Chemistry. Dyeing.

Electrical Engineering. Combing and Spinning. Weaving and Designing. Salary in each case will be according to scale, rising to a maximum of £400 per annum. In fixing the initial salary, consideration will be given to qualifications and previous experience. (In addi

tion to the salary, a bonus amounting at present to £85 16s. per

annum in the case of men, and £67 12s. in the case of women, is also paid).

Applications, upon forms which may be obtained from the PRINCIPAL, Technical College, Bradford, should be forwarded not later than SATURDAY. JULY 24, 1920.

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CHEMISTS required for large Industrial Establishment in Manchester, good prospects for suitable men.-Apply Box 805, c/o SCOTT & SON, 63, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C.4.

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NOTICE.

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"A Chemical Examination of the Berries dealing with the Sugars, Ash Oils, and the Proteins." From Cornell College, Iowa, U.S.A.). "A Study of Dolomites." A history of the life of Deodat Dolomieu and the discovery of Dolomite, with a study of a number of specimens from Ward's Natural Science Establishment, Rochester, New York. (From Cornell College, Iowa, Ú.S.A.).

"The Spectrochemistry of the Mono-, Di-, and Tri-Azenes." By Gervaise Le Bas. A study

of the molecular refraction of these compounds and discussion of some new facts resulting.

"Isostopism." By J. Frederick Corrigan. The paper deals with the theory of isostopes, and traces the subject from the late Sir William Crookes's theory of Meta-elements to the present time. Received July 15, 1920. "Isomerism, Tautomerism, and Pseudomerism of Organic Compounds and their relation." By Ingo W. D. Hackh, College of Phys. and Surg., San Francisco, California. The purpose of this paper is the formulation of a system and classification of isomeric organic compounds to enable a clear definition to be formed of the terms, based upon their structural differences. Received June 2, 1920.

Our attention has been called to an error that occurred in our issue of September 19th last. An article on the "Activation of Carbon," by N. K. Chaney, was ascribed to the Canadian Journal instead of to the American Electrochemical Society. We are glad to correct the mistake.

WHEN IS POISON NOT A POISON ?* By JOHN URI KLOYD.

A REPLY to the above question might be: When, for any reason, a substance is harmless in action, immediate or remote, be it applied externally or taken internally. In other words, it is not then a poison.

This leads to the question: "Can a substance be considered as a poison at one time and innocuous at another?" To this one might make several replies, as the problem is viewed from its several side-angles.

For example, sulphuric acid, in concentrated form, applied to the skin or taken internally, will at once disintegrate flesh. Its action is then that of a corrosive agent, its destructive influence rest

• Definition-Poison: "Any substance applied to the body ingested, or developed within the body, which causes or may cause disease "-DORLAND.

ing directly upon avidity for water and its power of abstracting water from liquids and even from tissue, to the tissue's complete destruction. It thus, under these conditions, becomes a corrosive poison.

As an example, one might state that white sugar is a carbohydrate, composed of carbon and the elements of water in the proportion to theoretically produced water. Place a lump of white sugar on a plate and then pour upon it a little concentrated sulphuric acid. Immediately it turns yellow, then black, owing to the liberation or carbon (charcoal) by the abstraction of its companion oxygen and hydrogen, which the acid takes, to the destruction of the sugar.

Dilute the same amount of sulphuric acid with water, to pleasant acidity, and it no longer destroys tissue on contact therewith, nor is it immediately harmful to the stomach. The sugar dissolves in it, colourless, when it is thus diluted. Indeed, as an acidulated drink (circus lemonade), much diluted and flavoured with lemon oil, it has been used, without immediate corrosive effect or injury, as a substitute for lemonade. This practice, however, is now wisely forbidden.

To sum up, in one form, sulphuric acid is destructive to living tissue; in another form (dilute), it acts differently. The amount that, concentrated, would disintegrate tissue if applied locally, is, when diluted, harmless.

Take next arsenic. With the normal human being, arsenic, in comparatively small doses, is death-dealing. But with some persons, artificially made immune, a dose that poisons others is harmless. Arsenic eaters come within the scope of habit-forming drug addicts. The habit-formed principle applies likewise to morphine and similar drugs. Be the arsenic or morphine dilute or concentrated, a toxic amount to the normal man acts as a poison. Be it for example, six grains of morphine, in substance, or six grains dissolved in an ounce of water, the same exerts its poisonous influence, providing the whole amount be taken at a single dose. Indeed, dilution may even increase its activity.

Be it said that, although arsenic, morphine, and such as these act as poisons upon the normal man, an individual may, as above stated, accustom his system to the drug, so that enormous doses may be taken without apparent injury. In this no comparison can be made with the cited action of sulphuric acid, of which a drop on the skin of any man will bite its way to the tissue beneath, but yet can with impunity be swallowed when diluted with water.

