- Email: [email protected]
RESEARCH IN BREWING.
1269 fusion of neighbouring foci of the later stages give rise to
proliferation may in technical apparently single It should
an
Moreover, at the margin or neck of the .adenoma the adjacent epithelium presents pronounced chronic inflammatory changes. In course of time malignancy supervenes in these irritated cells, as well as in the cells of the adenoma itself. Dr. Dukes suggests that a cancrogenic agent causes a more than usually vigorous growth in many separated spots in a considerable area of mucous membrane. Later, - a crop of adenomata arise from this sensitive field, .and some of these become surrounded by secondary tumours. The mucosa between these primary and secondary tumours becomes irritated, hampered in its growth, and folded inwards. Whether the malignant change develops in these dislocated cells or whether in the cells of the actual adenomata is uncertain, but the cancer makes its appearance when .a crop of simple tumours has arisen in an irritated field and in close association with one of them. The author’s conclusions are supported by excellent figures and diagrams, and his article is as convincing .as’ it is interesting. .growth.
____
RESEARCH IN BREWING.
BREWING, like the agriculture of to-day and the medicine of yesterday, is one of those ancient crafts which the patient labour of the scientific investigator is slowly raising from the status of an empirical art to that of a science. It is to the credit of the brewing .trade, at a time when many industries are accepting or seeking help from some outside source, that its own Institute has financed a research scheme by a system of voluntary contributions based on output Results of considerable from nearly 300 firms. technical and scientific value appear in the fifth report of the Institute of Brewing Research Scheme, covering the period April, 1924, to April, 1926, which has just been issued. Beer needs for its -manufacture four main ingredients-water, barley malt, hops, and yeast-and each of these materials .forms the chief subject-matter for investigation by the Until the Institute .four subcommittees of experts. .shall have appointed a director-general of research .the chairman of the Research Fund Committee, Mr. J. S. Ford, F.R.S.E., is acting in that capacity. Field experiments, carried on all over England on the influence of soil, season, and manures on the yield and quality of barley grown for malting, are supervised by Sir John Russell, F.R.S., director of the Rothamstead Experimental Station. After .malting the analytical work is in the hands of Mr. H. Lloyd Hind, whose results promise well for both farmer and brewer. Investigations on hops comprise the systematic breeding and crossing of new varieties at the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, by Prof. E. S. Salmon, and their testing at the East Malling Research Station and at Horsmonden. ’The objects in view are to procure for the grower new and prolific varieties of hop more able to resist disease, while at the same time securing for the brewer the qualities he considers valuable. Chemical investigations on the preservative and antiseptic -properties of hops have engaged the attention of Prof. F. L. Pyman, F.R.S., and Dr. T. K. Walker at Manchester since 1921. It may not be generally known that apart from the agreeable flavour conferred - own beer by hops, they are a valuable ally to the brewer in his fight against the invasion of his beer by the foreign organisms which cause turbidity, fret and acidity. Valuable work is being done on the keeping properties of the yeast used for fermentation and the effect of hydrogen-ion concentration on the character and stability of beer. The - measurement of the true " free acidity " is becoming recognised as an essential procedure in the various stages of brewing. Over and above the actual staff of the Institute a large body of farmers, brewers, -chemists, maltsters, and hop-growers-all busy menvoluntarily give their services on numerous com:mittees supervising the researches, while expert .annual
assistance is engaged where required. not be forgotten that it was on the basis of Pasteur’s researches on the disease organisms of wine and beer that arose the superstructure of modern surgery and preventive medicine.
