Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1916 — SCRAPS [ARTICLE]

SCRAPS

England, with her colonies in all latitudes, is far ahead of the United States in knowledge' of tropical diseases and medicines, although the success of pur sanitary officials at Panama and elsewhere has been so great. Sir Henry Francis Lowell, who died recently, was dean of the London school, of tropical medicine, an institution to which this country can offer no parallel. The Leeuwenhoek medal of the Netherlands Academy of Science, awarded to Surgeon-General Sir David Bruce, F. R. S., A. M. S., has been presented to him by the Netherlands minister to Great Britain. The r edal was founded in 1875, on the occasion of the Leeuwenhoek celebration in Delft, and is presented every ten years. It was awarded to Ehrenberg in 18 75, to Ferdinand Cohn in JS*-"-. to Louis Pasteur in 1855. and to Beyerinch in 1905. The annual mineral Output of Brijsh Columbia is valued at approximately $30,000,000. The figures for 1913 exceeded that amount, while the product last year was some $4,000,00(1 short of that of the previous year. The decrease in the minerals produced in the province last year,* as compared with 1913, was due to the European war, which disturbed the metal markets throughout the world, producing a depressing effect on the industry in British Columbia.

The town of Nottingham, England. disposes : of its sewage on a farm of about 2,000 acres lying a short distance away. Rags and coarser materials are screened out and the sewage isi applied to the soil as a fertilizer. Most of it is given to the soil in a liquid state by means of ditches. This requires a thorough system of under-drainage. This farm not only solves the problem of disposing of the town’s sewage, but it also nets a good profit: the income from the sale of its products during the last fiscal year was SIOO,OOO.

The English correspondent of OfAipliances writes from London: "Women and girls enter the industrial field in increasing numbers every week. All the old ideas about women’s work are being knocked ini the head. Conventions go by the board and the nation is benefiting.” Concerning the liquor problem the j sam- ■ orrespondent says: “Crime and drunkenness have dropped tremeiidously in this country since the i war began, the latter, of course, ■j largely as a result of restricted hours that now prevail for the selling of intoxicants, and the legal abolition of the old-time custom of ‘treating’ to “drinks, buying intoxicants on credit, and the compulsory lowering of the alcoholic strength of spirits.” Sir Charles Cheers Wakefield, who. recently took office as lord mayor of London, is a man of large business affairs and directs the operations of one of the great English oil companies. Since 1895 he has lived in London. He started on the long road ( to high office in 1904. when he was I elected member of the court of com--1 mon council. He has been decorated by the president of France, the king of Belgium, and. in other and different days, the kaiser. He has traveled greatly, and has written a

, book called “Future Trade in the j Far East." The new lord mayor , has always been deeply interested in charitable works and prizes high- ; ly decorations of the Order of Mercy and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of which he is a knight of grace. He i< also a keen art collector. The United States bureau of plant * industry has carried on for a number | of years experiments designed to insure better methods of cultivating l end utilizing drug plants, and notei vorthy results have recently been recorded, says the Scientific American. About 150 species of drug and related plants are now under experimental culture on heavy clay at Arlington farm, and on the sandy loam near Glenn Dale. Md. At Arlington permanent plantings are being made, which will furnish material. now badly needed, for standardizing crude drugs. One important line of Inquiry is in regard to the relation of special feeding to the development of the active principles in medicinal plants. A new strain of belladonna has been obtained by the bureau through breeding and selection, which has a greatly increased alkaloidal content and points the way to a notable improvement in the quality of this drug noW found on the market.