POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



279 



and perennial herbs lost their vitality sooner 

 than annual ones. Of three hundred and 

 sixty-eight species of seeds fifteen years old, 

 that he sowed, only seventeen germinated, 

 and but few of the species came up. The 

 seed of radish has grown freely at fifteen 

 years; that of Sida Abutilon at twenty- 

 five ; those of melon and tobacco at forty ; 

 that of the sensitive-plant at sixty. A com- 

 mittee of the British Association reported 

 in 1S47, after seventeen years of examina- 

 tion, that the Leguminosce, considered as a 

 family, appeared to possess more vitality 

 than any other; next came the Malvaccce, 

 Tiliacece, and Croton, of the Ihtphorbiacece, 

 among those kinds whose seeds grow after 

 ten or more years. Apparently well-authen- 

 tieated instances of seeds that have grown 

 after having been preserved from a remote 

 antiquity are not rare. Plants have been 

 raised from seeds found along with coins of 

 the Emperor Hadrian, in an ancient bar- 

 row in England Medicago and a helio- 

 trope from a Roman tomb, fifteen or six- 

 teen hundred years old, where they had been 

 put in a bag under the head of the corpse 

 for a pillow. The genuineness of some 

 of the specimens of so-called " Egyptian 

 wheat " has sometimes been questioned, 

 but Mr. M. F. Tupper obtained plants from 

 grains which Sir Gardiner Wilkinson took 

 from a previously unopened mummy-case, 

 and gave to Mr. Pettigrew, who gave them to 

 him. Rose-seeds and doura-seeds, the gen- 

 uineness of whose ancient Egyptian origin 

 is equally well authenticated, have grown, 

 the former with Mrs. Governor Wood, at 

 Quincy, Illinois, the latter with the Rev. 

 Albert Hale, of Springfield, Illinois. Pro- 

 fessor Jobn Henry Carroll, of the College 

 of Archaeology and Esthetics of the City 

 of New York, has raised Indian corn from 

 seed taken from a Peruvian mummy sup- 

 posed to be twelve hundred years old. 



A Criticism of Medical Schools. Dr. 

 Frederic R. Sturgis, in a paper read before 

 the Medical Society of the State of Xew 

 York, strongly denounces the present sys- 

 tems and standards of medical education. 

 Noticing some unfavorable criticisms that 

 have appeared of the general culture and 

 manners of young physicians, he attributes 

 the origin of the condition which the criti- 



cisms expose to the unregulated manage- 

 ment of the medical schools. They are 

 nearly all private business enterprises, and 

 have to look to their fees for their support. 

 Hence, while they are always on the alert 

 for whatever may tend to increase their fees, 

 they are easily enough prone to neglect or 

 overlook what may have no direct bearing 

 upon that point, though it may be of the 

 utmost importance in relation to the fitness 

 of the student to become an acceptable 

 practitioner, and a desirable acquisition to 

 the community in which he may settle him- 

 self. The charters of medical schools are 

 too easily obtained, and not sufficiently 

 guarded, to make it sure that the school 

 will be a useful agency, or even that it will 

 not do harm. " There is nothing," says Dr. 

 Sturgis, " making the educational candidate 

 for a charter show just cause for its exist- 

 ence, nor anything binding it to give good 

 and proper instruction ; hence, as soon as 

 its charter is obtained, it may do as it 

 pleases teach or not, as it likes ; or, if it 

 prefers it, may sell its diplomas." The 

 remedy for this evil is the pecuniary en- 

 dowment of schools, by means of which 

 they may be able to limit themselves to 

 their proper office of serving as places of 

 instruction and nothing else, and be re- 

 lieved of the necessity of making their 

 diplomas licenses to practice, " which right 

 ought never to have been given them." 

 Then branches can be taught, such as pub- 

 lic hygiene, medical jurisprudence, and the 

 like, which have now to be passed over in 

 silence, or else very superficially taught ; 

 and the institution which gives the best 

 instruction will, other things being equal, 

 receive the most students. In a word, the 

 concern of the institution should be, in the 

 language of President Eliot, " to have a very 

 good school of medicine, rather than a very 

 large one." 



Provincial Accents among DeafOIntes. 



A topic has been under discussion in the 

 French Academy of Sciences that involves 

 the question whether provincial accents in 

 speech are or are not the result of local 

 peculiarities in the structure of the vocal 

 organs. M. F. Hement has observed that 

 the deaf and dumb children in a certain in- 

 stitution, who had been taught to articulate 



