breach in the division wall sufficiently large enough for anyone to walk through. The window was blown out, and the poor woman was blown half-way through it. No one was in the kitchen of the other house, or the consequences might have been more serious. The boiler, Fig. 3, measures twelve and a-half inches long, ten inches broad, and is ten and a-half inches high. The top and front were blown out in one piece; FIG. 5. the area of this gives 240 inches, which if multiplied with the 250 lbs. pressure required to burst a similar boiler, gives a total pressure of more than 26 tons. The new boiler, Fig. 4, has been burst by me, by means of hydraulic pressure by the little test pump attached to it.

I could give more details of similar accidents caused by these taps, but I think it scarcely requisite to оссиру your time with them, having, I hope, proved how dangerous the practice is.

I will now proceed to those accidents caused through the stoppage of the circulation by the freezing of the water in the pipes. These accidents appear to occur chiefly when houses are entered upon by the tenants in the winter time, everything being cold, the water in the pipes being frozen. A fire is put under the boiler by the new tenant, and an explosion takes place. In severe weather pipes have been known to accumulate ice in one night, those boilers fixed without copper cylinders being most dangerous. Not far from the scene of the Eccles New Road accident, about two years ago, a Mrs. Cowie was killed by an explosion from this cause. The water in the boiler had longer time than usual to cool on the Saturday night, and Mrs. Cowie having got up late on the Sunday morning, after

very

the fire had been lighted a short time, the boiler burst, and she was blown across the kitchen and down the cellar steps and killed. Another accident from a similar cause occurred near Brunswick Street, Manchester, in January this year, which nearly killed a young woman, and I believe now she lies on a sick bed through the effects. At the same date the copper cylinder bottom which is on the table was blown out in a house in Bolton Road, Pendleton; there was no one in the kitchen at the time, or they might have been scalded to death. There was another accident to a copper cylinder at Gilda Brook, near Eccles; and in the same week the boiler that was fixed to replace the one that killed Mrs. Cowie burst with an accumulation of ice, the house being empty. One occurred at Glasgow on December 25, which seriously injured a man; one at Burnley; one at Chorley, which killed a little girl, on December 23. In this case the tenants had only just entered, and a fire having been put under the boiler, it burst, with the sad result I have named. On December 28 an explosion of a circulating boiler took place at Fulwood workhouse, near Preston, which killed one

FIG. 6.

man and injured two others. December 30, one at Bradford, one at Delph December 8, one at Ashton-on-Mersey on December 7, one at Bolton on the same day, and one at Hyde about the same time. There are a great many of these accidents unreported, because unattended with death. I have found that in the neighbourhood of Seedley, where the woman was killed in January, that no less than five bursts took place about the same time.

Having endeavoured to show the two chief causes of these explosions, the natural question is, What is the remedy? What will prevent this destruction of life and property? I have no hesitation in saying that if safety-valves had been fixed that every one of the accidents would have been prevented. And as the ordinary lever safety-valve would possibly become inoperative in course of time, a little pendulous safety-valve, of the Cowburn type, Fig. 6, has been recommended as not likely to get out of order by Mr. Fletcher, of the Steam Users' Association; and if safety-valves were fixed on the boiler, I think there is no objection to the use of taps

* A writer on this subject since the paper was written objects to this valve and states that it cannot be fixed on the boiler where I suggest. He also states that soot would accumulate round the valve and render it inoperative. Anxiety to be brief may have rendered me obscure. I know of a great number of these valves which are at work: they are fixed in such a manner as to leave a little chamber in the brickwork for them; this has a small cast-iron door and frame similar to those used for stoves; this enables the valve to be examined be fixed on one side of the boiler, or even on one of the pipes at any time, and keeps soot and dirt away. The valve may by using an elbow, but this is not to be recommended if the water has in it sulphate or carbonate of lime, which often

in the circulating pipes, as they are undoubtedly useful in case of accident. Weak plates of white metal, Fig. 7 D, have been recommended instead of safetyvalves, which would burst at a low pressure. I have made extensive experiments on these plates, and have burst a great number by actual steampressure; but I found that I never could get two alike out of the same mixture of metal. There are also many other objections to them which I will not occupy your time with.

