206 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wound some little time, and the wound often seems trivial to have 

 caused death. Since surgical aid to all is out of the question, why 

 should not every soldier be his own surgeon ? Suppose his pack 

 contained a tourniquet, bandages, and lint, to the use of which he 

 has been trained ; also, a draught of some strong cordial which 

 might sustain his own life or that of a comrade in extremities, 

 until the relief corps should appear. A simple knowledge of the 

 tourniquet, of bandages, and lint, and readiness to improvise sub- 

 stitutes, have saved countless lives. Lack of knowledge, some- 

 times, and sometimes an inexcusable lack of materials, have sac- 

 rificed thousands. A wounded soldier of our civil war stopped a 

 severe haemorrhage in the neck by clogging the artery with balls 

 made of sand and blood-clot. He had nothing better at hand. 



THE REVIVAL OF WITCHCRAFT. 



BY EENEST HART. 



IN the byways of science, as on the scenes of a theatre and in 

 the pages of fiction, an alias is often found to serve a very 

 convenient purpose. But it is always a little disappointing, to 

 those in search of a veritable novelty, to find in place of it only 

 a discredited piece of antiquity, though varnished, polished, and 

 faced with a new color; and it is not inspiriting, even to the 

 dilettante of the drama or of fiction, to be put off with old and 

 worn-out characters, masquerading under new names, with fan- 

 tastic costumes and modern effects, however ingenious and 

 startling. 



The modern Athenians, who dignify themselves with the title 

 of psychical researchers, have for some time been inviting us to 

 the investigation of what they have led us to believe were altogeth- 

 er new departures into the domain of mental philosophy. A new 

 horizon was opened out before us ; methods of the communication 

 of thought were described which set distance at naught, which 

 dispensed with speech or gesture, touch, sight, or smell. Sensa- 

 tion, we were told, was transmissible without material expression ; 

 mental impressions could be conveyed by the unexpressed power 

 of the will, character could be transferred by subtle and invisible 

 channels into those whose morality required strengthening, or 

 whose self-control needed bracing. All this has been indicated 

 with some confidence, and with a careful and measured approxi- 

 mation to methods of rational inquiry, by some English observers 

 whose competence in literature and some departments of physical 



