POTASH SALTS.1

[1]

Address of Dr. C.V. Riley at the annual meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists, Champaign, Ills., November 11 to 14, 1890.

My attention was attracted to potash salts as an insecticide, by the casual remark of an intelligent farmer, that washing his young pear trees with a muriate of potash solution cleared them of scales. The value of this substance for insecticide purposes, should its powers be sufficient, struck me at once, and I began investigation. It was unluckily too late in the season for field experiments of the nature desired; but it is the uniform testimony of farmers who have used either the muriate or the kainit in the cornfields, that they have there no trouble with grubs or cut worms. Mr. E.B. Voorhees, the senior chemist of the station, assures me that on his father's farm the fields were badly infested, and replanting cornhills killed by grubs or wire worms was a recognized part of the programme. Since using the potash salts, however, they have had absolutely no trouble, and even their previously worst-infested fields show no further trace of injury. The same testimony comes from others, and I feel safe in recommending these salts, preferably kainit, to those who are troubled with cut worms or wire worms in corn.

A lot of wire worms (Iulussp.) brought in from potato hills were put into a tin can with about three inches of soil and some potato cuttings, and the soil was thoroughly moistened with kainit, one ounce to one pint of water. Next morning all the specimens were dead. A check lot in another can, moistened with water only, were healthy and lived for some days afterward.

A number of cabbage maggots placed on the soil impregnated with the solution died within twelve hours.

To test its actual killing power, used the solution, one ounce kainit to one pint water, to spray a rose bush badly infested with plant lice. Effect, all the lice dead ten hours later; the younger forms were dropping within an hour.

Sprayed several heads of wheat with the solution, and within three hours all the aphides infesting them were dead.

Some experiments on hairy caterpillars resulted unsatisfactorily, the hair serving as a perfect protection against the spray, even from the atomizer.

To test its effect on the foliage, sprayed some tender shoots of rose and grape leaves, blossoms, and clusters of young fruit. No bad effect observable 24 hours later. There was on some of the leaves a fine glaze of salt crystals, and a decided salt taste was manifest on all.

Muriate of potash of the same strength was tested as follows: Sprayed on some greenhouse camellias badly infested by mealy bugs, it killed nearly all within three hours, and six hours later not a living insect was found. The plants were entirely uninjured by the application.

Thoroughly sprayed some rose bushes badly infested with aphides, and carried off some of the worst branches. On these the lice were dead next morning; but on the bushes the effect was not so satisfactory, most of the winged forms and many mature wingless specimens were unaffected, while the terminal shoots and very young leaves were drooping as though frosted. All, however, recovered later.

The same experiment repeated on other, hardier roses, resulted similarly so far as the effect on the aphides was concerned, but there was no injury to the plant.

Used this same mixture on the caterpillars ofOrgyia leucostigmawith unsatisfactory effect, and with the same results used it on a number of other larvæ. Used on the rose leaf roller,Cacæcia rosaceana, it was promptly effective.

Tested for injury to plants, it injured the foliage and flowers of wisteria, the younger leaves of maple and grape, and the finer kinds of roses.

From these few experiments kainit seems preferable to the muriate, as acting more effectively on insects and not injuriously on plants. For general use on plants it is not to be recommended. It is otherwise on underground species, where the soil will be penetrated by the salts and where the moisture evaporates but slowly, and the salt has a longer and better chance to act. The best method of application would be a broadcasting in fertilizing quantity before or during a rain, so as to carry the material into the soil at once. In cornfields infested with grubs or wire worms, the application should be made before planting. Where it is to be used to reach root lice, it should be used when the injury is beginning. When strawberry beds are infested by the white grub, the application should be made when cultivating or before setting out.

The potash salts have a high value as fertilizers, and any application made will act as a stimulant as well as insecticide, thus enabling the plants to overcome the insect injury as well as destroying the insect.

In speaking on this subject in Salem county, I learned from farmers present that those using potash were not troubled with the corn root louse to any extent, and also that young peach trees have been successfully grown in old lice-infested orchards, where previously all died, by first treating the soil with kainit of potash.

[1]

By John B. Smith, entomologist. Potash as an insecticide is not entirely new, but has never been brought out with the prominence I think it deserves.—N.J. Ag. Col. Exp. St., Bulletin 75.

