No. 77 Iodine-Tea. 143 the night and the greater part of the following day; and very shortly after, the child was restored to perfect health." IODINE.---Mr. Brande, in a late lecture on this article, stated, that its beneficial effect on.scrofula is as decisive as that of mercury on syphilis. The specific operation of the remedy on wen induced us to give it a trial in scrofula, and the first report of its anti-scrofulous property was made by us. We are, therefore, desirous that its reputation may not suffer, by employing an inferior kind, with which we find a wholesale druggist is supplying practitioners in the country. This inferior sort contains much matter insoluble in alcohol, whereas, the whole of the true is perfectly soluble in that menstruum. We procured the iodine from Germany, that it may have. a fair trial in this country, and we recommend our medical friends to procure it at the Medical Hall. A correspondent informs us that he has administered the tincture, in the dose of twenty drops twice a day, in a glass of decoction of the marshmallow root, in a case of incipient consumption, in a scrofulous subject, with complete success. In a few days it effectually allayed cough, and removed the oppression of the chest, without any auxiliary remedy. TEA.-In our Eighteenth Number, p. 542, we have made some remarks on the chemical properties of the leaves of the oriental shrub imported in this country, under the name of tea; and in consequence of their injurious effects on the stomach and nervous system, we have there recommended mixtures of British herbs as a substitute for tea and coffee for breakfast, and an evening repast. An infusion of the following composition, lately recommended by an eminent physician of Edinburgh, we have since found more pleasant to the palate, and more salubrious as an article of diet, than either of the compositions of herbs. It is an excellent nervous stomachic, and in cases of indigestion, or what is termed "bilious affections," arising either from debility or nervous irritability, it has proved highly beneficial, after stomachic bitters, with and without mercury, had entirely failed. It has likewise this important advantage over tonic medicines, and the foreign tea and coffee, that its long continued use will not injure the stomach; but, on the contrary, by keeping up healthy digestion, and by quieting the nerves, is likely to prevent the organic diseases of the stomach, which of late years have apparently increased in Europe. Take of the Heels of the unfolded Petals of the Red Rose, dried, five parts; Rosemary Leaves, ditto, one ditto; Balm Ditto, ditto, two ditto.-Mix. A dessert-spoonful of this composition is sufficient for half a pint of infusion. It is made in the same manner as tea, with sugar and cream, or milk. This composition is sold at the Medical Hall, 170, Piccadilly, at two shillings and nine-pence a pound;—a pound will go as far as two pounds of tea. We continue to receive very favourable reports of the ground sassafras nut as a substitute for cocoa, coffee, and tea, for breakfast and supper. It is not only nutritious, but a more efficacious corrector of the habit, in cases of eruption of the skin and scrofula, than the sassafras wood, or the compound decoction of sarsaparilla. As a powerful preventive of cutaneous affections, it is particularly valuable at this period of the year. It is also an excellent article of diet for rheumatic, gouty, and asthmatic invalids. The price of this article has lately been reduced from 6s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. a pound. SEIDLITZ POWDERS.-We have received from Dr. Souchet, of Cleve, a quantity of the saline products of the Seidlitz water, not one of which is to be found in the powders, sold under the name of Seidlitz powders in this country, although the proprietors of most of them positively assert, that solutions of them in water possess all the medicinal virtues of the much esteemed Seidlitz spring in Germany. The "medicinal virtues of that justly celebrated spring," observes Dr. Souchet, "reside in the sulphate and the muriate of magnesia, neither of which are to be found in the powders puffed off in London, under 'Royal protection."" He represents them as a chemical toy to amuse poor credulous John Bull!! The spurious powder distends the stomach and bowels with gas, and its aperient effects are never satisfactory, (keeping up an unpleasant irritation in the bowels, without sufficiently unloading them). The true powder is equally pleasant to the palate, always operates sufficiently on the intestinal canal, and leaves the stomach in an improved state. It is also considerably cheaper than the English preparations. Dissolved in water, it forms a very pleasant cooling aperient draught, containing all the medicinal salts of the Seidlitz spring, with the addition of the tartaric acid and carbonate of soda, which Dr. Souchet has added for the purpose of producing an agreeable degree of effervescence. The Seidlitz salts may be obtained with or without this addition, at a cheaper rate than the Cheltenham salts, to which, we have no hesitation in asserting, they will be found very superior as an alterative purgative, in cases of inflammatory affections of the skin, constitutional costiveness, and those affections which are termed bilious. INSTANTANEOUS LIGHT.