Bismuth 9.82 10.055 Decrease of volume 2.3 Copper 8.8 8.217 Increase " 7.1 Lead 11.4 10.37 " " 9.93 Tin. 7.5 7.025 " " 6.76 Zinc 7.2 6.48 " " 11.10 Silver 10.57 9.51 " " 11.20 Iron 6.95 6.88 " " 1.02 * * * * * HYDROPHOBIA PREVENTED BY VACCINATION. M. Pasteur and other French savants have lately been devoting special attention to hydrophobia. The great authority on germs has, in fact, definitely announced that he does not intend to rest until he has made known the exact nature and life-history of this terrible disease, and discovered a means of preventing or curing it. The most curious result yet attained in this direction, however, has been announced by Professor V. Galtier, of the Lyons Veterinary School. This inquirer has found, in the first place, that if the virus of rabies be injected into the veins of a sheep, the animal does not subsequently exhibit any symptoms of hydrophobia. This in itself would be a sufficiently curious result to justify attention, though its importance, except as confirmatory testimony, becomes less striking when it is remembered that M. Pasteur has lately shown that the special _nidus_ of the disease appears to be the nervous tissue, and particularly the ganglionic centers. But there is this further curious consequence: sheep who have thus been treated through the blood, and who are afterwards inoculated in the ordinary way through the cellular tissue, as if by a bite, are proof against the disease. It is as though the injection into the veins acted as a vaccine. Twenty sheep were experimented upon; ten only were treated to the venous injection, and then all were inoculated through the cellular tissue. The ten which had been first "vaccinated" continue alive and well; they have not even shown any adverse symptoms. The other ten have all died of rabies. It remains to say why M. Galtier experimented upon sheep, and not upon dogs and cats, which usually communicate the disease. The incubation of the disease is much more rapid and less capricious in the sheep than in the dog or in man, and hence M. Galtier was able to get his results more certainly within a short period. Having succeeded so far, he is now justified in undertaking the more protracted series of observations which experiments upon the canine species will involve; and this he proposes to do. Experiments of this nature are not without a serious risk, and admiration is almost equally due to the courage and the intelligence of the experimentalist. But what will the anti-vaccinator say?--_Pall Mall Gazette_. * * * * * ON DIPTERA AS SPREADERS OF DISEASE. By J.W. SLATER.