A meteorological station has been built on Mont Blanc, at an elevation of 13,300 feet, under the direction of M. Vallot. It required six weeks to deliver the materials. The instruments are self-registering and are to be visited in summer every fifteen days if possible, the instruments being left to register between the visits. In the winter the observatory will be entirely inaccessible. This is the highest scientific station in Europe, but is 847 feet lower than the Pike's Peak station in Colorado.

The principle of mutuality requires that the burden of expense in life insurance should be borne by all the members equally; but, even with the most careful adjustment, the allowance usually made is considerably in excess of what is needed in the regular companies doing business on the "level premium" plan.

It is customary in these companies to add to the net premium a percentage thereof to cover the expense account. This practice, though in harmony with the "commission system," is so clearly defective and so far removed from the spirit of life insurance mathematics, that it scarcely deserves even this passing notice.

It is generally understood that these corporations combine the functions of the savings bank and life insurance company, and it is only by separating the two in our minds as far as possible that we can obtain a clear conception of the laws that should govern the apportionment of the expenses among the great variety of policies.

While it is a comparatively simple matter to state the amount of either the insurance or savings bank element in a single policy, it is by no means easy, as things go, to classify the company's actual expenses on this basis.

Fortunately, we can pretty accurately determine what these amounts should be in any particular case.

In the first place, there are institutions in our midst devoted solely to receiving and conserving small sums of money; doing, in fact, exactly what our insurance companies are undertaking to do with the reserve and contributions thereto. These savings banks are required by law to make returns to the State commissioner, from whose official report we can get a very good idea of the expense attendant on doing this business.

Confining ourselves to the city banks, where the conditions more nearly resemble those of the insurance companies, we find in thirty-eight combined institutions for saving in the State of Massachusetts a deposit in 1888 of $192,174,566, taken care of at an aggregate cost of $455,387, or about 24-100 of one per cent.

The same ratio carried out for all the savings banks in Massachusetts gives a trifle over 25-100 of one per cent.; we may, therefore, consider ¼ of one per cent. as expressing pretty nearly the cost of receiving, paying out, and investing the savings of the people.

We must remember in this connection that in the popular estimation, the savings bank is an important factor in the public welfare, and in the towns and smaller cities there are often found public spirited men willing to give their services to encourage this mode of saving; but public sentiment has not yet given to life insurance the place which it is destined, sooner or later, to occupy by the side of the savings bank. Hence the services of able managers can only be obtained by a liberal outlay of the corporate funds. A satisfactory adjustment of the matter of expenses will, perhaps, do more than anything else to bring about this recognition on the part of the public.

In the case of the savings bank it is safe to say that for double the present outlay a liberal salary could be paid to all the officers. Following the analogy, we are led to infer that if this be the case in savings banks, then ½ of one per cent. of the reserve should be an ample allowance for the special labor required in the purely banking portion of the business.

In this we have the concurrence of the late Elizur Wright. In an essay on this subject he says:

"The expenses of the five largest savings banks in Boston, in 1869, did not exceed 4-10 of one per cent. on $28,000,000 deposited in them. They certainly had twice as many transactions, in proportion to the deposits, as any life insurance company could have with the same amount of reserve, so that ½ of one per cent. on the reserve seems to be ample for all working expenses save those of maintaining the agencies and collecting the premiums."

This need hardly be looked upon as an admission that it costs twice as much to care for the funds of a life insurance company as for those of a savings bank. A liberal expense allowance must be made at the outset, seeing that an error in this particular cannot easily be rectified after the policy is issued. The dividend, or, to speak more correctly, the annual return of surplus, will correct any overpayment on this account.

There is another expense which seems inevitable. This is the government tax on insurance companies, amounting in the aggregate to nearly 1/3 of one per cent. on the reserve.

When we consider that these institutions are intended to encourage thrift and to relieve the community from the care of numberless widows and orphans, it seems a clear violation of the principles of political economy to levy a tax on this business; still, whatever our opinion may be as to the justice or injustice of the imposition, the tax is maintained and must be provided for. Consequently a further allowance of ½ of one per cent. must be added to the net premium to cover the same, making a total of 1 per cent. of the reserve for banking expenses and taxes. Considering this point as settled for the time being, let us proceed to investigate the insurance expenses.

Here, again, we are fortunate in being able to refer to the official reports of a class of corporations doing nearly, if not quite pure insurance.

