Barkham Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information Part 19

Epispastices are those which cause blisters when applied to the surface.

Escharotics are substances used to destroy a portion of the surface of the body, forming sloughs.

Expectorants are medicines capable of facilitating the excretion of mucous from the chest.

Narcotics are those substances having the property of diminishing the action of the nervous and vascular systems, and of inducing sleep.

Rubefacients are remedies which excite the vessels of the skin and increase its heat and redness.

Sedatives are medicines which have the power of allaying the actions of the systems generally, or of lessening the exercise of some particular function.

Sialagogues are medicines which increase the flow of the saliva.

Stimulants are medicines capable of exciting the vital energy, whether as exerted in sensation or motion.

Tonics are those medicines which increase the tone or healthy action, or strength of the living system.

RULES FOR THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH.

Pure atmospheric air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen and a very small proportion of carbonic acid gas. Air once breathed has lost the chief part of its oxygen, and acquired a proportionate increase of carbonic acid gas. Therefore, health requires that we breathe the same air once only.

The solid part of our bodies is continually wasting and requires to be repaired by fresh substances. Therefore, food, which is to repair the loss, should be taken with due regard to the exercise and waste of the body.

The fluid part of our bodies also wastes constantly; there is but one fluid in animals, which is water. Therefore, water only is necessary, and no artifice can produce a better drink.

The fluid of our bodies is to the solid in proportion as nine to one.

Therefore, a like proportion should prevail in the total amount of food taken.

Light exercises an important influence upon the growth and vigor of animals and plants. Therefore, our dwellings should freely admit the sun's rays.

Decomposing animal and vegetable substances yield various noxious gases, which enter the lungs and corrupt the blood. Therefore, all impurities should be kept away from our abodes, and every precaution be observed to secure a pure atmosphere.

Warmth is essential to all the bodily functions. Therefore, an equal bodily temperature should be maintained by exercise, by clothing or by fire.

Exercise warms, invigorates and purifies the body; clothing preserves the warmth the body generates; fire imparts warmth externally.

Therefore, to obtain and preserve warmth, exercise and clothing are preferable to fire.

Fire consumes the oxygen of the air, and produces noxious gases.

Therefore, the air is less pure in the presence of candles, gas or coal fire, than otherwise, and the deterioration should be repaired by increased ventilation. The skin is a highly-organized membrane, full of minute pores, cells, blood-vessels, and nerves; it imbibes moisture or throws it off according to the state of the atmosphere or the temperature of the body. It also "breathes," like the lungs (though less actively). All the internal organs sympathize with the skin.

Therefore, it should be repeatedly cleansed.

Late hours and anxious pursuits exhaust the nervous system and produce disease and premature death. Therefore, the hours of labor and study should be short.

Mental and bodily exercise are equally essential to the general health and happiness. Therefore, labor and study should succeed each other.

Man will live most happily upon simple solids and fluids, of which a sufficient but temperate quant.i.ty should be taken. Therefore, over-indulgence in strong drinks, tobacco, snuff, opium, and all mere indulgences, should be avoided.

Sudden alternations of heat and cold are dangerous (especially to the young and the aged). Therefore, clothing, in quant.i.ty and quality, should be adapted to the alternations of night and day, and of the seasons. And therefore, also, drinking cold water when the body is hot, and hot tea and soups when cold are productive of many evils.

Never visit a sick person (especially if the complaint be of a contagious nature) with an empty stomach, as this disposes the system more readily to receive the contagion. And in attending a sick person, place yourself where the air pa.s.ses from the door or window to the bed of the diseased; not between the diseased person and any fire that is in the room, as the heat of the fire will draw the infectious vapor in that direction.

MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECY.--The lines known as "Mother Shipton's Prophecy" were first published in England in 1485, before the discovery of America, and, of course, before any of the discoveries and inventions mentioned therein. All the events predicted have come to pa.s.s except that in the last two lines.

Carriages without horses shall go, And accidents fill the world with woe.

Around the world thoughts shall fly In the twinkling of an eye.

Waters shall yet more wonders do, Now strange, yet shall be true.

The world upside down shall be, And gold be found at root of tree.

Through hills man shall ride, And no horse nor a.s.s be at his side.

Under water man shall walk, Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.

In the air men shall be seen In white, in black, in green.

Iron in the water shall float, As easy as a wooden boat.

Gold shall be found 'mid stone, In a land that's now unknown.

Fire and water shall wonders do, England shall at last admit a Jew.

And this world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

CAPTAIN KIDD, a notorious American pirate, was born about 1650. In 1696 he was entrusted by the British Government with the command of a privateer, and sailed from New York, for the purpose of suppressing the numerous pirates then infesting the seas. He went to the East Indies, where he began a career of piracy, and returned to New York in 1698 with a large amount of booty. He was soon after arrested, sent to England for trial, and executed in 1701.

VALUE OF OLD AMERICAN COINS.--1793--Half cent, 75 cents; one cent, $2. 1794--Half cent, 20 cents, one cent, 10 cents; five cents, $1.25; fifty cents, $3; one dollar, $10. 1795--Half cent, 5 cents; one cent, 5 cents; five cents, 25 cents; fifty cents, 55 cents; one dollar, $1.25. 1796--Half cent, $5; one cent, 10 cents; five cents $1; ten cents, 50 cents; twenty-five cents, $1; fifty cents, $10; one dollar, $1.50. 1797--Half cent, 5 cents; one cent, 5 cents; five cents, 50 cents; ten cents, $1; fifty cents, $10; one dollar, $1.50. 1798--One cent, 5 cents; ten cents, $1; one dollar, $1.50. 1799--One cent, $5; one dollar, $1.60. 1800--Half cent, 5 cents; one cent, 3 cents; five cents, 25 cents; [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'ten cents 1'] ten cents, $1; one dollar, $1.10. 1801--One cent, 3 cents; five cents, $1; ten cents, $1; fifty cents, $2; one dollar, $1.25.

