Scientific American - February 2019

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,

VOL. CXX, NO. 5; FEBRUARY 1, 1919

FEBRUARY

1969 

Evolution
Wa r s
“At the end of his Descent of Man
and Selection in Relation to Sex
(1871), Charles Darwin wrote: ‘The
main conclusion arrived at in this
work, namely that man is descend-
ed from some lowly organized
form, will, I regret to think, be
highly distasteful to many.’ Half
a  century later his prediction was
fully realized in the U.S., where
many Americans waged what is
sometimes called the ‘monkey war.’
Fundamentalists-Christians of var-
ious denominations who believed
that evolution contradicted the
Bible sought to check the spread
of  evolutionary thought by making
it a crime to teach it. Not until No-
vember 12 of last year [1968], when
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
a law barring the teaching of  evo-
lution in public schools and colleg-
es was unconstitutional, could it
be said that the monkey war had
come to an end. The best-known
battle in this ideological conflict
was fought in 1925, when John
Thomas Scopes was tried in  Day-
ton, Tenn., for teaching evolution.
—L.  Sprague de Camp”
De Camp is now best known as
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Wankel Rotary Engine
“The reciprocating-piston internal-
combustion engine has been so
successful that one is seldom
aware that a small army of inven-
tors is determined to see it re-
placed by some kind of ‘rotary’
engine. In the piston engine the
conversion of linear reciprocating
motion to rotary motion, by
means of the connecting rod–
crankshaft arrangement, is inher-
ently wasteful of the energy sup-
plied by the combustion process.
There are 30 to 40 such rotary
engines, all ‘ideal’ to a greater or
lesser extent (such as the one con-
ceived by Felix Wankel in 1956).
There still appear to be problems,
however, of providing adequate

sealing and lubrication; such

problems are characteristic of

virtually all the rotary engines.”

1919 

Molasses

Disaster

What is there in molasses that

would make it explode, particular-

ly in winter time when the sticky

syrup is proverbially slow? Two

weeks ago a large tank of molasses

exploded in Boston, killing a doz-

en persons and injuring 50 more,

and no completely satisfactory

explanation of the disaster is ob-

tainable. The tank was a huge cy-

lindrical structure with a capacity

of two million gallons. Without

an instant’s warning the top was

blown into the air and the sides

were burst apart. Wreckage was

scattered in all directions while

a deluge of molasses spread over

the ruins and into the street, suf-

focating many of the injured.”

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Barbed-Wire Disease

“We welcome a little pamphlet by

Dr. A. L. Vischer, of Basle, devoted

to the study of prisoners of war,

and especially what was called the

‘barbed-wire disease.’ Four to five

million men have been kept in

confinement in enemy countries,

and many of them will return with

impaired mentality to their homes.

Dr. Vischer draws a picture of a

mentality characteristic of prison-

ers of war, to which the majority

fall victim within two or three

months and from which few es-

cape completely. The factors in its

causation he considers to be loss

of liberty for an unknown period

in close company with many oth-

ers. The result is a continual long-

ing with entire inability to per-

form. The factor of loneliness in

the midst of company he illus-

trates from writings emanating

from various camps.”

1869 

A Dangerous

Procedure

“The Medical Record gives an ac-

count of a successful operation for

the transfusion of blood recently

performed by Dr. Enrico Albanese

at the hospital of Palermo, Sicily.

A youth aged seventeen, Giuseppe

Ginazzo, of Cinisi, was received

with an extensive ulceration of

the leg, which in the end rendered

amputation necessary. In this

emergency Dr. Albanese had re-

course to the transfusion of blood

as the only remedy that had not

yet been tried. Two assistants of

the hospital offered to have their

veins opened for the purpose, and

thus at two different intervals,

220 grams of blood were intro-

duced into the patient’s system.

After the first time he recovered

the faculty of speech, and stated

that before he could neither see

nor hear, but felt as if he were fly-

ing in the air. He is now in a fair

state of recovery.”

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