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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or millet, and drunk plenty of milk; and 

 they can walk rapidly as long as life re- 

 mains in them. A Sepoy regiment which 

 means it will walk a European regiment to 

 death, and do it on food which their compet- 

 itors would pronounce wholly insufficient to 

 sustain vigorous life. A regular Hindostanee 

 carrier, with a weight of eighty pounds on 

 his shoulders carried, of course, in two 

 divisions hung on his neck by a yoke will, 

 if properly paid, lope along over a hundred 

 miles in twenty-four hours, a feat which 

 would exhaust any but the best English 

 runners." But the writer doubts whether 

 this power of endurance is parallel with 

 what is called physical strength. 



Hypnotism in Remedial Treatment. 



An unnamed writer, whose views are pro- 

 nounced by the Lancet " eminently wise and 

 judicious," has been publishing a series of 

 articles in the London Times on the New 

 Mesmerism, in which he identifies the hyp- 

 notism of the French and other neurologists 

 of the present time with the mesmerism of 

 a former generation and the hypnotism of 

 Braid. He affirms that denial of the exist- 

 ence of hypnotism is out of the question. 

 To the inquiry whether it is sufficiently 

 beneficial to justify its use, he replies that 

 " a method which has been already tried and 

 found wanting ought not to meet with the 

 same open reception as a new remedy. What 

 would be mere caution in the latter case very 

 properly becomes suspicion in the former." 

 Quoting from the old authors to show that 

 hypnotism was practiced in former days for 

 the same maladies and with the same alleged 

 results as to-day, he concludes that if it had 

 possessed a real efficacy it would never have 

 been allowed to fall into disuse. He accepts 

 Charcot's view that the hypnotic condition is 

 essentially morbid and dependent on a dis- 

 ordered brain, and that its employment is 

 only justifiable in a few exceptional cases 

 here and there. The writer sums up his 

 conclusions by saying : " Hypnotism in treat- 

 ment has a real but very limited value, and 

 it should only be used with great care. It is 

 not likely to die out altogether, but neither is 

 it likely to be generally adopted, or even to 

 spread much beyond its present limits. Hyp- 

 notic experiments, unless they have the pa- 

 tient's benefit in view, are injurious and un- 



justifiable alike on the platform and in the 

 laboratory. Finally, if I may offer any prac- 

 tical advice to the public, it is this : Regard 

 hypnotism with extreme caution, and do not 

 resort to it except on the advice of an un- 

 prejudiced medical man in whose opinion 

 you have implicit confidence." 



Tree-top Vegetation. The plants that 

 grow in the tops of willow trees near Cam- 

 bridge, England, have been recorded during 

 the last few years. They represent eighty 

 species, and have been found altogether 3,951 

 times among about 4,500 trees. Of the eighty 

 species, only eighteen furnish one per cent 

 each of the whole number of records; the 

 others occurring only in very small numbers. 

 Classifying the plants according to means of 

 distribution, nineteen species, of which 1,*763 

 records, or 44'6 per cent, occur, have fleshy 

 fruits ; three species with burs were found 

 in 651 instances, or 16'4 per cent; thirty- 

 four species, with winged or feathered fruit, 

 gave 996 records, or 25'1 per cent; seven 

 plants with very light seeds, 421 records, or 

 19'6 per cent; and plants whose means of 

 distribution is poor or somewhat doubtful, 

 120 records, or 2'9 per cent. It is thus very 

 strikingly shown how the various mechanisms 

 for distribution succeed, for only the better 

 ones present any considerable numbers in 

 the list. The bird-distributed plants appear 

 higher here than in such cases as the flora of 

 the churches of Poitiers, because birds visit 

 trees more frequently. The observations 

 show that a seed is carried only a short dis- 

 tance by its mechanism for distribution. 

 Plants are always found upon the soil within 

 two hundred and fifty yards, at most, of those 

 found in the trees. An analysis was made 

 as far as possible of the birds' nests found in 

 the trees, and pieces, often with ripe fruits, 

 of many of the plants in the list were discov- 

 ered in them ; so that probably this means of 

 distribution is of some importance. 



Athletics and Scholarship. Mr. Wil- 

 liam Odell, of Torquay, England, recently ad- 

 dressed the question to the headquarters 

 of some of the large public schools as to 

 whether the boys who excel in athletics are 

 as a rule also excellent in school work, ex- 

 aminations, etc. A similar inquiry made by 

 a Mr. Cathcart ten years ago elicited an- 