1802--Half cent, 50 cents; one cent, 2 cents; ten cents, $1; fifty cents, $2; one dollar, $1.25. 1803--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 2 cents; five cents, $10; [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'ten cents, 1'] ten cents, $1; one dollar, $1.10. 1804--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, $2; five cents, 75 cents; ten cents, $2; twenty-five cents, 75 cents; one dollar, $100. 1805--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 3 cents; five cents, $1.50; ten cents, 25 cents. 1806--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 3 cents. 1807--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 3 cents; ten cents, 25 cents. 1808--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 5 cents.

1809--Half cent, 1 cent; one cent, 25 cents; ten cents, 50 cents.

1810--Half cent, 5 cents; one cent, 5 cents. 1811--Half cent, 25 cents; one cent, 10 cents; ten cents, 50 cents. 1812--One cent, 2 cents. 1813--One cent, 5 cents. 1815--Fifty cents, $5. 1821--One cent, 5 cents. 1822--Ten cents, $1. 1823--One cent, 5 cents; twenty-five cents, $10. 1824--Twenty-five cents, 40 cents. 1825--Half cent, 2 cents. 1826--Half cent, 2 cents; one cent, 50 cents. 1827--One cent, 3 cents; twenty-five cents, $10. 1828--Half cent, 1 cent; twenty-five cents, 30 cents. 1829--Half cent, 2 cents. 1830--Half cent, 2 cents.

1832-'33-'34--Half cent, 2 cents. 1835--Half cent, 1 cent. 1836--Fifty cents, $3; one dollar, $3. 1838--Ten cents, 25 cents. 1839--One dollar, $10. 1846--Five cents, 50 cents. 1849-'50--Half cent, 5 cents. 1851--Half cent, 1 cent; twenty-five cents, 30 cents; one dollar, $10.90. 1852--Twenty-five cents, 30 cents; fifty cents, $2; one dollar, $10. 1853--Half cent, 1 cent; twenty cents (with no arrows), $2.50; one dollar, $1.25. 1854--Half cent, 2 cents; one dollar, $2. 1855-'57--Half cent, 5 cents; one dollar, $1.50.

1856--Half cent, 5 cents; one dollar. $1.50. 1858--One dollar, $10.

1863-'4-'5--Three cents, 95 cents. 1866--Half cent, 6 cents; three cents, 25 cents; five cents, 10 cents; twenty-five cents, 30 cents.

1867--Three cents, 25 cents; five cents, 10 cents. 1868-'9--Three cents, 25 cents. 1870--Three cents, 15 cents. 1871--Two cents, 10 cents; three cents, 25 cents. 1873--Two cents, 50 cents; three cents.

50 cents. 1877-'8--Twenty cents, $1.50. These prices are for good ordinary coins without holes. Fine specimens are worth more.

LEANING TOWER OF PISA.--The leaning tower of Pisa was commenced in 1152, and was not finished till the fourteenth century. Tho cathedral to which this belongs was erected to celebrate a triumph of the Pisans in the harbor of Palermo in 1063, when allied with the Normans to drive the Saracens out of Sicily. It is a circular building, one hundred feet in diameter and 179 feet in extreme height, and has fine mosaic pavements, elaborately carved columns, and numerous bas-reliefs. The building is of white marble. The tower is divided into eight stories, each having an outside gallery of seven feet projection, and the topmost story overhangs the base about sixteen feet, though, as the center of gravity is still ten feet within the base, the building is perfectly safe. It has been supposed that this inclination was intentional, but the opinion that the foundation has sunk is no doubt correct. It is most likely that the defective foundation became perceptible before the tower had reached one-half its height, as at that elevation the unequal length of the columns exhibits an endeavor to restore the perpendicular, and at about the same place the walls are strengthened with iron bars.

What causes the water to flow out of an artesian well?--The theoretical explanation of the phenomenon is easily understood.

The secondary and tertiary geological formations often present the appearance of immense basins, the boundary or rim of the basin having been formed by an upheaval of adjacent strata. In these formations it often happens that a porous stratum, consisting of sand, sandstone, chalk or other calcareous matter, is included between two impermeable layers of clay, so as to form a flat [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'porus'] porous U tube, continuous from side to side of the valley, the outcrop on the surrounding hills forming the mouth of the tube. The rain filtering down through the porous layer to the bottom of the basin forms there a subterranean pool, which, with the liquid or semi-liquid column pressing upon it, const.i.tutes a sort of huge natural hydrostatic bellows. Sometimes the pressure on the superinc.u.mbent crust is so great as to cause an upheaval or disturbance of the valley. It is obvious, then, that when a hole is bored down through the upper impermeable layer to the surface of the lake, the water will be forced up by the natural law of water seeking its level to a height above the surface of the valley, greater or less, according to the elevation of the level in the feeding column, thus forming a natural mountain on precisely the same principle as that of most artificial fountains, where the water supply comes from a considerable height above the jet.