A word about copper cylinders preventing explo. sions. Circulars have been issued by ironmongers in which it is distinctly stated that these things render an explosion impossible. This delusion, which has such a firm hold in the minds of many people,

FIG. 7.

demands some attention. A copper cylinder fixed' to a boiler makes it safer from those explosions which are caused by ice in the pipes. It is just possible that the death of Mrs. Cowie, which was caused by the water freezing in one night, would have been prevented by one, as the hot water in the cylinder makes it a storage of heat, which resists the attacks of cold for a longer time than a small pipe full will do. A copper cylinder only delays the danger a few hours at most in severe winters, and its utility ends at that for preventing explosions. The bottom of the cylinder on the table was blown out through one night's frost ; and anyone having a cylinder who wishes to have a hot both late at night when the servants have gone to bed, can empty all the hot

water out, which will be replaced with cold, and by this simple means reduce the power of its resistance to the effects of cold. A cotton broker of Liverpool bought a small house at Southport, and went into it in the winter time. He was a widower, and required only one servant. He hired one at Southport. After putting her in his new house, he went to his business in Liverpool. On his return he found part of the boiler in his little back garden, and part of the gable end of the house blown out. He informed me that cause deposits sufficiently great to stop up horizontal pipes, which would, of course, prevent the valve from working. I am not an advocate of finality or of any special valve. Let those who fix these things use good valves, and if they can get a simpler and less expensive one than this, it should be used; but under all conditions, I wish to reiterate, a safety

valve must be used.-W. H. B.

the girl was not injured, being in another part of the house at the time. A copper cylinder would not have prevented this accident; a safety valve, at a cost of 8s. or 10s. would have done.

I think that owners of house property would do well to have stop taps fixed in the bottoms of bath boilers, to enable the water to run out when the houses are not tenanted. I have been informed of several that have been cracked by the accumulation of ice inside the boiler this last winter in empty houses. The one marked Fig. 8 is one taken out of a house in West High Street, Pendleton; three others were cracked in the same street. When tenants leave in the winter time, it is, therefore, desirable to empty the water out to prevent this loss. There is also the element of safety in this when the incoming tenant is considered.

Gentlemen, I hope I have made the subject as plain and as simple as it really is; I hope I have shown to you that this destruction of human life and property is not surrounded or obscured by things which are difficult to understand; that it does not require profound scientific skill to prevent it; that we have it in our power to stop a great amount of FIG. 10.

FIG. 9.

mischief without evoking the aid of anything but the most ordinary means.

I am not here as the advocate of any new system of patented mysterious pipes, but simply to say that a safety-valve in every case mentioned would have prevented accidents. If this be true, what is the duty of the municipal authorities? It seems to me to be very clear and straight before them.

Action of some sort is imperatively needed, either by the imperial or municipal authorities, in order that these things may be fixed in a safe and proper manner.

Closely allied to the subject we have been considering is the bursting of water-supply pipes in frosty weather through the expansion of ice.

My paper has already exceeded the time allotted, and I will shortly endeavour to describe a little plan which is not patented, and which I think may be used with some benefit. The social misery, without mentioning the damage to property, which takes place every winter from this cause, is great, and needs no comment. Various remedies have been suggested, but I have not been able to find that any have been successful. Elastic diaphragms, Fig. 7, F, rubber balls, and many ways of creating more space in the pipes to allow the ice to expand, have been suggested, but without effect. Strong pipes will burst when water becomes ice. Hydraulic cylinders that will bear a pressure of five tons on the square inch have been cracked in Manchester warehouses by the water freezing in them. If this be so, it will be apparent that stronger pipes than those at present used will not prevent the evil; therefore, if we cannot get pipes of a material that will bear the pressure of ice, the next best thing is to prevent the ice accumulating.

