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Credit: Present state of medical knowledge in England. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![obtained his result in the laboratory, he communicated it to distin- guished capitalists in Baden, who thereupon formed a company ; not with a view, in the first instance, of erecting a manufactory upon the new system, but merely of proving its pretensions. To this end they advanced a considerable sum for setting up experi- mental works so large, that the thing could be tried on a manufac- turing scale. Having done this at Ettingen, near Carlsruhe, they appointed a scientific and practical commission, to follow closely the experiments which Mr. Schuzenbach should make. Commis- sioners from the governments of Wurtemberg and Bavaria likewise attended. The experiments were carried on during five or six weeks, in which time several thousand pounds of sugar, of superior grain and purity, were produced. The Baden company were so well satisfied with the report of the commission, that they immediately determined to erect an immense establishment, at an expense of mqre than 40,000/. sterling for fixtures only. A like sum was devoted to the current expenses of the works. Factories were simultaneously erected at or near Munich, Stuttgard, and Berlin. The arrangements were made with remarkable intelligence and caution; and we cannot doubt that the new method will prove of immense importance to the prosperity, comfort, and improvement of the northern nations and colonies of the Old World and the New. PIERRE-LOUIS DULONG. PrERRE-Louis Dulong was born at Paris, 1785: he became an orphan at the age of four years ; and, though hardly possessing the most ordinary advantages of domestic instruction or public education, his premature talents and industry gained him admis- sion, at the age of sixteen, to the Polytechnic School, which has been so fertile in the production of great men; of which he became afterwards successively examiner, professor,, and director. He first followed the profession of medicine, which he abandoned on being appointed Professor of Chemistry to the Faculty of Sciences. He became a member of the Institute in 1823, in the section of the physical sciences. On the death of the elder Cuvier he was appointed Secretaire Perpetuel to the Institute, a situation from which he was afterwards compelled to retire by the pressure of those infirmities which terminated in his death in the fifty-fourth year of his age. M. Dulong was almost equally distinguished for his profound knowledge of chemistry and physical philosophy. His “ Researches on the Mutual Decomposition of the Soluble and Insoluble Salts,” forrn a most important contribution to our knowledge of chemical statics. He was the discoverer of the hydrophosphorous acxd^ and also of the cldorure of azote, the most dangerous of chemical com- pounds, and his experiments upon it were prosecuted with a cou- rage nearly allied to rashness, which twice exposed his life to serious danger ; and his memoirs on the “ Combinations of Phos- phorus with Oxygen,” on the “ Hymnitric Acid’* on the oxalic acid, and other subjects, are sufficient to establish his character as a most ingenious and accurate experimenter, and as a chemical philosopher of the highest order. But it is to his researches op the “ Law of the Conduction of Heat,” “ On the Specific Heat'of the Gases,” and “ On the Elastic Force of Steam at High Temperatures,” that his permanent fame as a philosopher will rest most securely ; the first of these inquiries, which were undertaken in conjunction with the late M. Petit, was published in 1817 ; and presents an admirable example of the combination of well-directed and most laborious and patient expe- riment with’most sagacious and careful Induction ; these researches terminated, as is well known, in the very important correction of the celebrated law of conduction, w’hich Newton had announced in the Principia, and which Laplace, Poisson, and Fourier had taken as the basis of their beautiful mathematical theories of the propa- gation of heat. His experiments on the elastic force of steam at high temperatures, and which were full of danger and difficulty, were undertaken at the request of the Institute, and furnish results of the highest practical value ; and though the conclusions deduced from his “ Researches on the Specific Heat of Gases” have not generally been admitted by chemical and physical philoso- phers, the memoir which contains them is replete with ingenious and novel speculations, which show a prefound knowledge and familiar command of almost every department of physical science. —Farewell Address of the Duke of Sussex. THE ROSE OF JERICHO; ANASTATICA HIEROCHUNTINA. , In many parts of Germany a plant under the name of the Rose of Jericho is preserved, and made use of