VOL-IPCKII. No. 8.] 



POPULAR SeiEK"CE l^EWS. 



127 



the shutting of it out externally conduces to longev- 

 ity; " and so, in his judgment, does a life in caves, 

 into which the sun's rays cannot enter. And Lord 

 Bacon is emphatic on the necessity of preventing a 

 " dissolution of the spirits," — whatever that floay 

 be, — and advises people to guard against this by 

 anointing themselves with oil, which also causes 

 long life; yet it has its dangers, for " the spirits, 

 when shut up, and not suffered to perspire, grow 

 warm." Some of his recipes are a little wasteful; 

 as, for example, when to recreate the heart he 

 advises pouring fragrant wine into a hole made in 

 good, fresh earth, and stirring the moistened mould 

 about with a spade: and, in accordance with the old 

 Pharmacopoeia, he also advises the internal use of 

 gold and pearls — the latter to be taken in levi- 

 gated powder, or in a solution made with the juice 

 of fresh and tart lemons. Pigeons nowadays are 

 not kindly treated at Hurlingham; but, if Bacon's 

 advice were followed, they must have had a hard 

 time of it in his day, for he asserts that in a dan- 

 gerous illness great use is made of live pigeons cut 

 asunder and applied one after another to the soles 

 of the feet. 



In the course of his observations on health and 

 disease there are remarks which show how rare 

 some things were then with which we are now 

 familiar. Thus, we are told how the Turks use a 

 kind of berry called coffee, which they roast, pow- 

 der, and make into an infusion with hot water. 

 " The drinking of this, they affirm, adds strength 

 and vigor to the mind and body, though when 

 taken immoderately it disorders the senses." It is 

 evident that he had never tasted a beverage now 

 familiar to every one. Burton, who lived about 

 the same time, also writes, by report, of a drink 

 called coffa, " so named of a berry as black as soot 

 and as bitter," which the Turks " sup as warm as 

 they can suffer," finditig that it " helpeth diges- 

 tion and procureth alacrity." Tobacco, Lord 

 Bacon states, had spread wide in his time, and 

 " gives a secret delight to those who take it. It 

 condenses the spirits, but, like opiates, manifestly 

 disturbs the head.^' The great value of flannel 

 was, it is clear, unknown in the Elizabethan age; 

 for Bacon observes: "It is a practice among the 

 wild Irish, when first taken sick, immediately to 

 unsheet their bed, and roll themselves in their blan- 

 kets; <tnd some declare themselves to have, with 

 great advantage to their health, worn flannel waist- 

 coats and drawers next their skins." Again,: he 

 notes that the habit familiar to the ancients, 

 and equally familiar in our century, of drinking 

 hot liquids, had grown into disuse in his time. So 

 he advises that the first glass of liquor should be 

 always taken hot at supper, and adds that wine in 

 which gold "has been quenched" is the most 

 wholesome at meals: " not that gold communicates 

 any virtue to the wine, but as knowing that all 

 metals quenched in any liquor give it a powerful 

 astringency ; and we make choice of gold because 

 it leaves no other metallic impression besides the 

 desired astringency behind." Artificial teeth were 

 unknown to Bacon, for he observes that the pro- 

 duction of new ones is extremely difficult, and not 

 possible without a powerful renovation of the 

 whole body; indeed, he can only suggest that food 

 should be so prepared as not to require chewing. 

 Dr. Johnson thought that every one should be 

 "blooded" once a month; and Bacon rather 

 inclined to think that phlebotomy conduces to long 

 life, " because it discharges the old juices of the 

 body, and gives occasion to new." According to 

 the Lord Chancellor, the great thing to be done if 

 you aim at health is to keep in the spirits, and pre- 

 vent their dissolution. If you ask what the spirits 

 are, he replies that they are the agents and fab- 

 ricators that produce all the effects in the body, 



— a reply that is not likely wholly to satisfy the 

 reader. And, indeed, his views of life and health 

 can scarcely be the result of experience, when he 

 writes, in his De Augmentis Scientiarum, that some 

 remedies which strengthen the faculties and pre- 

 vent diseases are yet destructive to life, and that 

 others which prolong life are not to be used with- 

 out danger to health. With a curious and charac- 

 teristic anecdote told by Lord Bacon in Sylva 

 Sylvarum I must conclude this brief and imper- 

 fect record of a philosopher's prescriptions. After 

 saying that he had a wart on his finger from child- 

 hood, and that, when a youth in Paris, at least a 

 hundred grew upon his hands in a month's time, 

 he adds : — 



" The English ambassador's lady, who was far 

 from superstitious, told me she would get away my 

 warts; and, in order to do it, she rubbed them all 

 over with the fat side of a piece of bacon with the 

 rind on, — and, among the rest, the wart I had 

 from my childhood, — then nailed the bacon, with 

 the fat toward the sun, upon a post of her chamber 

 window, which was to the south : and in five weeks' 