This may, in some cases, be done by covering the pipes with felt, and fixing them on inside walls. As, however, most water-supply pipes are fixed on the inside of outer walls, and, therefore, very easy to become frozen up, it has occurred to me that if a little cylinder and gas-jet be used, as illustrated, Fig. 9, it might keep the water warmer than freezing-point, at a very small expenditure for gas. The cylinder may be about six inches long and three inches diameter, and might be fixed in the cellar, Fig. 10, at a point where the water enters the house, being connected by a small tube at each end to the water-supply pipe of the house. Under this cylinder, during frosty weather, a very small jet of gas might be constantly kept burning, which would cause the water to ascend, and thus promote a slow circulation. If, however, a separate pipe, quarter of an inch bore, were to be connected to the top of the cylinder, and then taken and connected to the highest and coldest part of the water-main, it would be made more effective, as the circulation of warm water would be then complete.

MODERN RESEARCHES ON ALCOHOL. BY BATHURST WOODMAN, M.D.

I. Introductory.

Now that chemists give the name of alcohols to a great variety of carbon compounds, it is perhaps as well to state once for all that the word alcohol in these papers is taken in its common meaning, as the product obtained in the vinous fermentation of sugar, and known to chemists as ethyl-alcohol (CHO). In more or less quantity this forms an essential ingredient of almost all the stimulating beverages now employed by mankind, and of most of the beverages of antiquity. Whatever philologists or moralists may say to the contrary, those readers of Holy Writ and students of the classics who regard the sense rather than the words, cannot doubt

the beer drunk in Germany and other parts of the Continent. As an introduction to the practical part of these papers, it may not be uninteresting to append the relative strengths, as regards alcohol of some of the most common beverages. For many of these I am indebted to Sonnenschein's Handbuch der Gerichtlichen Chemie, though some are taken from Dr. Dupré, and some from other sources.

Winter Jung' beer from Munich contained 3'9 per cent. alcohol (A.D. 1849); Augsburg do. (1854) 4 per cent.; Bayreuth (1854) 2.3 per cent.; Landshut (1854) 3'4 per cent. Whilst summer Lager' beer from Munich in 1846 had 44 per cent., ten months old 'Doppelbier' from Zacherl (1853) contained 5.2 per cent. So did 'Franziskaner Kloster' of the same year. Sedelmayer ale (1850) contained 7.8 per cent.; Barclay and Perkin's porter (1852) 5'4 per cent.; W.

Οἶνος μὲν θνητοῖσι θεῶν πάρα δῶρον ἄριστον, Πινόμενος κατὰ μέτρον, ὑπὲρ μέτρον δὲ χέρειαν. Drunk till the drinkers are drunken-a perilous gift is wine; Drunk as it should be drunken, 'tis the noblest gift divine. And again, Eratosthenes (B.C. 200):

Οἶνός τοι πυρὶ ἴσον ἔχει μένος.

Fire and wine alike are equally full of force. Whilst Eubulus prescribes only three cups of wine to the wise, for, says he, the fourth is wanton, the fifth clamorous, the sixth furious and pugnacious (Totiç yàp pórove̟ paripas, etc.) Hippocrates (Aph. 56, bk. vii.) says that 'a mixture of wine and water cures fright, yawning, and shivering' ('Aλúkŋ, xánun, φρίκη, οἶνος ἴστος ἴσω πινόμενος λύει τὸν νοῦσον). Many other passages might be quoted from other writers and from Hippocrates to the same effect, but these will suffice.

