of timber and charcoal.
A new system of coating iron or steel with a covering of lead, somewhat similar in practice to the so-called galvanising process with zinc, has been introduced by Messrs Justice & Co. of Chancery Lane, London, the agents for the Ajax Metal Company of Philadelphia. Briefly described, the process consists in charging molten lead with a flux composed of sal ammoniac, arsenic, phosphorus, and borax; after which, properly cleansed iron or steel plates will when dipped therein receive a coating of the lead. The metal so protected will be valuable for roofs, in place of sheet-lead or zinc, for gutters, and for numberless purposes where far less durable materials are at present used with very false economy.
It would seem, from the results of some experiments lately conducted on the Dutch state railroads in order to discover the best method of protecting iron from the action of the atmosphere, that red-lead paints are far more durable than those which owe their body to iron oxide. The test-plates showed also that the paint adhered to the metal with far greater tenacity if the usual scraping and brushing were replaced by pickling—that is, treatment with acid. The best results were obtained when the metal plate was first pickled in spirits of salts (hydrochloric acid) and water, then washed, and finally rubbed with oil before applying the paint.
The latest advance in electric lighting is represented by the introduction of Mr Upward’s primary battery, the novelty in which consists in its being excited by a gas instead of a liquid. The gas employed is chlorine, and the battery cells have to be hermetically sealed, for chlorine is, as every dabbler in chemical experiments knows, a most suffocating and corrosive gas. In practice, this primary battery is connected with an accumulator or secondary battery, so that the electricity generated by it is stored for subsequent use. The invention represents a convenient means of producing the electric light on a small scale for domestic use, where gas-engines and dynamo-machines are not considered desirable additions to the household arrangements. The battery is made by Messrs Woodhouse and Rawson, West Kensington.
Mr Fryer’s Refuse Destructor has now been adopted in several of our large towns. Newcastle is the latest which has taken up the system, and in that town thirty tons of refuse are consumed in the furnaces daily. The residue consists of between seven and eight tons of burnt clinker and dry ashes, which are used for concrete and as a bedding for pavement. There is no actual profit attached to the system, but it affords a convenient method of dealing with some of that unmanageable material which is a necessary product of large communities, and which might otherwise form an accumulation most dangerous to health.
After three years of constant work, the signal station on Ailsa Craig, in the Firth of Clyde, is announced, by the Northern Light Commissioners, to be ready for action. In foggy or snowy weather, the fog-horns which have been placed there will utter their warning blasts to mariners, and will doubtless lead to the prevention of many a shipwreck. The trumpets are of such a powerful description, that in calm weather they will be audible at a distance of nearly twenty miles from the station; and as the blasts are of a distinctive character, the captain of a ship will be easily able to recognise them, and from them to learn his whereabouts.
Mr Sinclair, the British consul at Foochow, reports that the manufacture of brick tea of varieties of tea-dust by Russian merchants, for export to Siberia, is acquiring considerable importance at Foochow. The cheapness of the tea-dust, the cheapness of manufacture, the low export duties upon it, together with the low import duties in Russia, help to make this trade successful and profitable. The brick is said to be beautifully made, and very portable. Mr Sinclair wonders that the British government does not get its supplies from the port of Foochow, as they would find it less expensive and more wholesome than what is now given the army and the navy. He suggests that a government agent should be employed on the spot to manufacture the brick tea in the same way as adopted by the Russians there and at Hankow.