We may likewise pass to other material that exercise special influences, but where, so far as we know, artificial habit-forming methods have no part. Rhus toxicodendron both excretes a substance and carries a volatile something that produces violent toxic action on some persons, while to others it is as harmless as bedewed grass. A waft of air over the dew-covered vine may close the eyes of a strong man exposed to its air-wafted influence, may cover his body with a most painful eruption, may drive him to seek his physician's aid. Another man or a fragile girl comes next

The remedies offered as "poison ivy cures" are legion. This writer believes that the action is often remote from the drug attack. The chain of systemic reactions that produce the body-bred toxines may be likened to the Biblical "third and fourth generations."

and with impunity, with bare hands, pulls the vine from its fastenings. The eyes of the first man may be closed by the attenuated "poison", imperceptibly attenuated by the gentle breeze, beyond the chemist's art to identify, while the other person, bespread with its juice, has not even a pimple on his hand. Thus, "poison ivy" is, or is not, a poison, as the individual is or is not susceptible to its influence.

As an illustration, the writer each year has laboratory use for many thousand pounds of rhus toxicodendron (poison ivy). The green leaves, when in their prime, are gathered by collectors, who in midsummer, with bare hands and arms, strip the vines, crush the green leaves into sacks, and deliver the product with impunity. No immediate, or after-effect, is noticeable. One young lady of the laboratory force is so sensitive to the action of the drug as to respond to the emanations, although she be in a distant part of the establishment. To bottle and label "Rhus", or otherwise handle a preparation, means to her typical rhus poisoning. Consequently, at such time, she has a vacation, not being allowed within the establishment.

Once we knew a man to be vaccinated with a virus-crust, that used in equal amount on others, produced no untoward action. And yet that man

came near losing nis arm. It is evident that not the virus, but the man, or some undetermined local cause connected with his case, was then at fault. The virus was the actual disturber. Let us not overlook that in such cases as these local conditions, such as the syringe needle or skin uncleanliness, may be at fault, not the virus.

Physicians may recall the use of a hypodermic syringe from season to season, with no complaint. Then, in the course of ordinary injections, a patient is "poisoned" by the same dose of the same medicine previously employed, and injected with the same syringe needle. The question arises, what caused this exceptional action? Blame is likely to be attached to the virus, regardless of its innocence.

One might fairly imply that either in this one case the syringe needle was infected, or that a shred of foreign matter was injected, or that this one patient was exceptionally sensitive to the remedy employed. Vaccines are not in our sphere; we make no claim to capacity to speak as an expert in this field. But yet letters from patrons citing exceptional experiences in these directions lead us to accept that where one person, and only one, experiences such exceptional results with a preparation where hundreds of others find no untoward effect, the cause may be accepted as local or systemic, its exceptional action lying outside the preparation used. Such as this is a problem for serious study.

Full well is it known that tobacco is destructive to the life of most insects, and yet there are worms that thrive on the green leaf, as well as insects that thread the dried drug, and delight in the choicest cigars. To the one, green tobacco, to the other, dried tobacco is a food. And yet, this writer was made "deathly sick", as frightened observers can testify, when a film of collodion containing a fraction of a drop of nicotine was painted back of the nail, on the first joint of his thumb. Within a few moments alarming results followed, the poisonous film was once washed off

with chloroform, ammonia to the nostrils and stimulants internally being promptly administered. And yet, without any untoward influence, thousands of employees breathe with impunity the close air of tobacco warehouses, cigar factories, and constantly handle strong nicotine tobacco leaf.

Capsicum, in substance, is heroic, as all who have experienced its direct action will testify. But yet a beetle (undetermined, so far as we know), feeds on powdered capsicum, and burrows in its depths. To that insect capsicum is a choice food, and to the Mexican, in excessive amounts, it is but a pleasant condiment.

The plant known as sanguinaria (blood root) contains large amourts of energetic alkaloids that vomit man, when taken even in small doses. And yet a single mole exterminated a bed in which this essayist took much pride. At least, by circumstantial evidence, the mole got the blame for the offence.

In like manner, biologists are aware that heroic poisons fail to act with some animals, while substances "not a poison" are destructive to others.

"Chambers" is authority for the assertion that natives of Africa drive hogs through serpentinfested sections, the hog not being susceptible to the virulence of that viper. It is stated that the beast presents its cheek to the serpent, then grasps the reptile in its mouth. Tradition has it that the hog is likewise immune to arsenic. Country people have a tradition that a full pail of milk from a newly-calved cow will kill a hog. The father of this essayist doubted the statement and fed a valuable hog a full portion of the first milking. The hog died that night. Seemingly, the experiment succeeded. And yet the cheese made of the first milking of the "nannie goat" commands exceptional value in Smyrna.

The miasmatic fog that catches one person may fail to affect neighbours equally exposed. A plague may sweep away a multitude and yet miss an individual member of that multitude.

Thus we find the term poison, whatever the dictionary definition may be, carries undercurrents of opportunities for questionings, as well as investigations, that make the answer to the question, "When is a poison not a poison?" more of a problem than a cursory glance would indicate.

And yet, since, as a rule, such peculiarities as these are exceptional, a cause for each exception unquestionably always exists. The reason therefore, in obscured conditions, is an opportunity for science research, the facts having, as a rule, been incontrovertibly established by empirical record. The man of experimentation, opportunity, and thought has surely, here as elsewhere, accomplished his share in the chain of progress when he hands to his co-labourer a statement of fact based on balanced observation.-Eclectic Medical Journal, April, 1920.

IMPORTANCE OF THE JAVA SUGAR INDUSTRY.

JAVA is the third largest sugar-producing country in the world, ranking next to Cuba and British India. As the last consumes practically all that it produces, Java ranks next to Cuba in sugar exports, actual production being about half of the