The exact period of the discovery of distilled spirits (usually attributed to the Arabians about the twelfth century) is unknown, though probably of great antiquity. The quantity of alcohol contained in various beverages is very variable, ranging from 2 or 3, to 10 per cent. in malt liquors and light wines, to 17 or 25 per cent. in heavier wines, and nearly 50 per cent. in spirits. It may perhaps startle many total-abstainers to learn that one of their favourite beverages, ginger-beer, is really a fermented liquor, and contains alcohol in proportions varying from 2 to 4 or 5 per cent. Nevertheless the fact remains. I should be very sorry to diminish the sale of gingerbeer, which I regard as one of the best of our summer beverages, containing as it does, in almost all samples, either free citric or tartaric acid, or the almost equally beneficial bitartrate of potash. I have before me the receipts of several large makers, and take the first that comes to hand. It contains, besides ginger, tartaric and citric acids, 200 lbs. of sugar to 180 gallons of water. These ingredients are duly fermented, etc., and then bottled. Now, 200 lbs. of sugar (cane sugar) will produce in fermentation nearly 100 pints of alcohol; and, making all allowances for loss in yeast, by evaporation, in bottling, etc., it is quite plain that this liquor will contain about 4 per cent. of alcohol, and the result of actual experiment shows the same. The other receipts only differ slightly in the amount of the saccharine substance, as regards the water, or the kind of sugar present, or the acid employed. This percentage of alcohol is, of course, about half the strength of most of the malt liquors in common use by the middle classes of this country, but about equal to many of the cheaper ales, and to much of

per cent.; Bock-bier 4 per cent.; Munich ale 6 per cent.; Bavarian Lager-bier 8.3 per cent.; and Ballenstadt beer 9.5 per cent. Lacamber's analyses give 7 to 8 per cent. for London ale, 5 to 6 per cent. for porter; while the common kinds contained, according to him, 4 to 5 per cent. for ales, and 3 to 4 for porter. Dr. Christison's analyses give 6.1 per cent. for two year old Scotch ale (bottled), 5'4 per cent. for porter (four months old), and 6.3 for stout in good condition. Some very strong bottled ales and stout have been said to contain from 10 to 12 per cent.; but this is quite exceptional. As regards wines, cheap claret of the so-called 'Gladstone' variety, is found to contain 8.5 to 9 per cent. of alcohol, and the higher priced clarets do not materially differ, some containing even less, and others from 9 to 13 per cent.; good Burgundies from 77 to 11 or 12 per cent.; German hocks from 9 to 11 per cent.; Hungarian red and white wines about 10 or 11 per cent. As regards other analyses, to save constant repetition, it seems best to tabulate the percentage of alcohol:" Sherry (1860), high price Ditto (1857)

Ditto (mean of 13 varieties)
Strong sherry (Christison)
Madeira.
Ditto (old wine)
Lacrymæ Christi
Strong Madeira
Mild port wine
Mean of 7 kinds

17.8 per cent. 18:4 18

"

Orange wine (average of 6 samples) 11:26
Gooseberry ditto

Cider (highest average)
Ditto (lowest average)
Perry (mean of 4 samples)
Mead (Brande's analysis)

11.84

9.87

5'21 7:26 7'32 "

Tables of this sort might be extended over many pages; but no practical object would be served, as readers who care for such details will easily find them in special works on the subject of wines, such as that of Drs. Thudichum and Dupré, or in treatises on food and works on practical chemistry such as Sheridan Muspratt's. Sufficient have been quoted to show the great variety in strength of such beverages. Nor is there much uniformity in the strength of different spirits and liqueurs. As nearly all these beverages contain a variety of other ingredients, under the name of 'extractive,' with sugar, tartaric, sulphuric, and other acids, various ethers, oils, and bitter principles, and in the case of many samples of spirits more or less fusel oil and other matters [which