---In a late number, we gave a receipt for making the matches of oxy-muriate of potass, which, on being touched with the sulphuric acid, produced a sufficient degree of fire to light a candle. A chemist of Paris has made a considerable improvement in those matches, by slightly covering the end of the match, before the oxy-muriate of potass is applied with sulphur, to ensure the communication of the fire to the wooden part. A great objection to those made in England, is the ceasing of the flame on the oxy-muriate being consumed, and thereby not affording time for lighting a candle. The Parisian chemist has made a simple apparatus for keeping the matches and sulphuric acid, so as to render them handy for lighting a candle in the dark, and for preventing an accident. He has sent a considerable quantity of the cases to the Medical Hall, 170, Piccadilly, for the purpose of supplying the faculty, and others, with them, at the low price of a franc (10d.) each. The utility of this simple contrivance, in cases of sudden attacks of disease, accidents, &c., must appear obvious to our readers. STEEL DEARER THAN GOLD.-A remarkable instance of No. 77.] Grasshopper-Gigantic Flower. 145 increased value produced by the manufacturing processes which result from our improved knowledge and cultivation of the arts and sciences, is found in the operations of the artist upon iron; for it appears that it may be made three hundred times dearer than gold. Six steel-wire springs for watch pendulums, weigh only one grain, and cost 78 6d each, equal, therefore, to 21. 5s.!! One grain of gold costs 2d. !! THE GRASSHOPPER.-A short time after the grasshopper appears in its last stage of perfection, it spreads over the meadows, which it fills with its chirping strains, which are the calls of the male inviting the female to love. Some naturalists are of opinion that the notes of the grasshopper are produced by the rubbing the two hind legs of the animal against each other. M. de Reamur and Linnæus, who have minutely examined these insects, assert, they On examinderive their vocal powers from a very different source. ing the male, his body has been found provided with a small hole below the insertion of each wing, delicately constructed with organs of sound within, and covered over, externally, with a fine transparent membrane, It is by means of these organs, which, in completeness and delicacy of their structure, may vie with those of the human voice, that some species of the grasshopper produce their melody. INSECT INHABITANTS OF A CARNATION.-Sir John Hill says, that led by the fragrance of a carnation, to bring it close to his organ of smell, his ear was attacked by an extremely soft but agreeable murmuring sound. It was easy to discover that some small animal within the covert must be the musician, and that the noise must come from some little body, suited to produce it. He distended the lower part of the flower, and placing it in a full light, discovered, by means of his apparatus, troops of insects frisking and 'capering with wild jollity among the narrow pedestals that support its leaves. He admired at leisure their elegant limbs, their velvet shoulders, their backs vieing with the empyreum in its blue, and their eyes, each forming a thousand others, outglittering the flame on a brilliant. Here were the perfumed groves, the more than myrtle shades of the poet's fancy realized: the happy inhabitants, in the 'triumph of their little hearts, skipped after one another from stem to stem, among the pointed trees, or winged their short flight to the close shadows of some broader leaf, to revel undisturbed in the height of felicity. GIGANTIC FLOWER.-Suddenly falling upon a description published by the Linnæan Society, of an extraordinary vegetable discovered in Sumatra, we fancied we had taken up Gulliver's Travels, but the respectable names coupled with the narrative, as well as the well-known and respected character of the vehicle of its publication, soon warned us of its claim to veracity. Dr. Arnold, whilst accompanying Sir Stamford Raffles in exploring the interior of the islands of Sumatra, was called by the guide to witness a very singular object; a flower such as no botanist ever saw or heard of: it was in beautiful bloom, and measured nine feet in circumference! We may now give credit to the account of the enormous nest seen by VOL, VII. U Cook, the gigantic bird, and the quill that admitted a man's hand. Who knows but that the ball on St. Paul's may one day be replaced by a larger object from nature, the Roc's Egg? HUMAN LIFE ESTIMATED BY PULSATION. An ingenious author asserts that the length of a man's life may be estimated by the number of pulsations which he has strength to perform. Thus, allowing seventy years for the common age of man, and sixty pulses in a minute for the common measure of pulses in a temperate person, the number of pulses in his whole life would amount to 2,207,520,000; but if, by intemperance, he forces his blood into a more rapid motion, so as to give seventyfive pulses in a minute, the same number of pulses would be completed in fifty-six years, consequently his life would be reduced fourteen years. ADVANTAGES OF EARLY RISING. The difference of rising every morning at six, and at eight, in the course of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same time he otherwise would, amounts to twenty-nine thousand hours, or three years one hundred and twenty-days; so that it is the same as if ten years of life (a weighty consideration) were added, in which we could command eight hours every day, for the cultivation of our minds or the dispatch of business. "Rise, light thy candle, see thy task begun Ere redd'ning streaks proclaim the distant sun." COMFORTS OF THE GOUT.