December 2004 - Materials Science Institute - University of Oregon

DECEMBER 1954
KWASHIORKOR—“In 1929 an English
woman physician working among
tribes in the Gold Coast of West Africa
encountered a puzzling disease. It
seemed to attack only young children,
and it was usually fatal. Dr. Cicely Williams
judged that the disease was due
to malnutrition, and named the disease
kwashiorkor, as the Ga tribe
called it. In 1944 protein defi
ciency was discovered to be
the culprit in kwashiorkor. In
the temperate regions of the
world, where most hospitals
and biological research are
concentrated, malnutrition
has been considered synonymous
with defi ciencies of vitamins
rather than proteins.
This is understandable, since
the chief staple in the temperate
belts is grain—a food
relatively well endowed with
protein but poor in certain
vitamins. A series of surveys
and conferences, initiated
largely by the World Health
Organization and the Food
and Agriculture Organization,
show that kwashiorkor probably
occurs in every country in the tropical
belt around the world, where the staples
of the diet (mainly fruits and vegetables)
are poor in protein.”
DECEMBER 1904
HERBAL MEDICINES—“The United
States raises a good many of its medicinal
plants, but it is so addicted to the
drug habit that it pays an annual bill of
some $16,000,000 to other countries
for importation. The early pioneers in
this country considered their herb and
medicinal gardens of prime importance;
but with the development of medicine,
and particularly in the establishment of
the ubiquitous drug store, this practice
fell into disuse. Medicinal plants could
50, 100 & 150 Years Ago
FROM SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Necessary Protein ■ Wild Herbs ■ Unfi ltered Water
be obtained much easier, and at little
expense, at the apothecary’s. Today ordinary
medicinal plants which are found
growing wild in this country are largely
neglected. In some cases these wild
plants are destroyed by farmers as noxious
weeds. In this class of despised drug
plants we have the common dandelion,
burdock, couch grass, and curly dock.”
ARCHIMEDES' SCREW, adapted for fairground use, 1904
CALIGULA—“Lake Nemi, which lies in
the Alban hills to the south of Rome,
is a small, beautiful sheet of water that
fi lls a basin formed by an extinct crater.
That a large ship belonging to one of the
Roman emperors was sunk in the lake,
was a matter of local tradition. For the
present research, made by Sig. Borghi
and Vittorio Malfatti, experienced divers
were employed to explore the bottom.
Two large vessels were found. Both
are nearly buried in the sand. The larger
vessel must measure 230 feet long and
80 feet center. Owing to their great size,
larger than the usual war galleys, and
their exceptional width, they were no
doubt used by one of the emperors, perhaps
Caligula, as pleasure barges.” [Editors’
note: The boat hulls were recov-
ered when the lake was drained in 1929
but were destroyed by fi re in 1944.]
FAIRGROUND FUN—“An ingenious inventor
has revived the old principle of the
Archimedean screw [see illustration],
and adapted it for use as an amusement
apparatus for pleasure resorts, fairs, and
the like. A spiral trough is supported by
a central shaft. Traveling on
tracks in the trough are cars,
each carrying two or three
persons. The passengers will
experience the unusual sensation
of having a spiral trough
whirled rapidly about them,
while they advance slowly and
in a straight line up to the top
of the tower. The apparatus
should afford considerable
entertainment.”
DECEMBER 1854
FILTER YOUR WATER—“The
good people of Boston have
been affl icted for some time
with the offensive taste of
their water. The President
of the Water Board—Thos.
Wetmore—states that, so far
as the investigation has proceeded, the
impurities of the water are of a vegetable
character entirely. This, we suppose, is
to quiet any apprehensions respecting
the pollution of the water by the decay
of animal matter in it. It is believed by
the Water Board that the rains which fell
in September and October last washed
many impure vegetable substances into
the Lake, but it may turn out that the
disagreeable taste in the water has been
caused by minute animalculae, some
of which, when dead, have a wonderful
power in polluting water. It is our
opinion that all lake and river water for
the supply of cities should be fi ltered.
This can be done, at no great expense,
by passing it through fi ltering beds of
gravel, sand, and clay.”
16 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN DECEMBER 2004
COPYRIGHT 2004 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.