CORRESP ONDENGE. 



121 



made a bid for fame by proposing. We are 

 all familiar with the brilliant feats of modem 

 surgery in replacing damaged portions of 

 the human body by sound and healthy parts 

 obtained elsewhere. Autoplasty is one of 

 the wide-reaching benefactions of science. 

 Scalped mill-operatives have been furnished 

 with good-as-nevv chcvelures by piecemeal 

 contributions from the heads of accommo- 

 dating friends. Mangled eyes have been 

 successfully replaced by healthy ones taken 

 from cats and rabbits. For centuries the 

 victims of Oriental despotism have had their 

 noses and ears restored by the skilled 

 " leeches " of India, Turkey, and Persia. So 

 common have become operations for the 

 restoration of noses, eyelids, ears, lips, pal- 

 ates, and tracheal, that each of these has re- 

 ceived a distinct name in medical literature. 

 Nor have the surgeons stopped with these 

 external organs, but have boldly invaded the 

 interior of the system ; and I think it is on 

 record that one surgeon succeeded in saving 

 his patient's life by patching up his caecum 

 with the intestines of a sheep 



Why is not this idea capable of indefinite 

 expansion ? We all know that, as a rule, 

 men do not break down like the "Wonderful 

 One-Hoss Shay," which 



" went to pieces all at once- 

 All at once, and nothing first 

 Just as bubbles when they burst." 



Almost invariably they die from the wearing 

 out or lesion of some one organ. 



Now, anatomists tell us that we have not 

 a muscle, nerve, or organ which is not dupli- 

 cated in some one of the lower animals. 

 This being the case, what is to prevent the 

 skillful surgeon, when he finds that one of 

 his patient's viscera cranial, thoracic, or 

 abdominal has become incapable of per- 

 forming its functions, on account of wearing 

 out or weakness, from removing it, and sub- 

 stituting a brand-new one from some healthy 

 and high-bred animal ? 



For example, instead of using the pan- 

 creatic juice of the lower animals, as Dr. 

 Brown-Sequard proposes, why not transplant 

 the organ which produces it, and thus insure 

 the patient a never-failing supply of the di- 

 gestive fluid produced on the spot ? When 

 a man's pancreas becomes debilitated from 

 years of unremitting toil with fried pork and 

 mince-pies, and goes on a strike, threatening 

 stoppage of all other bodily functions and 

 death, why not skillfully excise it, and put 

 in its place, say, the pancreas of a goat or a 

 pig ? The wound heals by first intention ; 

 the man's digestion recovers the tone of his 

 boyhood days ; the food his wife cooks tastes 

 as well as " the things mother used to 

 make " ; existence again becomes sweet mu- 

 sic, and he takes a new lease of life, until 

 some other organ breaks down, which can be 

 similarly replaced. 



So, on the simple plan of the old lady 

 who made a pair of stockings last a lifetime 



by knitting on new feet one year and new 

 legs the next, men can readily attain the age 

 of Methuselah, with no other drawbacks than 

 periodic recoveries from surgical operations, 

 which will be no worse than their customary 

 "spells of fever," "attacks of indigestion," 

 " nervous prostration," " malarial poison- 

 ing," and the like. 



I have endeavored to treat this important 

 subject with proper scientific gravity. I an- 

 ticipate, however, the ghoulish glee of the 

 professional humorist, who will gloat over 

 the prospect of prominent citizens being al- 

 luded to as " well-repaired " instead of " well- 

 preserved" men, and who will give the over- 

 worked stove-pipe, mother-in-law, and front 

 gate a rest, in order to exploit the funny 

 possibilities of a mature gentleman who has 

 been patched up until he has the digestive 

 apparatus of a goat, the vocal and respira- 

 tory machinery of a donkey, and a cranial 

 cavity filled with the ganglia of a sheep or 

 an intelligent Newfoundland dog. 



I anticipate also the moral and scriptural 

 objections of a part of the clergy, as to the 

 effect upon the soul of this incorporation 

 with the beasts of the field. 



But all great ideas must encounter this 

 sort of thing, and so mine must perforce en- 

 dure it. John McEluoy. 



Washington, D. C. 



THE EIGHT TO PEOPEETT. 



Editor Popular /Science Monthly : 



In Mr. Philpott's able essay on " The 

 Origin of Property," in the " Monthly " for 

 September, he quotes Prof. Leslie's notable 

 remarks on the true meaning of the word 

 " property." While there may have been 

 others who have also called attention to the 

 same point, I can not refrain from specially 

 referring Mr. Philpott and your readers to 

 Volume II of the works of the late Thomas 

 Hill Green, a thinker whose acute and iucid 

 discussion of fundamental political notions 

 has received singularly inadequate notice. 

 He frequently touches bottom ground with a 

 firmness characteristic of no other political 

 writer known to me, and in this instance he 

 phrases with especial felicity (Vol. II, 

 " Principles of Political Obligation," pp. 

 517 et seq.) the idea upheld by Mr. Philpott 

 and Prof. Leslie : " Two questions are apt 

 to be mixed up which ought to be kept dis- 

 tinct. One is the question how men came 

 to appropriate ; the other, the question how 

 the idea of right has come to be associated 

 with their appropriations. . . . One condi- 

 tion of the existence of property, then, is 

 appropriation. But another condition must 

 be fulfilled in order to constitute property. 

 This is the recognition by others of a man's 

 appropriations as something which they will 

 treat as his, not theirs, and the guarantee to 

 him of his appropriations by means of that 