The assessment societies, outside of the fraternal and benevolent, reporting in 1889 to the insurance commissioner of Massachusetts, show outstanding risks amounting to $733,515,366. Losses to the amount of $7,270,238 were paid during the year at a cost for transacting the business of $2,403,053, which includes among other items "agency expenses and commissions," which amount to about $1,203,000, or 17 per cent. of the cost value of the insurance actually done. It would seem as if an allowance of 20 per cent. would be a liberal one in the case of the regular companies, which surely have as good facilities for doing business as the assessment societies.

As far as insurance is concerned, there is less difference between regular and co-operative companies than is generally supposed. Regular companies assess each policy in advance for a year's insurance at a time, while co-operative societies furnish insurance only from one assessment to another. The difficulty in the way of collecting the assessment in the latter case would seem to be greater than in the former, owing to the more permanent nature of the regular insurance contract.

In compensating agents the assessment companies naturally pay in proportion to the insurance obtained, inasmuch as there is no other basis to go upon, but regular companies usually pay the agent a percentage of the premiumwhich includes a considerable trust fundover and above the assessment for actual insurance. It is easily seen that by the last method the agent's compensation increases in proportion to the amount of savings bank business forced upon the company.

To realize how far we are from anything like a scientific, not to say common sense basis for insurance expenses, we have but to examine the following list, which gives the ratios between the expenditures for general expenses in 1889, and those for the extension of the business. For every $100 used in a general way, the different companies spend for commissions and agency expenses: $37, $66, $67, $78, $91, $106, $110, $113, $120, $140, $157, $161, $173, $175, $186, $189, $200, $202, $222, $264, $311, $346.

It will doubtless be said that I am taking a very advanced position when I say that in the ideal life insurance scheme there is no place for the commission system. Solicitors will be a necessity only so long as they are in the field, but fifty years of life insurance has taught our community its true value and, thanks to the modern press, the institution it is no more likely to fall into desuetude than is Christianity or the moral law.

For the convenience of bringing the company to the individual, the latter should be willing to pay a fee. The man who renders another a service or puts his superior knowledge at another's disposal should look to the party benefited for his remuneration. Any compensation given for such service to a go-between by a mutual company is paid by all, and the question arises, Is the advantage to the company of sufficient importance to warrant the imposition of this tax upon all its members promiscuously? The following, from the Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner's Report for 1885, leaves no doubt as to the convictions of the writer on this important matter:

"The expensiveness of the life insurance policy is not because the level net premium is too high, for the premium is absolutely just, and the policy holder gets full value; but the complaint justly applies to the excessive expense charge. A person who wants insurance, life or fire or other, should be able to buy it at first cost without paying tribute of profits to middlemen. To that complexion the matter will finally be brought by the force of intelligent opinion, whatever resistance may be opposed by persons whose thrift lies in the perpetuation of the expensive system now in fashion."

It requires but a slight degree of prophetic vision to predict that in a very few years the companies in self defense will be obliged to change their method of compensating agents.

Several companies have already begun the reform by grading commissions; granting a percentage proportional to the amount of insurance likely to be done on the policy. Other companies have simply reduced the amount of the commission rate, thus virtually withdrawing from active competition.

This will, in a certain degree, explain the wide variation in the figures given above, where it is noticed that, in five companies out of twenty-two, the total agency expenditures amount to less than the general expenses, while in six cases the companies spend more than double as much on the former as on the latter. In either class we find representatives of the five largest companies in the country.

On applying the foregoing ratios to the business of the existing companies we find that, calling the theoretical expenses $100, the actual expenditures for 1889 were as follows: $112.67, $118.34, $150.40, $194.48, $208.16, $208.53, $228.66, $235.89, $248.44, $250.79, $258.33, $258.57, $265.14, $267.19, $267.92, $274.47, $294.17, $314.96, $335.70, $377.94, $616.70.

In this discouraging exhibit there is one ray of comfort. The combined assets of the two companies heading the list amount to over $100,000,000. There is no question as to their financial standing, and both show a large increase in membership over the previous year. I may also say here that it is a difficult matter to get at the actual "cost of insurance" in the various companies. Many of them, on their own acknowledgment, do not compute the advance cost of carrying their "amount at risk," and others, for reasons of their own, do not care to state the figures. In cases where the correct figures were not obtainable, I have assumed the cost to have been 1-1/3 per cent. of the mean amount at risk.

