556 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE COTTON-STRING CURE. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SIR: Last October an article appeared 

 in your " Jlonthly " entitled " Strange 

 Medicines," by Miss C. F. Gordon Gumming. 

 To her very interesting list I would like to add 

 a strange remedy, or method of cure, which 

 has come to my knowledge since reading the 

 above-mentioned article. To this day, in 

 some parts of Indiana, there is practiced 

 what is called "■ measuring ''^ ior ^^Jiesh-de- 

 cayy As far as my information goes, this 

 remedy is only applied to infants. By " flesh- 

 decay " is meant the pining or wasting away 

 sometimes noticed in babies — who, for no 

 very apparent reason, become fretful, thin, 

 and puling. In such cases, in regions where 

 the superstition I am trying to describe pre- 

 vails, instead of calling in a regular physi- 

 cian, some old or middle-aged woman is 

 sent for to " measure " the sick child. The 

 process is performed thus : The baby is un- 

 dressed and laid flat on a bed, as flat and 

 straight as possible; then any common cot- 

 ton string is taken in the hands of the per- 

 former, and carefully and accurately, from 

 the crown of its head to the soles of its feet, 

 the string is stretched over the body, to as- 

 certain its exact length. This length is cut 

 off and given the parents of the child, who 

 are told to bury it in the earth in some ob- 

 scure corner ; and the belief is that when 

 that string begins to decay, the child will 

 begin to recover. My informant, who re- 

 cently came to this State from Indiana, has 

 seen this done, and knows of its being done 

 many times. I can not find out how the 

 supposed gift to cure thus comes to be cred- 

 ited to certain persons. As far as the ob- 

 servation of my informant went, in cases 

 where the "measuring" process was used to 

 cure " flesh-decay," the sick child, when it did 

 begin to improve, began to do so much soon- 

 er than the buried cotton string would have 

 in all probability begun to decay. That 

 babies sometimes took a decided turn for 

 the better after the " measuring " process 

 can, it seems to rac, be accounted for in this 

 way: Sick people, and especially childi-en, 

 are, by the most eminent physicians and ex- 

 perienced nurses, recognized to be very sus- 

 ceptible to the feelings of those around 

 them : i. e., if those around are very anx- 

 ious and discouraged about their condition, 

 it has a depressing influence on the invalid ; 

 whereas an atmosphere of cheerfulness and 

 hope helps them to recover. In the above 

 case, the parents and relatives of the sick 

 baby who has been " measured," having 

 perfect faith in the efficacy of the cure, 

 would, after the jjerformance, surround the 



little sufferer with an atmosphere more fa- 

 vorable to its recovery. Besides this, as 

 near as I could find out, the persons used to 

 wield this cotton-string cure were tat, moth- 

 erly old dames, whose manipulations of the 

 sick child while smoothing it out on the 

 bed to get it straight, would be likely to 

 have a soothing, revivifying effect. But I 

 am here entering on that mystic theme, the 

 relations of mind to matter, which I feel far 

 too unlearned to discuss. Yours truly, 

 Mrs. a. J. TowNKB. 

 Santa Ana, Cal., April 17, 1888. 



THE DEMAND FOR SCIENTIFIC BOOKS IN 

 CHINA. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : Mathematics and astronomy have 

 been somewhat successfully studied in Ghina 

 during two or three thousand years ; but 

 geography, geoXossy, botany, zoology, human 

 anatomy and physiology, chemistry, and 

 physics have been unknown in native litera- 

 ture. Many dreary volumes have been writ- 

 ten, by Chinese authors, upon plants, ani- 

 mals, and ethnology, with curious myths, 

 fables, and superstitions set forth as facts. 

 In spite of the vast bulk of its pseudo-scien- 

 tific literature, no true science can be said to 

 have existed in China until it was introduced 

 from the West, by the Jesuit missionaries, in 

 the fifteenth century. Since that time, and 

 especially during the last few decades, many 

 books of European origin have been trans- 

 lated into Chinese, and a goodly number of 

 volumes of a scientific and technical charac- 

 ter have been pi'epared by Protestant and 

 Catholic missionaries, and by foreigners in 

 the service of the Chinese Government. The 

 number of such books became considerable, 

 but no organized system for their sale or 

 distribution throughout the empire had ex- 

 isted until, in 1885, Mr. John Fryer, of the 

 Kiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai, established, 

 as an experimental and philanthropic un- 

 dertaking, a Chinese " Scientific Book Depot," 

 for the purpose of facilitating the spread of 

 all useful literature in the native language. 

 Elementary books on the various sciences 

 studied in Western nations were offered for 

 sale, with works on mechanics, engineering, 

 surgery, therapeutics, and translations of 

 Wheaton's " International Law " and Loom- 

 is's " Differential Calculus." The catalogue 

 contained over two hundred scientific and 

 educational treatises, translated or compiled 

 and published in Chinese, under foreign 

 management, with a selection of about two 

 hundred and fifty sound and instructive 

 works of native origin. The price of the 

 books ranged between two cents and sixteen 



