(First Prize, Ten Dollars)

MAKING BABY EASY TO

BATHE IN N spite of the love the fond mother may feel for her baby, and regardless of the pleasure she may get from caring for him, she is apt to become irritated when it comes time to dry the wet, squirming bit of humanity after its bath. All irritation in our family is removed, however, by the use of a simple cloth stretcher that fits in the bath-tub, and on which the little chap is laid. The stretcher is made of heavy canvas, stretched between two poles. The poles are equipped at each end with hooks that engage the rim of the tub. Laid out on this device, baby may squirm to his heart's content without causing trouble, and there is no annoyance from the fact that he is soapy and wet, since his mother need not hold him on her lap.

J. H. Alexander, Chicago, Illinois.

(Third Prize, Two Dollars)

ELECTRICAL “AGENT CHASER" THE little machine shown in the picture will save the housewife lots of trouble, and keep her from buying worthless junk, by getting rid of the

house to house agent.

When the agent steps up to the door and rings the bell, the lady of the house has usually seen him from the kitchen window, or maybe, she sees him through the glass in the front door. If she is equipped with an "agent chaser", she then simply presses the button

and a little sign informs him that she does not care for anything.

The construction of the device is very simple. A rectangular box. with a small window in one corner, forms the case. Inside is an electromagnet. An armature of strap iron is held over it and

sign is secured to the other end. Two binding posts from a battery will serve as terminals for the ends of the wires of the coil, and for connections with the push button and battery.

wringer, or a piece of curtain

pole equipped with the handle from an ice cream freezer, will make an excellent device for handling clothes lines. The improvised reel is mounted in a box on the side of the building, and the line is wound on it. The free end of the line is equipped with a ring, which may be dropped over the hook on any post in the yard.

(Third Prize, Two Dollars) EGG LIFTING DEVICE

A NOT unusual catastrophe occurs

when freshly

boiled eggs are taken from the hot water, and a device that overcomes this danger may be made of a wire bent to give a spring, and looped at each end. Angular bends between the looped ends and the spring serve as "finger holds" by which the device is easily operated. An egg may be readily grasped in the loops and safely lifted from the boiling may be

water, or

placing the cylinder and piping in it, and spacing it so that there was a uniform distance all around. I then filled in the

dropped in for cooking.

Fred Hood, Shenandoah, Iowa.

(Second Prize, Five Dollars) HOME MADE REFRIGERATOR

IN order to secure a refrigerator when living in a neighborhood where there was no ice to be obtained, I proceeded as follows:

I had a tinsmith in town make me a cylinder from galvanized iron and closed at one end. A plumber bent a long length of lead pipe into shape to fit snugly around the cylinder. To the ends of this pipe he attached two short pieces of iron pipe for connecting to the mains. Next I made a form from a section of barrel,

space between the cylinder and the barrel with a fine grade of concrete and tamped it into place. When the cement had hardened, it was an easy matter to knock away the form and I had a first-class unit.

I then made a containing case out of an old packing box, fitted the unit into place, added a door and had a finished refrigerator. I placed the completed device in the cellar on an empty box and incorporated it into the water system by running the water through the coil. The constant use of water from the tap in the kitchen for the necessary service through the day in the home, kept a fresh circulation of water around the cylinder. When the device was painted inside and outside with a good hard white enamel paint, I had as good a refrigerator as any in town.

E. J. Kennedy, Chicago, Illinois.

IRON PIPE

W

HEN the four hundred murderous miles of European trenches were first flung all the way from the North Sea to Mülhausen, word was passed to men on both sides that a foe more bitter, and vastly more relentless than any soldier, waited to clasp its horrible fingers about wounded men. This foe was called tetanus; the men knew of it as lockjaw.

At first science offered no cure; not even relief. Serum was scarce, and even this could only prevent. But now an American physician-Dr. S. J. Meltzer-of the wonder-working Rockefeller Institute in New York City, has found a relief that is, in many

cases, a cure.

One day Doctor Meltzer, working in his laboratory, injected into the brain of an animal a few drops of magnesium sulphate-a solution of just plain Epsom salts. The animal blinked its eyes and lay still, having

relaxed into a profound unconsciousness. Meltzer was especially pleased. He had tried other salts before and they had brought no relaxation.

This condition of relaxation of nervous activity-inhibition, the scientists call it had long interested Doctor Meltzer. For thirty years he had been studying and experimenting with it. Now he drew a deduction. It was this: Since simple Epsom salts reduced the nervous activity of an animal, the presence of the same salt in the human body might effect the same end in the body of a human being. All this was eighteen years ago.

By 1905 Meltzer demonstrated conclusively that common Epsom saltsor magnesium sulphate-exercises a very profound and certain effect upon human beings or animals, by the creation of a deep paralysis of the individual. He concluded that the injec

tion of small quantities of magnesium into the spinal canal is sufficient to produce a deep anesthesia or relaxation.

He used it on a number of human beings. And then came another deduction-that, perhaps, it could be used, even in tetanus, where, since all other anesthesias were impotent and futile, it might be of tremendous help. So he set about to try magnesium sulphate in cases of

tetanus.

Cases of tetanus, in times of peace, are not frequent. Tetanus, indeed, occurs in normal life rather rarely; and when it does occur the duration of suffering is not long. In the nine years that have elapsed since 1905, there were studies of only a hundred cases that reached Doctor Meltzer and his colleagues.

But when the war broke out and nations began fighting, the scientists, who recognize no nation, found their opportunity. There was one serious drawback to the use of Doctor Meltzer's method. That was, artificial respiration methods should be used. So Metzler induced the Rockefeller Foundation to send to the Red Cross surgeons twentyfive sets of specimen apparatus for artificial respiration, to be used for patterns in making hundreds of sets more, as well as for actual service.

These means were enough to afford relief to soldiers suffering from lockjaw, relief that is frequently a cure. Indeed, in all but thirty per cent of the cases properly treated, the patient recovered; and in those cases surgeons believe that death ensued only because of unusual amounts of poisonous substances in the body-toxins, fixed or free-and because of the presence of undiscoverable foci of living bacilli. And the cure will probably reach them before Doctor Meltzer is done with it.

new cure are simple. Magnesium sulphate may be administered in any one of the following ways:

(1) Injection under the skin; (2) injection in the muscles; (3) injection in the veins; (4) injection in the spine.

Skin injections, it is explained to the surgeons at the front, exert their influence slowly and cumulatively and do not therefore immediately relieve severe or dangerous spasms.

Muscular injections may relieve severe spasms in less than half an hour, but the beneficial effects are liable to pass off completely in two or three hours.

Injections into the veins relieve the dangerous effects of spasms-tetanus of the diaphragm and contraction of the larynx-more promptly than any other treatment, but the effect may not