204 TH^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nuclei of blighted cells. The so-called " reeducation " is only in a 

 limited and scarcely physiological sense educationary. It is a repeti- 

 tion of the training, not so much to teach as to stimulate the growth 

 of new organic elements from preexistent germs imbued with forma- 

 tive forces and characteristics which must themselves determine the 

 physico-mental result. If new cells are produced, they will be found 

 already educated, that is, endowed with inherited characteristics which 

 constitute the physical bases of memory. The educated germ natu- 

 rally produces an educated cell. Upon this hypothesis rests the whole 

 theory of heredity, species, and transmission. 



In the third class of cases, recovery occurs as an accident of treat- 

 ment, except -when in the presence of a constitutional cachexia like 

 syphilis, specific medication may remove the grip of disease which, so 

 to say, holds the mental organism in fetters that its energy can not 

 act. It will, I think, be often found that the seemingly permanent 

 losses of memory which occur after acute disease are due to the isola- 

 tion of special strata of cerebral tissue by the stasis of syphilitic or 

 gouty disease. Mercury, iodide of potassium, or colchicum may in 

 this way serve as a " memory-powder," and work a cure. 



The two points I am chiefly anxious to place on record, without 

 any claim to novelty of suggestion, are, first, that what is called reedu- 

 cation is often simply the fostering of a natural growth — never harm- 

 ful unless overdone, but of less value than may at first sight be sup- 

 posed ; second, that, in the absence of sj)ecial indications that what 

 seems to be helpless dementia is actually w^hat it seems, i. e., a physical 

 destruction of brain-cells, it is always possible the patient may recover, 

 and therefore never justifiable to write a case off as incurable, and 

 leave it to drift unnoticed and unhelped. — Brain. 



EAELY METHODS IX AKITHMETIC. 



By E. 0. VAILE. 



IN our day arithmetic is looked upon as a science of which every 

 boy at fourteen ought to be master. Such was not the case a cen- 

 tury or so back. In England, as well as upon the Continent, arithmetic 

 was long considered a higher branch of science, and a university study, 

 like geometry. In part, this is accounted for by the strong conviction 

 which has always possessed mankind until within the last two hundred 

 years, that numbers have about them very potent and mystical proper- 

 ties. During the middle ages this science had its skilled professors. 

 The partial title of a work gives an idea of its exalted claims even 

 after the time of Shakespeare and Bacon. The book appeared in Lon- 

 don in 1624. Its title-page read thus : '* The Secrets of Numbers 



