VOL.4, NO. 9
KUNCKELAND THE EARLY HISTORY OB PHOSPHORUS
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repent, in obedience to this Miracle, and calling for a candle spent the remainder of the night with his pupil, who was under great concern, and was brought by this means to a better way of life.
Sweet Potatoes for Alcohol in China. Cheap sweet potato wine and beer may become the Chinese national drinks if recommendations made by Nanshiu Wai a t the recent Pan Pacific Science Congress to increase the sweet potato yield of China as a source of alcohol ~roductionare adopted. Uncultivated sandy regions in Chekianz Province can be m d e to blossom with sweet pokitoes to great advantage to the hrewing industw. .. he stated. T ~ r Lr d t would be much cheaper nlcohol than what is now imported from Hawaii and Cuba, where it is manufactured from sugar-cane molasses. There would be a yield of 73,143 tons of 97 per cent ethyl alcohol from the 468,000 tons of potatoes that could be raised in this territory and the 44,000 tons which is now the annual crop in Chekiang, Mr. Wai said. "The points in favor of converting potatoes into alcohol," he stated, "are that potatoes are cheap, that they will yield a good spirit, that the residuals may make a good cattle fwd, and that they require a minimum of yeast."-Science Service Fruit By-Products Used for Dahy Feeding. By-products of raisins and oranges can now be used for feeding dairy animals, according to a statement from the University of California, with assurance of good results. It was reported by the Exchange Orange Produers that for a single year there was a by-product of.9000 pounds of pulp, and i t was computed that by 1930, 50,000 pounds would be wasted from oranges in a single orchard section. Use was sought for this material. The experiment station used sheep in the tests. Alfalfa was mixed with the pulp for feeding. I n the case of raisin pulp it was found that digestibility equaled about two-thirds the value of barley or beet roots, while with the orange pulp the value was approximately the same. Dairies situated near factories where oranges or raisins are made up into .jellies, marmalades, sirups, and other products are profiting from reduced cost of feeding.-Science Senrice DifIerent Germs Produce Same Poison. A close and curious relationship between scarlet fever and erysipelas bas been brought to light as one of the immediate results of an exhaustive investigation now under way in the laboratories of the New York City Health Department. Certain strains of scarlet fever germs, i t has been found, produce a toxin, or poison, in the fluid in which they are bred that is identical with the toxin produced in the fluid hv W a i n strains of erysipelas germs. Different toxins, however, are found within the germs themselves. The toxin in the fluid that balds germs is known to bacteriologists as emtoxin. The toxin found within the bacteria cells is called endotoxin. Thus these strains of scarlet fever and erysipelas germs produce a similar exataxin, but their endotoxin differs. Therefore, antitoxin for one of these diseases will not he a protection against the other disease. I n fact, in the case of erysipelas, according to Dr. William H. Park, director of the Bureau of Laboratories, there are a t least two distinct groups of germs with equally distinct endotoxin. So an effective antitoxin for erysipelas must be made from both groups of erysipelas germs. The discovery of this relationship between scarlet fever and erysipelas is a t present of no practical value to medicine but i t points the way forfurther investigation which may mean still greater victories in man's fight against the bacteria that invade him.Science Smennce ~
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