Technical World Magazine

300 TFXIIXICAT. WORLD MAGAZINE
, was believed. lcar-el-rihazal and to the
borders of Abyssinia. ])enetratinc^ some
(tf the most deadly areas. 1 le came home
stricken with the disease he was seeking^
to eradicate. Althou!;h he wrote a paper
for the r>ritish Association he was too ill
to read it before that assembly and he
died when he was only twenty-eight
years old.
Many diseases have thus stricken down
the men who fearlessly faced them.
Two
vears ago during an outbreak of spotted
"fever in Rome Dr. Zampagnani while attending
some of its victims contracted
the disease, and, with death striding toward
him. he sat down and wrote a
treatise on the fever which before long
l^roved fatal to him. At Turin Dr.
'luiseppe Rosso experimented with
(
tubercle bacilli which he developed in the
miiversity laboratory. Tic became infected
with the very bacilli he had grown
and his name also is inscribed on the
roll of martyrs to science. Not long ago
in New York a man who had lost both
his
wife and son of tuberculosis ofifered
himself to the doctors of the city for
experiments in the disease, a sort of
human and voluntary vivisection in the
interest of humanity and in memory of
his lost family.
A most remarkable case of human
vivisection has recently come to a successful
end I'he object of the experiment
was to determine the functions of certain
important nerves. The .subject of
the experiment was Dr. Henry Head, a
physician in the London Hospital. Accidental
cases for the study of this ]:)roblem
were rare and only indirect studies had
been made, so Dr. Head offered his hand
for pur])oses of experiment. In 1903 the
necessary operation was performed
which was the dividing of an important
nerve, the excision of a small portion of
it and the uniting of the two ends with
fine silk sutures. Then followed a series
of experiments performed by the most
competent nerve specialists it was possible
to obtain. For five years Dr. Head
gave himself up to absolute quiet at
Caml)ridge. and now the experiment is
said to have been completely successful.
MORE WATER FOR ARID LANDS
THE
FRANK N.
Secretary of the Interior
has .sanctioned the construction
of what will be known
as the Engle dam. This huge
])iece of masonry is to obstruct
the Rio (irande and is to be built
in connection with the Rio ( irande irrigation
project. It is to lie in New Mexico
and Texas, and includes several
units ; namely, the Rio Grande dam. the
Leasburg Diversion dam, and the Engle
dam ])roper. The Leasburg Diversion
(lam already has been completed, the
waters which it stores beiiig sufficient to
By
BAUSKETT
irrigate twenty-five thousand acres of
Mesilla \'alley.
The reserv(Mr that will be enclosed by
the Engle dam will be one of the largest
artificial bodies of water in the world. It
will be forty miles in length antl have a
capacity of 2.000,000 acre-feet, or ample
for the 180,000 acres of land to be .supl)lied
by its waters. The dam itself, from
bed rock foundation to top of parapet
walls or crest, is to be 265 feet high, or
somewhat over two-thirds of the height
of Niagara Falls. To hold in check the
water to be conserved, the
vast amount tif