KAMALA-RED POWDER FROM THE ROTTLERIA TINCTORIA.-The Kamala is a red powder which covers the fruit of the Rottleria Tinctoria, a tree belonging to the natural order of Euphorbiacæ. It has been used for a long time in India in dying silk. Its principal interest to the medical profession is its efficacy as an anthelmintic, especially in reference to the Tænia. Dr. Mackinnon principal physician of the medical staff, in Bengal, writes: "My attention was first drawn to the Kamala by an artilleryman suffering from Tania, upon whom turpentine and kousso had no effect. This man saying that one of his comrades had been relieved by Kamala, I immediately sent for it, and without any previous preparation of the patient, administered 3 drachms; this produced no effect, at the end of four hours, when the same dose was repeated;-there resulted frequent evacuations, and with the fourth discharge six feet of Tænia passed off. This was followed by sixty cases similarly treated, and with complete success in all but two, from which Dr. M. concludes: First, that the Kamala is an efficacious remedy in Tænia, and superior to turpentine or kousso. Second, it can be given in doses of 3 drachms. Third, for a female or one in feeble health, 13 drachms suffice, and if necessary ounce of castor oil."

Also, Dr. Anderson, surgeon to a regiment in India, and Dr. C. A. Jordon, publish more numerous cases with no less conclusive results. Dr. Anderson uses also a tincture-R Kamala, 6 ounces, Alcohol, 16 ounces; macerate two days and filter-dose, 1 to 4 drachms; diluted with aromatic water. This medicine is now used in England, and will doubtless become a fixed article of the materia medica.-Journal de Pharm. et de Chim.

CHLORATE OF SODA -Recommended by Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, physician to La Pitie Hospital, in Paris. He uses it as a substitute for Chlorate of Potash, in all those diseases for which the latter is employed. He prefers it on account of its being more soluble than the potash salt, less objectionable on account of taste, and he, moreover, thinks as a general thing, that the soda salts are more readily supported by the economy than the potash salts.-Ibid.

EXTRACT FROM MINUTES OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF NATURAL SCIENCES, OF LOUISVILLE.

[Furnished by W. N. HAILMAN, Secretary.]

MR. Dembitz read a paper on "Acoustics in its connection with the human voice."

He first defined sound as "certain vibrations of matter, of sufficient strength and velocity to be perceptible to the sense of hearing;" stated that any substance or body, in so far as it is elastic, may produce sound by its vibrations, and may communicate it, (nothing but a perfect vacuum interrupting it); that we must distinguish in sound three things: its pitch, its strength, and its quality."

Pitch was defined as the result of the frequency of the vibrations, increasing in height with the frequency of those vibrations or oscillations. He then described the various manners in which the numbers of oscillations producing a sound have been ascertained by actual experiment, stating that by one of these methods, a steel spring was forced to make twentyfour thousand oscillations in a second: producing an audible sound two octaves higher than the highest note of a seven octave piano; and that by a slight modification of this method, the steel spring produced a clear and intense sound of only eight oscillations a second. The method here alluded to, consists in revolving an indented wheel, the teeth of which lift a flat spring affixed to a strong wooden frame. This spring being raised by each tooth of the wheel, and rebounding by its own elasticity, before the succeeding tooth can work upon it, will make an oscillation for each tooth. By varying the rapidity of the wheel's motion, Savart arrived at the results mentioned above.

The strength of the sound, which can be best tested by the distance at which it is audible, depends on the amplitude and force of the oscillations. Mr. Dembitz here compared the oscillations of the air (the condensing and rarifying of the air in alternate strata) which finally bring the sound to the ear, to the oscillations of a pendulum, proving this analogy true in several points of view. Mr. D. considers the quality of sound, practically, of much greater importance than even its pitch or its intensity, because on it alone the human language depends. He dismissed this subject after some striking illustrations, as not belonging properly to his discourse; then enumerated the various directions of the vibrations of sounding bodies; and proceeded to give an account of the nature of the human voice.

For a long time he said it was believed the windpipe produced

sounds on the principles of a wind instrument—the length of the vibrating column of air modifying the sound. But even a superficial reflection would have shown this belief to be unfounded; for the voluntary contraction of the windpipe is too inconsiderable, when compared with the compass of the human voice. It was then thought sound was produced in the mouth by the air which is blown into it through the glottis.

These theories were both proved faulty by Dr. Mueller, of Berlin (who died a few months ago), who, by experiments made on the human larynx, directly proved that the voice had its seat in the vocal chords, whose tension modified the pitch of the sound produced; the greater the tension, the higher the pitch. J. Mueller would cut a larynx from a human subject, separating from it the muscles which in the living individual, serve for its tension and relaxation, and by substituting strings with appended weights, would illustrate the influence of this tension upon the pitch of the voice." By increasing the tension from of an ounce to 18 ounces, Dr. Mueller succeeded in raising the sound produced 2 octaves, or in other words increasing the frequency of vibrations almost sixfold.

The lower vocal chords are then the seat of the voice, and the upper vocal chords serve as a kind of sounding board, strengthening by their vibrations the sound given by the lower ligaments, whilst in the mouth the articulations and vowels are modified.

The latter part of Mr. D's. discourse was illustrated by some experiments on the larynx of an inferior animal.

Dr. Goldsmith then inquired about the construction and cost of an ozonometer.