-The physician Sydenham says of the gout, that he had it for thirty years, and knew no cure for it, but that three things were his consolation under it: first, that "it seldom attacks a fool; second, more seldom the poor; and third, that it was more incident to men of strong, than of weak constitution;"—thus, philosophy may afford some comfort, even in gout. A FIRE AND WATER-PROOF CEMENT.-To half a pint of vinegar, add the same quantity of milk; separate the curd, and mix the whey with the whites of five eggs; beat it well together and sift into it a sufficient quantity of quick lime, to convert it to the consistency of a thick paste. Broken vessels, mended with this cement, never afterwards separate, for it resists the action of both fire and water. DR. MONCEY'S METHOD OF TOOTH-DRAWING.We have read that this eccentric physician's mode of extracting his own teeth, was by fastening a strong piece of catgut firmly round the affected tooth, whilst the other end was, by means of a strong knot, fastened to a perforated bullet, and with this bullet a pistol was charged, and when held, either pointing to the ground or to the sky, according to the circumstance of its being an upper or a lower tooth, by pulling the trigger the troublesome tooth took its flight with the bullet. It is also related, that a person, to indulge the doctor's whim, pretended to consent to have a tooth removed in this manner; and allowed him to fix the catgut round the tooth, and to put the bullet into the pistol: but conceiving this was going far enough, he exclaimed hastily, he had altered his mind. But I No. 77. Noyeau. 147 have not," said the doctor, firing the pistol, "And, sir, you are a fool and a coward for your pains." FATAL CONSEQUENCE OF DRINKING NOYEAU.— It is ever a painful duty we perform, to report the sacrifice of human existence, from whatever cause derived; but when the liability to such dreadful catastrophies is connected with any of our familiar habits of life, we are bounden, from the office we have imposed on ourselves as conservators of the public health, not simply to the narration of facts, but to all the collateral circumstances which elucidate the subject, so as to put the general reader in possession of such information, as removes the danger to which the want of knowledge of the subject necessarily subject us. Our readers are of course aware, that it is a practice amongst many tradesmen, to keep a bottle of some liquor, either wine or spirits, behind the counter, for the purpose of regaling their customers. A shop-keeper in the country, in observing this custom, selected noyeau for this purpose, which seems to have pleased the taste of his friends so well, that several regretted it was not stronger. The complaisant tradesman, realizing the fable of The Old Man and the Ass, by wishing to oblige every body, transmitted an order to the person who manufactured his noyeau, that he would prepare him a certain quantity of double the usual strength. This was complied with, without either enquiries on one part, or explanation on the other. Shortly after the noyeau had arrived, a lady visited the shop, who being an excellent customer, the tradesman was desirous of evincing his respect, and therefore presented her with the first glass of his improved cordial. The lady drank it, and ín a few minutes afterwards fell on the floor, and expired. The terror' of the poor man was heightened to a greater degree, by the observations of the bye-standers, who, remarking the coincidence of her' death, and her taking the noyeau, asserted, that he must have given her poison; he assured them it was "nothing but noyeau" she had taken, and to convince them, as he conceived, of its harmless qualities, he seized the bottle, and, pouring out a glass of it, drank it in an agony of earnestness, when so rapid was the action of this potent poison, that the persons before him had not time to relapse from the attention which his conduct extorted, before they were assailed with the additional horror of witnessing the destruction of a second victim-the poor man trembled, fell, and expired. Our readers are doubtless aware, that Prussic acid is one of the most potent poisons in the vegetable kingdom; and it is to the presence of this principle in "noyeau," ratafia," "black cherry water," and other similar articles, that their flavour, as well as their pernicious qualities, is owing. The kernels of cherries, peaches, and apricots, as well as sweet and bitter almonds, contain Prussic acid; the bitter almond possesses it in a great degree. An infusion of peach leaves, and of laurel or nectarine leaves, is found to be a powerful and dangerous medicine, because it contains Prussic acid; in fine, it is possible, by the skill of the chemist, to obtain this acid in such a concentrated state, (from almonds, peach leaves, or any of the substance before enumerated) that a single drop falling upon or |