Water Witch

For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory.. .. He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze... to watch his legs to discover their merits and faults.. .. To gain it, he must have blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and the other. 

Take a plastic spoon and rub it in your hair or on a sweater until the spoon acquires a static charge, as evidenced by the attraction of the spoon for the hair or fibers on the sweater. Turn on a faucet so that there is a very thin stream of water. Hold the spoon close to the water and you will see the stream of water bend. What happened Electron transfer. 

Friction will cause electrons to transfer from one material to another if one of the materials has a stronger attraction for electrons. Most plastics have a stronger attraction for electrons than hair and clothing, so the direction of transfer was probably from your hair or sweater to the spoon, allowing the spoon to acquire a negative charge. It could be a positive 

Find this idea of electrons bewitching Read on. 

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A. L. Miller, Director of the Office of Saline Water, summarized the problem in a recent speech. It is hard to realize," he said, as we stand on the threshold of space, that within a few years our number one domestic problem may be the provision of adequate supplies of plain ordinary water. The predicted increase in water use in the coming decades makes it unmistakably clear that we will need more water than can be provided from readily available natural sources of supply. The day of the water witch is over. We must turn to scientific and technological research to develop a new source of supply that can provide an ever-growing percentage of tomorrow s water."... 

Just as the temporarily charged spoon in the Water Witch demonstration caused the water to bend toward it, an induced dipole in one species can induce a dipole in another. The dispersion forces aren t as effective over distance as dipole attractions, but they are sufficient to account for the existence of liquid helium as well as liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen. 

Waters, aromatic Saturated solutions usually of volatile oils or similar substances in distilled water. Aromatic waters such as rose water were used in antiquity. Distilled waters containing volatile oils reached their therapeutic peak in the early sixteenth century. Although their therapeutic use declined in modern times, they continued to be used as flavorings. Hamamelis water (witch hazel) has lingered on as an aftershave and astringent. ... 

Grades (leaf and bark), extracts (solid, fluid, etc.), and witch hazel water. Witch hazel leaf and its fluid extracts were formerly official in N.F. witch hazel bark was formerly official in U.S.P. and witch hazel water was formerly official in N.F. Strengths (see glossary) of extracts and distillate are expressed in weight-to-weight or volume-to-weight ratios. 

FIGURE 11.24 Leaching (a) Standard pieces of different trees leach out different amounts of phenolics and other compounds. During 24 hours, red maple and witch hazel (left) stain water a darker brown than willow and quaking aspen (right), (b) and (c) Beavers leave pieces of branches in the water for 1-3 days with some or all bark intact before eating the bark. This presumably leaches out water-soluble plant secondary compounds. 

Yerba Marla resembles somewhat the yerba mora, but it has slightly wider leaves. Only the leaves are used, putting them in water. First the leaves are rubbed together in the hands, the water in not boiled, and they are used for very specific purposes. When the curandero goes to the forest in search of this plant, before cutting it he must kneel and pray to it. They are not witch-doctors but the leaves are cut only when they are needed, after praying. 

One of my first narcoleptic patients had been treated by a psychoanalyti-cally inclined psychiatrist who attributed one of her symptoms, cataplexy, to anxiety about sex. Not that she wasn t anxious about sex—in the early 1950s every nice girl was anxious about sex. If you weren t anxious about sex, you weren t a nice girl This logic is a little bit like the European Witch Trials, when those who perished when held under water were considered innocent because they had insufficient witch power to be saved, while those who survived were obviously strongly possessed and needed to be dunked again. If you were not anxious about sex in the 1950s, you were obviously a prostitute. 

But how can this acidification be effected without adding large amounts of strong acid (recall that permanganate is unstable in concentrated acid) Simple Dissolve the potassium manganate/potassium hydroxide mixture in water, throw in a few chunks of dry ice, and in the witches cauldron effect, watch the solution turn from green to deep purple ... 

The infusion of 1 ounce of the flowers or herb to 1 pint boiling water is prescribed both for internal use in 1-2 tablespoonful doses, and externally as a lotion for chronic ulcers and varicose veins. The infusion is also given to children (in doses according to age) suffering from measles and other feverish and eruptive complaints. Sprained muscles gain relief from the hot fomentation. Marigold is frequently combined with Witch Hazel when a lotion is required. 

Used almost entirely (as the common name denotes) in the treatment of piles. The ounce to pint boiling water infusion is taken consistently in wineglass doses, and an ointment is made by macerating the herb in boiling lard for twenty-four hours. Probably the best of all known remedies for this complaint, the combination with Witch Hazel is found to be particularly effective. 

This part deals with the possible effects of leaching out plant secondary compounds from usually less preferred food. Offer beavers sticks 30-cm long (1-cm diameter) of trees known to contain high levels of phenolics such as witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiand) or red maple (Acer rubrum). Half of the sticks are untreated, and the other half has been soaked in water for 2-3 days. As control, offer a preferred food such as untreated aspen. 

The biological functions of such plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) have been debated for a long time. They often have antimicrobial functions, but also serve as repellents and feeding inhibitors against herbivorous insects and vertebrates, notably birds and mammals. Animals have evolved many mechanisms to cope with phenolics in their diet. These start with food processing. For instance, beavers consume experimental sticks of the phenolics-rich witch hazel only after leaving them in the water for 2-3 days, apparently to leach out unpalatable compounds (Miiller-Schwarze et al. 2001). Many birds and mammals eat clay to adsorb phenolics so they never will be absorbed in the intestines. If they are taken up in the blood stream, such PSMs will eventually be rendered harmless by oxidation and other processes, followed by conjugation, in the liver. They then will be excreted in the urine. 

Several products contain distilled witch hazel (hamamelis water), obtained from the bark of a shrub, with astringent and anti-inflammatory properties. Naphazoline, a sympathomimetic vasoconstrictor, is included in some ophthalmic preparations to shrink the dilated blood vessels that cause redness. 

There is in this vision a real contact with the powers of the land, the water, and the sky. At the bottom is the Sachamama and the people who dominate her. Her breast is like the scraper blade of a bulldozer that knocks down the trees and plants in its way. A witch doctor sits in the front with flames coming from his head. A sorcerer... 

Next there is a strong and fast witch, armed with a flying bow and arrow. Behind her are mermaids who understand medicine well. In the background is the supay-caimdn, with marble quills, whose icaro is sung to cure the mal aire del agua [illness produced by an evil breeze from the water]. 

Within a month, CBS had dropped the dramatizations and shifted to an abbreviated interview format. On September 16, 1938, the CBS announcer introduced chemist Harold C. Urey by saying We re off today on the trail of a drop of water that spread itself into a thunderstorm and washed up on the tables of research scientists a thousand new problems to face and fathom. It s the story of Heavy Water, a magic potion as fascinating as any witch s brew and the key, perhaps, to the next door of human progress. 47 By the end of September, listeners had tired of such trivializations and tuned in elsewhere the series was cancelled. 

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