It will

are got rid of by repeated distillations, by keeping, and other methods, in the case of good and highpriced spirits] it cannot be wonderful, and is indeed a well-known fact, that their effects, either for good or for evil, are by no means uniform. Of late years, therefore, experimenters have generally made use of dilute alcohol of known strength in their experiments; or of wines and spirits, whose composition and strength were previously ascertained. be very evident, as we trace their labours, as far as possible historically, that very much has yet to be learnt. Yet some things stand pretty clearly out of the chaos of contradictions; and the object of my paper will be to show, as far as possible, the present standpoint of what is commonly called the alcohol question.' It is clear that this has, even practically considered, a twofold aspect-which we may call the physiological, or the effects of alcohol in health; and the pathological, or the effects of alcohol in disease. Some of those who join in this discussion, would add to these the toxicological, because they regard alcohol in all forms and of all strengths as simply poison. This, however, is to prejudge the very question we are discussing, and, in point of fact, should this really be so, it would appropriately fall under the heading of the physiological effects, or the results of the ingestion of alcohol in health; for we imagine there are none who claim to be called scientific who would deny the temporary benefit gained by using alcohol in cases of syncope from hæmorrhage and other causes. The chief controversy in our own day is on the question as to what becomes of the alcohol taken into the body. Is it changed in its form, and more or less assimilated or digested, or is it eliminated as alcohol wholly, or nearly entirely? No one, we believe, is hardy enough to deny that some portion is so elimiminated, at least when sufficient is taken. This question became one of great scientific interest from the date of the publication of MM. Lallemand Perrin and Duroy's work, Du Rôle de l'Alcool et des Anesthétiques dans l'Organisme,' Paris, 1860. But much preparatory work had been done by Ogston, Percy, and other observers, whose work is but little known to the mass of medical readers in the present day. As their work is studiously ignored in certain quarters, it may be as well to commence with a résumé of their researches.

THE

And very

have to discuss the matter with him. seldom does he ever seek to test these rules by the experience of others or physiological science. As is the case with all proverbial philosophy, no distinction of individual circumstances is made, and the particular instance is made applicable to the universal.

It is worth while to examine into some of these current notions about a necessity which occupies us and affects our comfort at least three times a day, and often has a serious influence on our future health also. And at the outset let it be stated that any universal rule about meal-times which takes no count of the occupations and bodily peculiarities of different persons must necessarily be wrong. It is absurd to require that the duties and pleasures of existence should give way to the task of supplying nutriment; that would indeed be 'propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. And it is equally absurd to ignore the idiosyncrasies of individuals induced by original constitution or acquired habit. Everybody who is led to think about a subject at all, in its bearing either on himself or his dependents, should honestly and fairly try during sound health experiments on the prevalent ideas concerning the arrangement of meals, and test how far the self-knowledge

thus acquired is capable of application to social and professional requirements.

As an aid to his investigations it may be stated that the physiology of digestion confirms the truth of the following general observations bearing on the times of taking solid food and the intervals between them; it being assumed that the said food is of average digestible quality, and in quantity proportioned to the reasonable appetite, not in excess.

1. Food for the supply of the daily wants of the system is most rapidly and thoroughly digested when taken early in the day, ere the nervous and secretive forces are exhausted by toil.

2. Rapid digestion in the early part of the day contributes to the immediate demands of motion and innervation.

3. Food for the repair of the continuous wear and tear of the tissues is in less immediate request; the completeness of its solution is of more importance

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1875.

MEAL-TIMES. I.

'To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven,' says the preacher.

'What are the most seasonable times for meals?' is a question oftener answered than asked. Almost everybody has got a set of proverbs, dogmas, or traditional rules, derived apparently from his greatgrandmother, on the subject, to which he contends the assent is due, not only of himself, but of all who

evening, when an opportunity is afforded for its leisurely absorption during sleep.

4. The duration of digestion bears a proportion to the quantity of food eaten.

5. In youth the digestion is quicker, and the stomach sooner emptied than in grown-up persons.

6. Rest before meals makes digestion more com plete. Exertion immediately before meals retards digestion, and exertion immediately afterwards deranges it.

7. Sleep retards digestion, but makes it more complete.

8. Alcohol retards digestion and renders it also incomplete.