1283 novel to consider the
place
of medical
scheme, the behaviour of medical
men
men
in the social
towards their
patients,
I
ether is tapped off and placed in a small weighed flask beaker. A further extraction is made with another 20 cubic centimetres of ether which is added to the first extraction. The flask is placed on top of the hot air oven and kept at a temperature of 100° F., and a glass tube connected with the water-pump is suspended just over the surface of the ether. is allowed to proceed until the residue just smells of ether, and then the flask is placed on its side in a desiccator over a tray of anhydrous calcium chloride. After a quarter of an hour the flask and its contents are weighed. The weight of phenols or phenoloids multiplied by 2 and by 10 gives the percentage of phenols present in the disinfecting fluid. Next the residue-i.e , the extracted phenols-is dissolved in caustic soda, and the solution is made up with water to 100 cubic centimetres. 5 cubic centimetres of this solution are placed in a 50 cubic centimetres cylinder, about 20 cubic centimetres of water are added, and the mixture is then strongly acidified with hydrochloric acid. A standard solution of bromine in caustic soda is then run in until a permanent yellow colour is produced. The strength of the alkaline bromine solution must be controlled by potassium iodide and decinormal solution of sodium thiosulphate. A convenient strength is a fifth normal solution 1 cubic centimetre = 0’016 Br. The number of cubic centimetres of bromine solution run in to produce the
hospitals and sanatoriums, and so on, position totally different. The public is rightly interested in the details of such matters, quite apart from the general scheme of any story in which they may find a Evaporation place, and the greatest possible damage may be done by inaccuracy. The question of whether medical episodes and medical scenes are fit subjects for fiction can only be answered in one way. They are. Medicine is closely interwoven with the substance of modern life, and clearly falls within the province of those writers who essay to describe life. Medicine has nothing to lose but everything to gain from those writers who can show how intimately its teachings must ’, influence every sort of social and political development.
the administration of is
the
But where medicine is treated in this manner it is necessary that the writer should be both well informed and conscientious.
Moreover, in recently published by
the
light
of works which have been
certain London
firms,
necessary that the authors should have a decency than sometimes prevails, and a more tion of the incalculable mischief that
can
it would appear higher ideal of
lively appreciapermanent yellow by the by 0 195, by 20,
be done
profess here to discuss in problems can be, and how far they cannot be, dealt with in popular fiction ; but of this we are certain-sexual perversion is a pathological subject, and finds its enly fit place in pathological
pornographic the least
treatises. world has
work.
how far
We do not
sex
Of course, several of the greatest romancers the have introduced this subject in different phases
seen
into their works. Suppose we pardon these great ones on the ground that their intellect was such as to demand unfettered scope, we may at least ask modern writers to prove that they stand on the same plane as BALZAC before they take the licence of BALZAC.
Annotations. "Ne
multiplied
0-016,
by
-o -D
coefficient,
"
quid nimis."
THE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF COAL-TAR DISINFECTANTS. INQUIRIES have reached us as to the exact manipulative details employed in our laboratory in the chemical analysis In reply we may state that the of coal-tar disinfectants. has been found to give accurate and following procedure consistent results. 10 grammes of the coal-tar disinfectant are weighed out and thoroughly shaken or emulsified with 90 cubic centimetres of water. 100 cubic centimetres of a hot saturated solution of baryta are placed in a conical flask of about 300 cubic centimetres capacity, provided with a well-fitting cork. The diluted disinfectant is added gradually about 5 cubic centimetres at a time to the hot baryta solution, the fluid being whirled round vigorously after each addition. When the whole of the disinfectant has been added to the baryta solution the mixture is poured on to a wet filter, is filtered, and the residue washed. The filtrate should occupy a volume of about 300 cubic centimetres. Onehalf of this volume is placed in ’ a separating cylinder and made acid with hydrochloric acid, which liberates the phenols. The barium chloride solution resulting serves to render the phenols insoluble. 20 cubic centimetres of ether The are then added and the mixture thoroughly shaken.
colouration,
and by 2. gives the bromine value in terms of acid of the percentage of pure carbolic The above bromine method avoids phenols present. a excess of bromine to the phenol, which adding large leads to erroneous results when easily oxidisable phenoloids When pure carbolic acid is present an excess are present, of bromine is immaterial. The processjust described can be applied to those disinfectants emulsified with soaps and In the case of emulsions made with gelatin or resins. dextrin the use of baryta is unnecessary, the gelatin or dextrin being first separated by means of alcohol or acetone, as described in THE LANCET report. Experiments made since the publication of THE LANCET Commission on Disinfectants continue to bring out a remarkably definite relationship between the carbolic acid bromine figure and the actual germicidal carbolic coefficient determined by the bacteriological procedure described. As examples may be quoted the following :—Disinfectant A : THE LANCET
2’4 ;coefficient
according
Disinfectant 0 : THE LANCET
3- 2-7.
P-B/3 7.7. coefficient, 6-40——
Disinfectant B : THE LANCET coefficient,
(I
to
77;
=
6-46.
percentage weight of phenoloids and B the perphenoloids calculated as pure carbolic acid according to the bromine absorbed. It may be added that preparations have been examined which have yielded 75 per cent. of phenoloids by this process. P
=
the
centage
of
I
THE
ARCTIC TEMPER.
Dr. H. G. Blessing has recently pubfrom his diary of the Nansen Polar Expedition in the "nineties." The onset of this condition seems to be slow but sure ; in the first Arctic winter it is unnoticeable, in the second winter it becomes troublesome, and in the third winter it has developed into a pall which clings like a mist about its victims and crushes the spirit of nearly all. The cause of this condition is to be found in the darkness, the monotony of the life, and the complete isolation of the explorers from every sign of life and motion ; the mind, in fact, is robbed of every external stimulus, and is slowly starved by this UNDER this
lished
extracts
heading