If we should, in our comparison, omit the actual agency expenses and commissions, the ratios would stand as follows:

Where I would allow $100 the companies actually used: $43.17, $55.90, $65.21, $77.21, $82.39, $88.34, $91.99. $91.98. $92.19, $94.65, $97.15. $99.55. $99.11. $102.86, $109.35, $125.05, $133.03, $141.92, $195.90, $207.06, $287.72.

As might be supposed, the first two ratios are those companies before alluded to. These companies might have doubled their advertising account and expended $300,000 between them on agents' salaries, and still have kept within my allowance.

Admitting, for the present at least, the reasonableness of the proposed allowance for the expenses of the banking and insurance departments of the business, we have before us the problem how to equitably adjust the burden among the great variety of policies.

In the first place,there should be no policy in the company that does not contribute its proportionate share of the expense allowance during every year of its life. I make a special point of this, for at present the policies which have become paid up, either by the payment of a single premium at the outset or by the completion of a stipulated number of payments, contribute practically nothing to the expense account after the premium payments cease.

The following plan, I think, complies with all the requirements of the problem. By the proposed method every policy, at all stages of its existence, contributes its exact share to the expense fund, whatever its plan of payment may be.

Let us, as an illustration, examine the case of a ten year endowment policy, taken out at age 30, and consider it under three aspects, first, as paid for in advance by a single payment, second, as paid by five annual payments, and third, as paid for annually throughout the term. I have used this short term endowment policy simply for convenience, the rule applying equally to policies of longer term or to the ordinary life policy, which is, in fact, an endowment policy payable at death or age 100.1

Taking the case of the single premium endowment policy for $1,000, we find that the following sums are required, each year to provide for the care of the reserve and to pay the government fees (1 per cent. of reserve):

1styear$6.99826thyear$8.41362d"7.25607th"8.73813d"7.52588th"9.07814th"7.80829th"9.43465th"8.103910th"9.8086

The insurance expenses should be covered by the 20 per cent. allowance given below:

1styear$ .44226thyear$ .25662d".41007th".20763d".37628th".15564th".34029th".09885th".299610th".0344

Consequently the total contribution required from this policy each year is:

1styear$7.44046thyear$8.67022d"7.66607th"8.94573d"7.90208th"9.23374th"8.14849th"9.53345th"8.403410th"9.8430

The present value of all these contributions is found to be, at 4 per cent. interest, $71.6394; in other words, this sum paid at the outset, provides a fund from which we may deduct the current expenses of each year in advance, and by accumulating the balance at the assumed rate of interest from year to year, we shall have enough to pay the anticipated expenses, leaving nothing over.

In the above case the sums in hand at the beginning of the year are as follows:

1styear$71.36946thyear$42.69812d"66.76697th"35.38903d"61.46508th"27.50094th"55.70559th"18.99795th"49.459410th"9.8430

We find a somewhat different condition existing during the first years of a 5-year endowment policy. As there is more insurance and less banking, the requirements are as follows:

1 P. Ct.on Reserve.20 P. Ct.on Cost.Total.Initial Fund.1styear$1.5038$1.2572$2.7610$12.97692d"3.04061.02164.062223.60153d"4.6503.78525.435533.29794th"6.3367.53786.874541.95385th"8.1039.29968.403549.45946th"8.4136.25668.670242.69817th"8.7381.20768.925735.38908th"9.0781.15569.233727.50099th"9.4346.09889.533418.997910th"9.8086.03449.84309.8430

As the premium payments extend over only five years, the expense contributions must all be paid during that time and are most conveniently made by a uniform addition to the net premium.

The present value of the amounts in column 3 is $60.0819, and the equivalent annuity for five years is $12.9769. This amount, received for five consecutive years, will put the company in funds to pay current expenses and leave a reserve of $42.6981 at the beginning of the sixth year, which, as we have seen in the analysis of the single-premium policy, is the sum required for future expenses on the paid up basis.

