Periscope of Medical and General Science in their Relations to Dentistry. [Volume: 2, Issue: 7, February, 1861, pp. 401-409]

PERISCOPE OF MEDICAL AND GENERAL SCIENCE.

409

" On the Preparation of Non-conducting Surfaces for Electrotyping. By BERNARD PIFFARD.-Hlaving been lately occupied in making
some experiments in preparing non-conducting substances for electrodeposition by a chemical process, I send you the result, hoping it may
prove useful to some of your readers. For this purpose I prepared a
sheet of gutta-percha as follows:-lst. With a solution composed of
equal parts of white of egg and a saturated solution of common salt in
water, and dried thoroughly. 2d. With a strong solution of nitrate of
silver, and, when dry, I exposed it to light till quite black. 3d. With a
saturated solution of proto-sulphate of iron. This last produces a highlyconducting surface of metallic silver. On attaching it immediately (before dry) to the wires of a battery, and immersing it in a solution of
sulphate of copper, I obtained a very uniform and rapid deposit without
the help of guiding wires." —(bid.)
"Tobacco in Camp and College.-The deepening conviction that the
habitual use of tobacco is a source of physical and mental degeneration
has steadily obtained a firmer hold of the public mind since the thorough
exposition of the opinions of the medical profession in the columns of
this journal. To that discussion the late manifesto of Sir Benjamin
Brodie must be considered as a supplement, affording an authoritative
sanction to the conclusions at which we arrived in summing up the debate.
In this country of free discussion and free action, the changes wrought
by conviction are worked out slowly and spontaneously by individual process of resolve. Across the channel, where facta non verba is the rule
of the empire, the opinions elicited by the great English controversy
have borne fruit in deeds. It will be remembered that certain statistical
results have been obtained at the Ecole Polytechnique and other public
schools and colleges, attesting that the smokers were also the dunces, and
that the intellectual as well as the physical development of the students
was checked by the use of tobacco. The Minister of Public Instruction
has published a circular, addressed to the directors of schools and colleges in France, forbidding the use of tobacco and cigars by the students.
The Minister of Public Instruction and the Prefet of the Seine are said
to be 'unceasing in their exertions to remedy the evil.' As Paris alone
contains 29,000 pupils, the edict applies to a large population. It would
be well could the authorities of the English colleges and universities
decree the same abstinence for all students, in residence or otherwise
under control. There are two classes of men in England, who at this
moment are addicted to frightful excess in tobacco-smoking, and suffer
the evil consequences in depression, debility, hebetude, and nervousness.
These are students at college, and officers in barrack, garrison, and camp.
The latter especially smoke incessantly, beginning early in the day, and
continuing till the night has fallen. The dullness of barrack life, which
incites to the excess, is deepened by the habitual depression which tobacco
in the end produces. The depressed and debilitated condition of numbers of these young men, who, from such depots as the camp at Aldershott, visit London, has long been the subject of. observation among the
surgeons who are called to treat their complaints, and have the opportunity of comparing their nervous force with the standard of civil life.
Nowhere are the evils of tobacco-smoking more rampant than in the
camp and the college. Is it impossible that higher authority should intervene to ameliorate their condition?"-(Lancet.)