100 Years Ago

The Government of India has appointed a Committee, consisting of European and Indian experts, to inquire into the conditions and prospects of the sugar industry. At present most of the sugar produced is locally consumed in the crude form of “jaggery,” but there seems little doubt that if capital and modern methods of manufacture could be introduced India might become one of the great sugar-producing areas in the world. The annual consumption of sugar in India, as elsewhere, has rapidly increased. India until recent years stood first of all the countries in the world in its area under sugarcane and its estimated yield of cane-sugar, and even now ranks second only to Cuba.

From Nature 1 January 1920

150 Years Ago

Authentic cases of the successful treatment of snake bites are of some interest. Dr. Bell supplies two in his “New Tracks in North America.’’ On the Rio Grande, in October, 1867, two horses were bitten by the same rattlesnake, while grazing. A few hours afterwards the submaxillary, parotid, and all glands situated about the head and neck were greatly enlarged; from the nostrils and gums, a clear, mucous discharge ran down; the eyes were glairy, with the pupils greatly dilated, and the coat was rough and staring. To each animal Dr. Bell gave half-a-pint of whisky, with a little water, and half an ounce of ammonia, while the wounds were fomented with a strong infusion of tobacco, and afterwards poulticed with chopped tobacco leaves. Both horses recovered. One, although reduced in flesh, and thrown out of condition, was fit for work in a week, but the other only just escaped with his life, becoming a perfect skeleton, and only commencing to mend at the end of three months. Dr. Bell adds that a little weed, common throughout the Western States (called by Engelmann, Euphorbia lata, and by Torney, E. dilatata), is said to be a specific for the bite of the rattlesnake, but at the very time the plant was wanted it could not be found, although continually met with elsewhere, along the route, so that the experiment could not be tried.

From Nature 6 January 1870