T. E. Jenkins answered that Schoenbein's ozonometer was made by saturating filtering paper with starch, in which some iodide of potassium had been dissolved; that it indicated the presence of ozone in the open air or any other location in the following manner:

Ozone, by its oxydizing influence, combines with the potassium of the iodide, liberating the iodine, the latter coming in contact with the starch imparts to it a blue color, by the intensity of which the amount of ozone may be approximatively estimated.

The Chemist (November, 1858, page 119) has the following article:

Dr. Lankester exhibited an instrument for measuring the constant intensity of ozone. The instrument consisted of two small rollers, included in a box, which [rollers] were moved by means of an ordinary clock-work. Over the rollers a strip of paper prepared with iodide of potassium and starch is allowed to revolve, the paper becoming exposed to the air for an inch

of its surface in the lid of the box. Twenty-four inches of paper pass over the rollers in the course of twenty-four hours, and thus the paper registers by its color the intensity of the action of ozone in the atmosphere. Dr. Lankester pointed out the importance of ascertaining the amount of ozone in the air, on account of its undoubted relation to health.

The situation where this experiment is made must be free from currents of acid gases or vapors, because acids would, with the iodine and moisture in the instrument, form hydriodic acid, which, by light, is decomposed into its elements - hydrogen and iodine. The iodine would thus, also, be at liberty to act on the starch and impart to it the characteristic blue color. Mr. Scheffer remarked that another inconvenience might make the instrument unreliable, especially in warm weather, when the starch will easily ferment. The acids produced by this fermentation would then act in the same manner as the currents of acid gases or vapors mentioned by Mr. Jenkins. A member inquired what was the nature of ozone?

Mr. Jenkins answered, that it was oxygen in a nascent state, produced by electricity, evaporation of volatile oils and the slow combustion of phosphorus in air or oxygen. Ozone is a powerful oxydizing agent, producing decomposition in many organic and inorganic compounds.

Messrs. Brandeis and Scheffer remarked that ozone had been used in Munich to disinfect hospitals from cholera; but with very unsatisfactory results, perhaps on account of the malignaney of the miasm. The ozone was created by the evaporation of turpentine.

Dr. Goldsmith stated that in Guy's Hospital, London, it had been used with decided success in erysipeloid diseases; that erysipelas was now assuming an epidemic character in Kentucky; he thought it therefore advisable to institute experiments in regard to the amount of ozone in the atmospherea diminution of that substance being, perhaps, the cause of the prevalence of erysipelas.

NOTE BY PROFESSOR HAILMAN.-I found, subsequently, in the Journal de Chimie et de Pharmacie, a few remarks on ozone, which I add here:

"Mr. de Babo, professor of Physics at the University of Freilburg, in Breisgan, exhibited before the meeting (the scientific congress, at Carlsruhe), an apparatus to prepare ozone. This apparatus in which ozone is obtained by the combustion of phosphorus allows us to rid the gas from the phosphorous acid by which it is generally rendered impure. We arrive at this result by washing the gas with chromic acid. This acid not only oxydizes the phosphorous acid, but it increases the ozone, for after the washing, we have more ozone than before,

evidently because the oxydation of phosphorous acid is itself a cause of ozonization.

Babo succeeded in obtaining ozone in an anhydrous state, whence it follows that this gas, or at least this particular kind of ozone, cannot be confounded with the hydrogenated ozone (HO) discovered by Mr. Beaumert.

Bunsen and Magnus, who spoke on this occasion, think that we must admit two kinds of ozone, the one the allo-tropical oxygen, the other a hydrogenated compound. This obscure question of the nature of ozone has made a considerable step in one of the subsequent sessions, as may be seen from the following article:

Mr. Schoenbein commenced by announcing the existence of three kinds of oxygen; the one, ordinary oxygen, that which we breathe in the air; the two other kinds of oxygen are two kinds of ozone, which behave towards each other like the two kinds of electricity. Indeed, ordinary oxygen results as soon as these two kinds of ozone are brought together; and, on the other hand, we destroy the ordinary oxygen, as soon as by a certain chemical action, we deprive it of the two allotropical modifications composing it.

This tendency on the part of the two modifications to produce ordinary oxygen, explains certain so-called catalytical ef fects; thus the peroxide of barium and oxygenated water made acid with nitric acid, are reciprocally decomposed, producing water, oxide of barium and ordinary oxygen. Under the same circumstances the permanganate of potassa is reduced to manganic oxide, the chromic acid becomes oxide of chromium; that is, these compounds are deprived of oxygen in the presence of an abundant source of oxygen, and in close contact with ozone, whose combusting power is able to oxydize even the least oxydizable bodies, such as nitrogen, which is transformed directly into nitric acid under the influence of

ozone.

These so contradictory effects are explained by what we said above: a strongly oxygenated compound may be decomposed in the presence of a compound rich in oxygen, whenever one. of these compounds contains oxygen, which may be called positive, and the other contains negative oxygen. The result of this decomposition is ordinary neutral oxygen. This also happens when ozone obtained from phosphorus is treated with oxygenated water; the product is only pure water and ordinary oxygen. In order, then, that ozone or nascent oxygen should act as an energetical oxydizing agent, it must not be in the presence of nascent oxygen from oxygenated water. As an acid loses its acid properties in contact with an alkali, and vice versa, thus also positive ozone loses its oxydizing properties in contact with negative ozone.