FLUORINE AS A SLOW POISON. THE toxic effects of long-continued small doses of iodine and bromine and their derivatives are well known. Recently Prof. H. Cristiani has described1 chronic poisoning by another member of the halogen series, fluorine. This element is apparently present in minute quantities in many of our foodstuffs, and was at one time frequently used as a preservative, although its use as such is now prohibited in most countries. In the neighbourhood of certain factories the food of animals may contain toxic quantities of fluorine, and this element may also be present in excess in water into which certain industrial products have been allowed to pass. In some districts in Switzerland where these conditions are present an enclemic disease occurs among animals, characterised by wasting and cachexia, with a special localisation in the regions of the vertebral column and lower limbs, while the bones become softened and frequently show spontaneous fractures. On account of this last symptom the disease has usually been considered by veterinarians as a form of osteomalacia, and farmers and others seeking compensation for their diseased cattle have been met by the statement that there is no evidence that osteomalacia can be caused by the ingestion of poisonous substances. Prof. Cristiani has set himself to disprove this, and he has established that the disease from which these animals suffer can be separated from true osteomalacia and should be " " designated by a separate name such as fluorism or " fluorine cachexia." His experiments consisted in feeding animals on diets which, while maintaining perfect health in control animals, produced the syndrome described above when there was added in small doses (a) hay which was suspected of having produced the disease in cattle ; (b) hay mildly .impregnated with certain salts of fluorine, or (c) grass submitted to the action of fluorine in one of its gaseous forms and used either fresh or as hay. The time of appearance of symptoms was variable and depended to a certain extent on the dose of fluorine employed. The experimental animals wasted and eventually died with symptoms of bulbar paralysis and respiratory failure. At autopsy the bone-marrow was found to be extremely scanty ; the bone-tissue showed much rarefaction, and the bones on analysis showed a high fluorine content. Prof. Cristiani is at present studying the question as to whether chronic fluorine poisoning occurs in man. Its symptoms are so slow in appearing and in progressing that it may possibly be present sometimes among the inhabitants of industrial areas where much fluorine is produced. ____
THE PATHOLOGY OF BURNS. was for a long time a good deal of difficulty in explaining the toxaemia and death which may follow burns, and it is only comparatively recently that our knowledge of the subject has determined to a satisfactory explanation which brings the ill-effects of burns into line with the shock due to tissue injury. The evidence, along with an interesting discussion of burns of all kinds, is well summarised by Dr. G. T. Pack in the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (1926, i., 767). In the first place, it is clear that the poisonous substance comes from the burned tissue and is carried in the blood; if the tissue is excised toxemia is prevented, and if burned skin is transplanted from one animal to another the latter has symptoms and dies. If one of a pair of experimental Siamese twins is burned, both have symptoms, and experiments with crossed circulations show that the THERE
1 La Presse Médicale, April 14th, 1926, p. 469.
proliferation may in technical apparently single It should
an
Moreover, at the margin or neck of the .adenoma the adjacent epithelium presents pronounced chronic inflammatory changes. In course of time malignancy supervenes in these irritated cells, as well as in the cells of the adenoma itself. Dr. Dukes suggests that a cancrogenic agent causes a more than usually vigorous growth in many separated spots in a considerable area of mucous membrane. Later, - a crop of adenomata arise from this sensitive field, .and some of these become surrounded by secondary tumours. The mucosa between these primary and secondary tumours becomes irritated, hampered in its growth, and folded inwards. Whether the malignant change develops in these dislocated cells or whether in the cells of the actual adenomata is uncertain, but the cancer makes its appearance when .a crop of simple tumours has arisen in an irritated field and in close association with one of them. The author’s conclusions are supported by excellent figures and diagrams, and his article is as convincing .as’ it is interesting. .growth.
____
RESEARCH IN BREWING.
