399

put into competition with the

benefit which the public derivesfrom a knowledge of the mannerin which he discharges his pub-lic duty, and of the results, whe-ther successful or unsuccessful,of his chirurgical operations.If the average of his misfortunes

be much greater than that whichfaus to his professional brethren,he must of course abide by theconsequences, and he has no

right to complain. For our own

parts we are as little disposedto give indulgence to the pleaof ill-fortune in Surgery, as in

any other profession or pursuit,

Nullurn numen abest, si sit prudcnlia,sed fe,

Nos facimus, fortturaa, elearn.

Our limits prevent us, at pre-

sent, from enterin- into anothervery important question con-

nected with this subject, namely,the virtual disunion, producedby the recent conduct of the

Champions of " Hole and Cor-

ner" Surgery, between the hi-

therto united Institutions of St.

Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals.—We shall resume this subject in

our next number.

CHEMISTRY.

In our last number we stated

that a body, however combusti-blein itself, would not burn with-out the presence of a supporterof combustion; we may makethe same remark in regard to thesupporter ; it will not burn

without the presence of a com-

bustible body; in fact a supporterof combustion is, not inflammable

und or any circumstance and al-

though in appearance sometimesseems to burn, yet it is a well sub-stantiated fact that this is never

the case.

Oxygen gas is the most power-ful supporter of combustion

known, and under common cir-cumstances, is the only one. Into

a j3.f of oxygen gas introduce awood match, just visibly rod anditwill instantly kindle into flame;a taper will be relighted if plung-ed into oxygen while the wick

remains glowing red. These arecommon experiments which

prove the power oxygen pos-sesses of supporting’ combus..

tion, for in both these cases

the process of combustion is so

much increased by the pre-sence of pure oxygen that

flame, which is the most intensestate of combustion, is instantlyeffected. If iron or steel be hea-

400

ted white hot and introduced

intooxygen, so great is, its power of Ifsupporting combustion, that theiron will burn with the greatestbrilliancy. A very beautiful expe-riment may be made by heating’ asteel file white hot and suddenly-plunging it into ajar of oxygen,it will scintillate in the most plea-sing’ mannerwhile burning in the

gas, and throw off sparks, so in-tensely hot, that they will meltthe glass where they fall in thevessel; and will be found afterthe experiment sunk firmly intothe sides and bottom of the jar.Although oxygen is such a pow-erful supporter of combustion,yetthe above experiments prove, itwill not itself inflame ; nor is it

combustible, for if this were the

case it would take fire on plung-ing- alighted taper into it and beinstantly consumed. The atmos-phere contains about a quarterpart ofoxyg’en gas in its composi-tion. The adulteration of there-

maining three parts, which are

,nitrogen, acts mechanically, inpreventing’ the rapid contact of

the oxygen with the combustible

body when itis imperfectly sup-ported by this mixture, and hencethe reason why a body burns so

much more rapidly when intro-duced into pure oxygen.This opinion is in opposition

to modern doctrines, and werewe not borne out byexperiments,however strong our private opi-nion might be in its favour, weshould hesitate to give it to ourreaders. Facts crowd upon us dailyin support of our opinion. Wewill mention one in this place,which of itself is conclusive, asfar as our present subject is con-cerned ; heat an iron or steel rodwhite hot, as if you were aboutto introduce it into ajarofoxygengas as above described, insteadhowever of plunging it into pureoxygen,mechanically force a cur4rent of atmospheric air upon it sopowerfullythatthe particles of ox-ygen which that current contains

may be brought in contact withthe iron as fast or as rapidly as theiron can combine them ; by this

means you overcome the ordinarymechanical effects of its adultera-

tion with nitrogen ; andthe resultis, that the iron will commenceburning with as much brilliancyas if it was placed in a vessel ofpure oxygen, and continue todo so until it is all consumed.—A strong current of air froma pair of double bellowswill answer the purpose of theexperiment; it is a highly inte-resting one, and certainly givesus more insight into the real na-ture of combustion.,’ or rathercertain innammable tempera-tures than any we remember tohave made.