In like manner we find that the 10-year annuity equivalent to the present value of the annual contributions in the case of an annual-payment policy is $5.534, thus:

1 P. Ct.on Reserve.20 P. Ct.on Cost.Total.Initial Fund.1styear$.8234$1.3514$2.1748$ 5.53402d"1.64731.24782.89519.02753d"2.50961.13883.648411.91164th"3.41241.02104.433414.12775th"4.3572.89165.248815.61616th"5.3479.75346.101316.31607th"6.3853.59666.981916.15728th"7.4726.42707.899615.07639th"8.6127.24188.854512.997710th"9.8086.03449.84309.8430

The present value of the ten yearly expense items given in the "total" column above is $46.6812, which is equal to a ten-year annuity of $5.534. The several premiums stand now as follows:

ENDOWMENT: $1,000, AGE 30, PAYABLE AT DEATH OR 40

Net Prem.2Margin.Total.At single premium.$687.228$71.6394$758.8674At five premiums.150.61512.9769163.5939At annual premiums.84.1725.534089.7060

By the actuaries' rate we have, with the customary loading for expense:

Single premium: $721.66 (loaded, $34.36). Five premiums, $188.70 (loaded $37.78). Annual premium, $105.65 (loaded $21.11).

Admitting the correctness of the new method, we must conclude that the present single premium is not sufficiently loaded to cover its own expenses, while the annual payment policy pays more than its just share. A prominent and thoroughly informed life insurance president says in this connection: "Many of the policies, particularly the short term endowments, are charged with too high a percentage of expenses to prove a good investment at maturity or profitable to the insured in case of surrender." This is not to be wondered at when the applicant for a 10-year endowment policy sees at a glance that he must pay, in the gross, more than is returned unless he should die in the interim, in which case a plain "life" or "term" policy would have answered the purpose. Under the new system of assessing expenses one form is as desirable as another, from the standpoint of the insured or the company.

The new premium for the 10-year endowment policy, $89.71, commends itself at once to the applicant, who can easily see that his total outlay must fall short of the amount ultimately to be realized, of course, disregarding interest and probable dividends in both cases.

In discounting the future expense contributions I have not taken the chances of dying into account. Hence the expense reserve in any instance applies only to that individual case, and, in the event of death or surrender before the maturity of the policy, the amount of the expense fund not used would naturally revert to the insured.

The scheme of expense assessment outlined above will doubtless be pronounced impracticable by the majority of insurance men.

Such a far reaching reform is too much to hope for, at least in the immediate future.

No well informed life insurance expert will deny that there are opportunities for improvement in the business, but to graft new methods on old companies is a hopeless undertaking.

It is well, however, to have new methods well matured in advance of the public demand, and I feel convinced that the ideas here set forth are in the line of the reform which, before long, must be instituted by the companies if they would retain the confidence and patronage of the community.

Doubtless many insurance presidents could tell of suggestions which have impressed them favorably and which they would gladly have adopted were it not for the injustice done thereby to older members and the changes necessary to bring existing contracts into conformity with the new system. Similar objections may be urged against the ideas here advanced, and I must confess I hardly see a way by which the present suggestions can be utilized by existing companies. We can only hope that sooner or later some of the new theories may be practically tested. Meanwhile the companies at present in the field are doing a great work for the good of humanity, even though their methods may be, in some particulars, more practical than scientific.

Winchester, Mass.FRANK J. WILLS.

[1]

The expense allowance on a plain life policy for $1,000, taken at age 33, would be about $5.29; net premium (com. ex. 4 per cent.), $18.04; total office premium, $23.33; present rate $24.10.

[2]

Thirty American offices. Discount from middle of year, Vx-½ or (M x 1.01961) / Dx.

During the flood which occurred in Germany and Bohemia, the last week of November, Karlsbad was especially unfortunate; it suffered such an inundation as had never before been known in the "Sprudelstadt." On the evening of November 23, the Tepl was very much swollen by the rain, which had continued for several days, but it was supposed that there was no danger of a flood, as the bed of the river had been put in proper condition. During the forenoon of November 24, the water suddenly began to rise with such astonishing rapidity that within half an hour all the lower streets were like turbulent rivers and the Alte and Neue Wiese were transformed into a lake. The stores on the Alte Wiese were under water to the roofs, and the proprietors, who were trying to save their goods, were surprised by the water and had to take refuge in the trees. They were rescued by having ropes thrown to them, and during this work a catastrophe occurred which was a great misfortune to all classes of citizens. The beloved burgermeister of Karlsbad, Dr. Rudolf Knoll, who had just recovered from a severe illness, was, with others, directing the work from the balcony of one of the houses, when a rope by which a man was being drawn through the water broke, and the man was carried off by the waves. The fright and excitement of the scene gave the burgermeister a shock which caused his instant death, but the man who was in danger was brought safely out of the water.

