Abstract
PARIS.
Academy of Sciences, August,10.—M. Duchartre in the chair.—Artificial production of a micaceous trachyte, by MM. F. Fouqué and Michel Lévy. This trachyte was obtained by the action of water under pressure on a glass resulting from the fusion of Vire granite, and at a bright red heat. The rock was homogeneous, and its sections exhibited beautiful octahedral crystals of a variety of spinel in connection with orthoclase and black mica.—Note on an experiment on ostriculture that has been carried out in the fish-pond of the Roscoff Laboratory,by M. H. de Lacaze-Duthiers.—Physiological research on carbon monoxide in a medium containing it in the proportion of one ten-thousandth, by M. N. Gréhant. After passing a mixture containing a ten-thousandth part of carbon monoxide through blood for half an hour, it was found that the respiratory capacity of the blood was diminished from 23˙7 to 23˙0 per cent. The difference (0˙7) represents the amount of oxygen replaced by carbon monoxide. When the gas was passed through under a pressure of five atmospheres, it was found that the respiratory capacity had diminished from 23˙7 to 17˙2. This result may be applied to the detection of small quantities of carbon monoxide in confined air, and it also indicates that it is not only the percentage proportion of the gas which must be considered in questions relating to the absorption of it by hæmoglobin, for this remained the same in both experiments, viz. 1/1000th.—On the refraction and dispersion of crystallized chlorate of soda, by M. Frantz Dussaud. The author has measured with five different instruments the refractive index of chlorate of soda at temperatures between 0° and 30°, and for twelve lines in the spectrum. For the sodium line (D) and a temperature of 20° the value obtained is 1˙51510. The result for a is 1˙50197, and for Cd (18) 1˙58500.—On the habits of Gobius minutus, by M. Frédéric Guitel.—On the pathological types of the curve of muscúlar action, by M. Maurice Mendelssohn.—On the preventive inoculations of yellow fever, by M. Domingos Freire. The author has inoculated 10,881 persons with cultures of Micrococcus amaril. The mortality of those so vaccinated was 0˙4 per cent., although the patients lived in districts infected with yellow fever, whilst the death-rate of the uninoculated during the same period was from 30 to 40 per cent. These results have led the Government of the Brazilian States to found an institute for the culture of the virus of yellow fever and other infectious diseases, and to appoint M. Freire the director.—On a new incandescent light, by M. Bay.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Societies and Academies. Nature 44, 392 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/044392b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/044392b0