572 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



trade unions, for through their elected 

 officers they prescribed hours of labor 

 and minimum wages and made trade 

 rules, the breach of which was punish- 

 able by fine and expulsion. The Chinese 

 people displayed much benevolence and 

 social kindness one to another, and had 

 societies for providing free coffins and 

 seemly burial in free cemeteries for the 

 poor, soup kitchens, foundling institu- 

 tions, asylums, orphanages, and medical 

 dispensaries. Throughout the whole of 

 the Yang-tse basin the author was im- 

 pressed with the completeness of Chi- 

 nese social and commercial organization 

 by the existence of patriotism or public 

 spirit, by great prosperity, and by the 

 absence of the decay often attributed to 

 the nation. Of the prevailing " expan- 

 sion " or territorial robbery fever Mrs. 

 Bishop said that we were coming to 

 think only of markets and territories, 

 and to ignore human beings, and were 

 breaking up, in the case of a fourth of 

 the human race, the most ancient of the 

 earth's existing civilizations without giv- 

 ing for our supposed advantage a fair 

 equivalent. 



" Somewhat " Poisonous Plants. 

 In Prof. B. D. Halsted's paper in the 

 State Agricultural Experiment Station 

 Bulletins on The Poisonous Plants of 

 New Jersey, besides the descriptions of 

 plants recognized as poisonous inter- 

 nally and to the touch, a list is given 

 of " many somewhat poisonous plants." 

 Among these the catalpa and ailantus 

 produce emanations that are disagree- 

 able and sometimes poisonous, and ca- 

 talpa flowers, when handled, will pro- 

 duce an irritation of the skin. The thorn 

 of the Osage orange leaves a poisoned 

 wound. The young leaves of the red 

 cedar and the arbor vitse are irritating 

 to the skin and may produce blisters, 

 and the pitch of the spruce causes itch- 

 ing. Balm of Gilead may cause blister- 

 ing. The green bark of the club of Her- 

 cules is irritating to the skin. The 

 herbage of oleander affects some persons 

 like poison ivy, the bark of the daphne 

 causes blisters, and the juice of the box 

 produces an itching with many persons. 

 To some the herbage of the wild clematis 

 is acrid and unpleasant. Many of the 

 wild herbs have acrid properties, among 

 them skunk cabbage, Indian turnip, cow 

 parsnip, several of the mustards, and 



the juice of red pepper and stonecrop. 

 Garden rue and the short bristles of the 

 borage are irritating. Some persons have 

 had their skin inflamed by handling the 

 garden nasturtium. Other plants not al- 

 ways pleasant to handle are meadow- 

 saffron bulbs, garlic, juice of bloodwort 

 and celandine, the smartweed, the herb- 

 age of the poke, monkshood, larkspur, 

 bearberry, some of the buttercups, anem- 

 one, star cucumber, various burs, daisy 

 flowers, hairy plants, the nettles, sneeze- 

 weed, the corpse plant, and some of the 

 toadstools. Flax spinners have a flax 

 poison, jute workers a rash, hop pickers 

 a disagreeable irritation of the hands, 

 and the grinders of mandrake root find 

 the powder irritating to the face. It is 

 not unusual for persons who gather 

 plants in field and forest to receive sen- 

 sations akin to those produced by mos- 

 quitoes, which are often chargeable to 

 the plants. Other animals than man are 

 less susceptible to the effects of contact 

 poisons. 



The Dangers of Hypnotism. In a 

 review of the medico-legal aspects of 

 hypnotism Dr. Sydney Kuh inquires 

 whether the hypnotized can be injured 

 physically or mentally by hypnotization, 

 and whether they can fall victims to 

 crime. Summing up a number of cases 

 cited as bearing on the former question, 

 he finds that hypnotism is now gener- 

 ally conceded to be a pathological and 

 not a physiological condition; that its 

 use, when resorted to too frequently, 

 is liable to bring on mental deteriora- 

 tion ; that it may be the cause of chronic 

 headache or of an outbreak of hysteria; 

 that at times it has an undesirable ef- 

 fect upon pre-existing mental disease; 

 and that in some cases it may even 

 produce an outbreak of insanity. He 

 has learned of a few cases on record 

 in which hypnotism was directly or in- 

 directly responsible for the death of the 

 patient. On the other hand, " we all 

 know that hypnotism is a useful thera- 

 peutic agent practically only in cases of 

 functional disease which only very rare- 

 ly endangers the patient's life." Seeking 

 simpler, less dangerous methods of treat- 

 ing maladies for which hypnotism has 

 been recommended, the author has ex- 

 perimented upon the use of suggestion 

 in the waking state, with results that 

 encourage him. A large series of cases 