The water was 9 ft. in Marienbaderstrasse, the Marktplatz, Muhlbadgasse, the Sprudelgasse, Kreuzgasse, Kaiserstrasse, and Egerstrasse, and flooded the quay, causing great destruction. All places of business were flooded, the doors and iron shutters were pushed in by the force of the water and the goods were carried away or ruined.

The house called "Zum Kaffeebaum" was undermined and part of it fell to the ground; the same fate was feared for other buildings. The Sophien and Curhaus bridges were carried away. Other bridges were greatly damaged, and the masonry along the banks of the river was partially destroyed. The Sprudelgasse was completely washed out, and the condition of the Muhlbadgasse was almost as bad. The fire department with its apparatus had great difficulty in saving the inhabitants and guests, as there were very few boats or pontoons at their command, and the soldiers (Pionniere) from Prague and the firemen from the neighboring towns did not arrive until evening. Fortunately the water began to fall in the night, and the next day it had gone down so that it left its terrible work visible. The Sprudel and the mineral springs were not injured, but, on the other hand, the water pipes of the bathing establishments and the gas pipes were completely destroyed.—Illustrirte Zeitung.

In one of the plays at Hengler's Circus in London a water scene is introduced, for which purpose the main ring is flooded with water in a manner which is both striking and interesting.

FLOODING A CIRCUS RING.FLOODING A CIRCUS RING.

The ring is entirely lined with stout macintosh sheeting, and into this, from two large conduits. 23,000 gallons of water are poured, the tank being filled to a depth of some 2 ft. in the remarkably short time of 35 seconds. A steamboat and other small craft are then launched and the adventures of the heroine then proceed. She falls overboard, we believe, but is saved after desperate and amusing struggles. Our engravings, which are from theGraphic, illustrate the mode of filling the ring with water, and the steamboat launch.

A THEATRICAL STEAMBOAT.A THEATRICAL STEAMBOAT.

In the pretty little hall of the Boulevard des Italiens, at Paris, a striking exhibition of simulated hypnotism is given every evening.

This entertainment, which has met with much success, was devised by Mr. Melies, director of the establishment, which was founded many years ago by the celebrated prestidigitator whose popular name (Robert Houdin) it still bears. This performance carries instruction with it, for it shows how easily the most surprising phenomena of the pathologic state can be imitated. To this effect, several exhibitions are given every evening.

Mr. Harmington, a convinced disciple of Mesmer, asks for a subject, and finds one in the hall. A young artist named Marius presents himself. Mr. Harmington makes him perform all sorts of extravagant acts, accompanied with a continuous round of pantomimes that are rendered the more striking by the supposed state of somnipathy of the subject. At the moment at which Marius is finishing his most extraordinary exercises, a policeman suddenly breaks in upon the stage in order to execute the recent orders relative to hypnotism. But he himself is subjugated by Mr. Harmington and thrown down by the vibrations of which the encephalus of this terrible magnetizer is the center. When the curtain falls, the representative of authority is struggling against the catalepsy that is overcoming him.

All the phenomena of induced sleep are successively simulated with much naturalness by Mr. Jules David, who plays the part of Marius in this pleasing little performance.

At a certain moment, after skillfully simulated passes made by the magnetizer, Mr. David suddenly becomes as rigid as a stick of wood, and falls in pivoting on his heels (Fig. 1). Did not Mr. Harmington run to his assistance, he would inevitably crack his skull upon the floor, but the magnetizer stands just behind him in order to receive him in his arms. Then he lifts him, and places him upon two chairs just as he would do with a simple board. He places the head of the subject upon the seat of one of the chairs and the heels upon that of the other. Mr. David then remains in a state of perfect immobility. Not a muscle is seen to relax, and not a motion betrays the persistence of life in him. The simulation is perfect.

FIG. 1.—CATALEPTIC RIGIDITY.FIG. 1.—CATALEPTIC RIGIDITY.