BREWING, like the agriculture of to-day and the medicine of yesterday, is one of those ancient crafts which the patient labour of the scientific investigator is slowly raising from the status of an empirical art to that of a science. It is to the credit of the brewing .trade, at a time when many industries are accepting or seeking help from some outside source, that its own Institute has financed a research scheme by a system of voluntary contributions based on output Results of considerable from nearly 300 firms. technical and scientific value appear in the fifth report of the Institute of Brewing Research Scheme, covering the period April, 1924, to April, 1926, which has just been issued. Beer needs for its -manufacture four main ingredients-water, barley malt, hops, and yeast-and each of these materials .forms the chief subject-matter for investigation by the Until the Institute .four subcommittees of experts. .shall have appointed a director-general of research .the chairman of the Research Fund Committee, Mr. J. S. Ford, F.R.S.E., is acting in that capacity. Field experiments, carried on all over England on the influence of soil, season, and manures on the yield and quality of barley grown for malting, are supervised by Sir John Russell, F.R.S., director of the Rothamstead Experimental Station. After .malting the analytical work is in the hands of Mr. H. Lloyd Hind, whose results promise well for both farmer and brewer. Investigations on hops comprise the systematic breeding and crossing of new varieties at the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, by Prof. E. S. Salmon, and their testing at the East Malling Research Station and at Horsmonden. ’The objects in view are to procure for the grower new and prolific varieties of hop more able to resist disease, while at the same time securing for the brewer the qualities he considers valuable. Chemical investigations on the preservative and antiseptic -properties of hops have engaged the attention of Prof. F. L. Pyman, F.R.S., and Dr. T. K. Walker at Manchester since 1921. It may not be generally known that apart from the agreeable flavour conferred - own beer by hops, they are a valuable ally to the brewer in his fight against the invasion of his beer by the foreign organisms which cause turbidity, fret and acidity. Valuable work is being done on the keeping properties of the yeast used for fermentation and the effect of hydrogen-ion concentration on the character and stability of beer. The - measurement of the true " free acidity " is becoming recognised as an essential procedure in the various stages of brewing. Over and above the actual staff of the Institute a large body of farmers, brewers, -chemists, maltsters, and hop-growers-all busy menvoluntarily give their services on numerous com:mittees supervising the researches, while expert .annual
assistance is engaged where required. not be forgotten that it was on the basis of Pasteur’s researches on the disease organisms of wine and beer that arose the superstructure of modern surgery and preventive medicine.
FLUORINE AS A SLOW POISON. THE toxic effects of long-continued small doses of iodine and bromine and their derivatives are well known. Recently Prof. H. Cristiani has described1 chronic poisoning by another member of the halogen series, fluorine. This element is apparently present in minute quantities in many of our foodstuffs, and was at one time frequently used as a preservative, although its use as such is now prohibited in most countries. In the neighbourhood of certain factories the food of animals may contain toxic quantities of fluorine, and this element may also be present in excess in water into which certain industrial products have been allowed to pass. In some districts in Switzerland where these conditions are present an enclemic disease occurs among animals, characterised by wasting and cachexia, with a special localisation in the regions of the vertebral column and lower limbs, while the bones become softened and frequently show spontaneous fractures. On account of this last symptom the disease has usually been considered by veterinarians as a form of osteomalacia, and farmers and others seeking compensation for their diseased cattle have been met by the statement that there is no evidence that osteomalacia can be caused by the ingestion of poisonous substances. Prof. Cristiani has set himself to disprove this, and he has established that the disease from which these animals suffer can be separated from true osteomalacia and should be " " designated by a separate name such as fluorism or " fluorine cachexia." His experiments consisted in feeding animals on diets which, while maintaining perfect health in control animals, produced the syndrome described above when there was added in small doses (a) hay which was suspected of having produced the disease in cattle ; (b) hay mildly .impregnated with certain salts of fluorine, or (c) grass submitted to the action of fluorine in one of its gaseous forms and used either fresh or as hay. The time of appearance of symptoms was variable and depended to a certain extent on the dose of fluorine employed. The experimental animals wasted and eventually died with symptoms of bulbar paralysis and respiratory failure. At autopsy the bone-marrow was found to be extremely scanty ; the bone-tissue showed much rarefaction, and the bones on analysis showed a high fluorine content. Prof. Cristiani is at present studying the question as to whether chronic fluorine poisoning occurs in man. Its symptoms are so slow in appearing and in progressing that it may possibly be present sometimes among the inhabitants of industrial areas where much fluorine is produced. ____
THE PATHOLOGY OF BURNS. was for a long time a good deal of difficulty in explaining the toxaemia and death which may follow burns, and it is only comparatively recently that our knowledge of the subject has determined to a satisfactory explanation which brings the ill-effects of burns into line with the shock due to tissue injury. The evidence, along with an interesting discussion of burns of all kinds, is well summarised by Dr. G. T. Pack in the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (1926, i., 767). In the first place, it is clear that the poisonous substance comes from the burned tissue and is carried in the blood; if the tissue is excised toxemia is prevented, and if burned skin is transplanted from one animal to another the latter has symptoms and dies. If one of a pair of experimental Siamese twins is burned, both have symptoms, and experiments with crossed circulations show that the THERE
1 La Presse Médicale, April 14th, 1926, p. 469.