THE ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 531, 13 November 1890, Page 2

THE ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

Every year new light is thrown upon what has hitherto been as a mystery in the medical and scientific world. Dr Koch’s cure for that dread disease consumption is now attracting attention throughout the world. If it is really what the discoverer claims it to be it will be a great triumph for his profession. There is of course yet much distrust in the confidence of Dr Koch and those other members of the faculty who have enthusiastically accepted his conclusions. Pasteur’s hydrophobia treatment was at first accepted almost without being questioned, but there is now grave doubt as to its efficacy. Dr Koch himself claimed to have discovered a cure for cholera, but nothing much seems to have come from it.- A long period must elapse before there can be a confident ac* ceptance of the theory which Dr Koch and other members of the faculty believe they can now establish. They have already afforded hope to thousands of miserable beings whose life is a pitiable state of lingering, and everyone will wish that, when the atmosphere of doubt is cleared up, a substantial system may have been established.

The discoveries of hypnotism are also attracting much attention. Hypnotism has been described as “ that new and most uncanny of modern sciences, which may revolutionise most of the received ideas as to the constitution and laws of the mind of man.” The most surprising cures are said to be effected by the simple agency of a rotating mirror, which fascinates the patient, and by which his physical sufferings can be transferred to another person in a most extraordinary manner, and what is still more marvellous is the transference of the nervous state of a diseased person to a hypnotised subject by means of a magnetic rod. A woman can in a few minutes be convinced that she is a man, and will talk about her whiskers, and sometimes even give more precise details of the man's illness than he can give himself. If the patient is suffering from shaking paralysis, the subject trembles with all the characteristics of the disease. But when the subject wakes, all the symptoms disappear, and there is a feeling of benefit, while the patient is greatly improved. However, once a person passes into the hypnotic state, there are grave perils. In the lethargic and cataleptic stages the patient loses all consciousness of the world around him, aad is therefore completely defenceless, fie may, by a simple suggestion, be made to swallow poison, or become intoxicated without leaving any traces behind. Women

are especially in peril, and there may be violation without the patient being conscious ; even pregnancy has been produced without the patient having any knowledge of its cause. Dr Luys says that such cases are not uncommon, and he believes that doctors will come to find out, in the course of time, that many women who have been ruined have been under the influence of hypnotism. The nature of the strange influence is still a mystery, something the same as mesmerism, but tests that have been made show that it is entitled to serious consideration.

An ingenious mechanical contrivance invented by a French engineer named Giffard, may have a vast influence in the near future. In outward appearance it is simply a small tube of tough steel, only nine inches in length, “ containing nothing that when opened the eye can see, the ear hear, the nose smell, or the fingers touch.” If all that is claimed for it be true, it will abolish the use of gunpowder, and convert all the armaments of modern times into so much old iron. It is charged with liquefied carbonic acid gas. When the trigger is pulled a drop of liquefied gas is forced into the breech of the gun behind the bullet, where, instantaneously resuming a gaseous condition, it develops a force equal to joolb pressure on the square inch. The bullet is then expelled at any degree of velocity desired, for the power can be regulated by a simple turn of the screw. A slight fiza like the escape of gas from a soda-water bottle is the only sound which announces the despatch of a bullet which flattens itself against a target at a distance of 1200 yards. There is no danger of leakage, damp or heat will not affect the new propellant, it will not burst under the impact of a heavy blow, and it is so cheap that 250 bullets can be fired at the cost oi a penny. Experts who have seen the gun in practice are enthusiastic about it, and Messrs Colt, the American, makers of small arms, have given for the American rights of the patent. If the propellant fulfils what is claimed for It the mode of warfare will be revolutionised, and the weapon will have an undivinable importance in social matters. Dynamite has been the last hope of those of Nihilistic tendency, but with a noiseless gun that wilt stream bullets at the rate of a hundred a minute, without disclosing its whereabouts, there will truly be a new order of things in the world.