In order to complete the astonishment of the spectators, Mr. Harmington seats himself triumphantly upon the abdomen of the subject and slowly raises his feet and holds them suspended in the air to show that it is the subject only that supports him, without the need of any other point of support than the two chairs (Fig. 2).

FIG. 2.—EXPERIMENT ON THE SAME SUBJECT.FIG. 2.—EXPERIMENT ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Usually, there are plenty of persons ingenuous enough to think that Mr. David is actually in a cataleptic sleep, one of the characters of which is cadaveric rigidity.

As Mr. David's neck is entirely bare, it is not possible to suppose that the simulator of catalepsy wears an iron corset concealed beneath his clothing. He has performed a feat of strength and skill rendered easy by the exercise that he has given to the muscles occupying thecolliciæof his vertebral column. This part of the muscular system is greatly developed in the weakest and least hardy persons. In fact, in order that man may keep a vertical position and execute an infinite multitude of motions in which stability is involved, nature has had to give him a large number of different organs. The muscles of the back are arranged upon several superposed layers, the vertebral column is doubly recurved in order that it may have more strength, and, finally, rachidion nerves issue from each vertebra in order to regulate the contraction of each muscular fasciculus according to the requirements of equilibrium. The trick is so easy that we have seen youths belonging to the Ligue d'Education Physique immediately imitate Mr. David after seeing him operate but once.

For the sake of those who would like to perform it, we shall add that Mr. David takes care to bend his body in the form of an arch in such a way that the convexity shall be beneath. As Mr. Harmington never fails to place himself in the center of the line that joins Mr. David's head and heels, his weight is divided into two parts, that is to say, 88 pounds on each side of the point of support. The result is that the stress necessary is less than that of a strong man of the Halle lifting a bag of wheat to his shoulder or of an athlete supporting a human pyramid. The force of contraction of the muscular fibers brought into play in this experiment is much greater than is commonly believed. In his lectures on physiology, Milne-Edwards cites some facts that prove that it may exceed 600 pounds per square inch of section.

FIG. 3.—THE PERFORATE ARM.FIG. 3.—THE PERFORATE ARM.

The experiment on cadaveric rigidity is followed by others in insensibility. Mr. David, without wincing, allows a poignard to be thrust into his arm, which Mr. Harmington has previously "cataleptized" (Fig. 3). This trick is performed by means of a blade divided into two parts that are connected by a semicircle. This process is well known to prestidigitators, but it might be executed in a genuine manner. In fact, on replacing the poignard by one of the gold needles used by physicians for acupuncture, it would be possible to dispense with prestidigitation. Under such conditions it is possible to transpierce a person's arm. The pain is supportable, and consists in the sensation of a prick produced in the passage of the needle through the skin. As for the muscular flesh, that is of itself perfectly insensible. The needle, upon the necessary antiseptic precautions being taken, may traverse the veins and arteries with impunity, provided that it is not allowed to remain long enough to bring about the formation of a clot of coagulated blood (Fig. 4).

FIG. 4.—AN ARM TRANSPIERCED BY A NEEDLE.FIG. 4.—AN ARM TRANSPIERCED BY A NEEDLE.

We think it of interest to add that it is necessary that the experiment be performed by a practitioner if one desires to demonstrate upon himself a very curious physiological fact that has been known from the remotest antiquity. It has been employed for several thousand years in Chinese medicine, for opening a passage for the bad spirits that produce diseases. For some years past a much more serious use has been made of it in European medicine for introducing electric currents into the interior of the organism. In this case the perimeter of the needle is insulated, and the electricity flows into the organism through the point. We have several times had these operations performed upon ourselves, and this permits us to assert that the above mentioned facts are absolutely true.—La Nature.

Physiology has for many decades been a science founded on experiment, and pathology has been rapidly pressing forward in the same direction. To read the accounts of how certain conclusions have been arrived at in the laboratory, by ingenious devices and by skillful manipulations, is as fascinating as any tale of adventure.