by its avaricious pos» sessors for all sorts of juggling tricks and superstitious practices. The usual appearance of this vegetable body is that of a brown ball as large as a man’s fist (formed by the little branches of the plant coiling up when perfectly dry), and is said to open onlv once a year, at Christmas. The miracle actually takes place, the plant expands and displays singular forms in its branches, which are compared to Turks’ heads, and relapses again into its former shape before the eyes of the astonished beholders. Although few persons now-a-days believe that any unusual circumstances attend this appearance, yet the high price at which the balls are sold, (from twenty to twenty-five rlx-dollars each), shows that there are still some dupes, and that the true cause of this change is not generally known; a few remarks, therefore, may not be unacceptable. Peter Belon, who travelled in the East from 1540 to 1546, is the first who mentions this plant, although it appears to have been previously known in Italy; and he found it on the shores of the Red Sea. Leonard Rauwolf, of Augsburg, is said to have first brought it to Germany in 1576. Delisle found it growing in Egypt, in Barbary, and in Palestine. It is an annual cruciferous plant, with oval leaves. The stem is five or six inches high, branched from the ground ; it is soft at first, but afterwards becomes dry and woody. From the axils of the leaves rise small branches of white flowers, which are succeeded by an oval capsule, or seed-vessel, having its persistent style in the middle, Und furnished with an ear-shaped appendage at each side, in which a lively imagination finds some resemblance to a turban, These pods have two divisions, each division containing two small oval seeds. The plant is of easy cultivation, the seed only requiring to be sown in a hot-bed in spring, and transplanted into the open ground in May. It flowers in June and ripens its seeds in Sep- tember, after which the plant withers and apparently dies ; but on being planted in moist earth, or being well watered where it originally grew, it assumes its former shape, the roots fix them, selves firmly in the earth, the branches expand, and young leaves and flowers are developed. It is grown in most botanical gardens, but never acquires the perfect form of those specimens which are brought from Egypt, When the seeds are ripe, the leaves fall off, and the ligneous branches bend inwards over each other, in the form of a ball, in- closing the seed-vessels within. In this state great numbers were brought to Europe by pilgrims in former times. When this dried plant is put into water, the branches unroll, and the pods become piK visible ; on being dried again they again close,—an experiment ' which may be tried at any season of the year, and which is grounded solely on the property'possessed by the fibres of the plant of expanding in moisture and contracting in drought,—a property which it is well known^s applied to hygrometrical purposes, and which this plant possesses in a higher degree than most others. For this reason, Linnaeus named it anastatica, from anastasis, resur- rection. The French call it simply, la jerose hygrometrique, without any mystical allusion. As the quantity of moisture which this plant requires for its re-expansion is always the same, it is easily ascertained, by experiments, how long it must remain in water to imbibe a sufficient quantity, and also how much time is required for evaporation before it again closes.. This property is very adroitly taken advantage of by impostors. The plant is moistened so as to open exactly at the given time: thus about Christmas they take it out of the water, as it is not absolutely necessary that it should remain in it till the very moment of nn, folding, when by degp'ees the branches open, and again coiitract on the evaporation of the moisture. In the East, these balls are rolled by the winds in the sandy |,, deserts until chance throws them near some humid spot, when the branches spread out, the capsules open, and thus, by a beautiful provision of Providence, sow their seeds where they find the moisture necessary for their vegetation. The plant possesses neither beauty nor smell, but being imperishable, it is compared i«ot by the Roman Catholic Church to the deep humility of the Virgin The natives ascribe to it the property of lightening the pains of child-birth, and tradition asserts it to have been the gift of the ]j, angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary; hence its Arabic name, kaj Maryam, Mary’s hand. It is believed to have opened spontane- ously on the night of the birth of our Saviour, and again closed as before. Itiil at; Hiii bi:] !I[] lea; boi Aei Kra lei tine](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22474419_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