When the microscope began its work, how discouraging was the vastness and complexity of the discoveries which it brought to light; how many years has it been diligently used, and how uncertain are we still about many of its revelations! But what a happy conjecture of man, and as proper environment takes place we may reach better results! Let me give an illustration:

Some thirty years ago, Virchow began his studies and lectures upon cellular pathology. The enthusiasm which he awakened spread over the whole medical world. The wonderful attention to detail, the broad philosophy which signalized his observations, were alike remarkable. His class room was packed with students from every country, who thought it no hardship to struggle for a seat at eight o'clock in the morning. With his blackboard behind him and specimens of pathology before him, and microscopes coursing upon railway tracks around the tables which filled the room, he was the embodiment of the teacher; his highest honor was as discoverer. The life and importance of the cell, both in health and disease, it has been his work to discover and to teach. The point of view from which he has classified tumors is founded on this basis, and remains the accepted method. The light which he cast upon the nature of inflammation has not yet been obscured, and while other phenomena appear, the multiplication of cells and nuclei and the formation of connective tissue in the process of inflammation will always call to mind his labors.

To one of Virchow's pupils, Prof. Recklinghausen, we chiefly owe our knowledge of the phenomena of diapedesis as a part of the inflammatory activity. How incredible it seems that masses of living matter can make their way through the walls of blood vessels which do not rupture and which have no visible apertures!

Virchow fixed his attention upon the forms and activities of the cells, their multiplication and degradation, and how they build up tissues, both healthy and morbid.

To another matter with which, both literally and metaphorically, the air is filled, we must also make allusion. The existence of micro-organisms in countless numbers is no new fact, but the influence they may exert over living tissues has only lately become the subject of earnest attention. So long as they were not known to have any practical bearing upon human welfare, they interested almost nobody, but when, however, it was shown that putrefaction of meat is due to the agency of thebacterium termo, and the decomposition of albumen to thebacillus subtilis; when anthrax in cattle and sheep was found to depend on thebacillus anthracis, and that in human beings it caused malignant pustules; when suppuration of wounds was found to be associated with micrococci; and when it was announced that by a process of inoculation cattle could be protected against anthrax, and that by carbolic spray and other well known precautions the suppuration of wounds could be prevented—all the world lent its ears and investigation at once began.

Because labors in bacteriology promised to be fruitful in practical results, the workers speedily became innumerable, and we are accumulating a wondrous store of facts. How long now is the list of diseases in which germs make their appearance—in pneumonia, in endocarditis, in erysipelas, in pyæmia, in tuberculosis, and so on and so on. One of the most striking illustrations is the gonococcus of gonorrhœa, whose presence in and around gives to the pus cells their virulent properties, and when transferred to the eye works such lamentable mischief. Without their existence the inoculation of pus in the healthy eye is harmless; pus bearing the gonococci excites the most intense inflammation. Similar suppurative action in the cornea is often caused by infection of cocci. The proof of causation may be found in the fact that the most effective cure now practiced for such suppuration is to sterilize them by the actual cautery. Rosenbach says that he knows six distinct microbes which are capable of exciting suppuration in man. Their activity may be productive of a poison, or putrefactive alkaloid, which is absorbed.

There are at present two prominent theories in regard to the infections which produce disease. The first is based upon chemical processes, the second upon the multiplication of living organisms. The chemical theory maintains that after the infectious element has been received into the body it acts as a ferment, and gives rise to certain morbid processes, upon the principle of catalysis. The theory of organisms, or the germ theory, maintains that the infectious elements are living organisms, which, being received into the system, are reproduced indefinitely, and excite morbid processes which are characteristic of certain types of disease. This latter theory so readily explains many of the facts connected with the development and reproduction of infectious diseases, that it has been unqualifiedly adopted by a large number of investigators. The proofs of this theory had not, however, advanced beyond the demonstrations of the presence of certain forms of bacteria in the pathological changes of a very limited number of infectious diseases, until February, 1882, when Koch announced his discovery of the tubercle bacillus, since which time nearly every disease has its supposed microbe, and the race is, indeed, swift in which the would-be discoverers press forward with new germs for public favor.

The term bacteria or microbe refers to particles of matter, microscopic in size, which belong to the vegetable kingdom, where they are known as fungi. If we examine a drop of stagnant water under the microscope, amplifying say four hundred diameters, we see it loaded with minute bodies, some mere points, others slightly elongated into rods, all actively in motion and in various positions, a countless confusion. If evaporation now takes place, all is still. If we now apply moisture, the dried-up granules will show activity, as though they had not been disturbed.

All these different organisms have become familiar to us under the generic term bacteria, which is a very unfortunate application, as it really applies to only a single class of fungi. Cohn calls them schizomycetes, and makes the following classifications:

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