 time the warts went away, and the wart I had so 

 long endured for company. At the rest I did not 

 wonder, because, as they came in a short time, they 

 might go away so too; but the vanishing of that 

 which had remained so long, sticks with me." — 

 Pacific Record of Medicine and Surgery. 



THE ANESTHETIC REVELATION. 



Dr. Felix Oswald's account of the drugs 

 which artificially stimulate various emotions does 

 not include s^ilphuric ether, probably from want 

 of space. Within a few years it has been discov- 

 ered that this anaesthetic often produces a most 

 singular effect on the mind of the patient or ex- 

 perimenter who has taken it, giving rise to what 

 has been called the "anaesthetic revelation." Just 

 as the experimenter recovers from the anaesthetic, 

 and before wide-awake consciousness fully returns, 

 he has an intense perception of what seems to him 

 at the time the philosophic secret of existence, — 

 the true explanation of the universe. This singu- 

 lar impression, though intense, does not last long; 

 and, in spite of the subject's strongest effort to 

 carry the "revelation" out into wide-awake con- 

 sciousness, he finds himself unable to do so, but is 

 left full of awe by his strange experience, and 

 wonder at the nearness of the solution, which for 

 so many ages has been sought so far afield. The 

 present brief account has been gathered from the 

 literature of the subject, which grows yearly. Mr. 

 Benjamin Paul Blood of Amsterdam, N.Y., the 

 discoverer of the phenomenon, originally made it 

 known to psychologists in a pamphlet entitled 

 The An(Esihetic Revelation; and he has since dis- 

 cussed its philosophical bearings in the Journal of 

 Speculative Philosophy, January, 1886. The most 

 scientific account appears in The Therapeutic Gazette 

 for August, 1886, where Dr. George E. Shoemaker 

 of Philadelphia relates his Recollections afer Ether- 

 Inhalation. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes mentions 

 the experiment in his Mechanism of Mind and 

 Morals, and a letter from the poet Tennyson con- 

 cerning his own experience has recently reached 

 the press. 



The abstract, philosophic nature of the ether- 

 dream gives it a special interest to students of phi- 

 losophy and psychology. By its intensely specific 

 character it differs entirely from the opium or 

 h ashish hallucination . The opium-eater may dream 

 of a thousand different things ; but the ether pa- 

 tient invariably has one fixed impi-ession, — a belief 

 that the ultimate secret and explanation of exist- 

 ence stands revealed to him as finite knowledge 

 never has and never could reveal it. The singular 



thing is, that this impression may happen to a 

 man who has never given one thought to philoso- 

 phy, and whose mind, therefore, is void of material 

 for this impression. This fact, and the specific 

 likeness of effect of the ether on all who have made 

 the experiment, has led some psychologists to de- 

 clare the impossibility of considering the phenome- 

 non a dream, and to claim place for it as genuine 

 philosophic insight. — Xenos Clark, in The Open 

 Court. 



[Translated from Le Moniteur IndustrieL] 

 SALICYLIC ACID IN FRANCE. 



The Paris Court of Appeals has just declared 

 that the addition of salicylic acid to beer consti- 

 tutes an adulteration. The following is the decis- 

 ion of M, Muller, the presiding judge: — 



" Although the addition of a foreign substance 

 to an article of food may not always be considered 

 as an adulteration, the case is different when by 

 the admixture the seller deliberately alters the 

 quality of the substance, to the prejudice of the 

 purchaser. 



' ' I consider that the addition of salicylic acid to 

 beer constitutes a true alteration of the product, 

 and that the admixture modifies the nature of the 

 substance offered to the public, and introduces a 

 new element which does not enter into the ordinary 

 manufacture of beer, but gives to it a different 

 character. 



" I cannot allow that the addition is harmless, 

 and does not act to the prejudice of the purchaser, 

 as provided in the penal law. 



" I consider that it is certainly to the prejudice 

 of the purchaser, as beers of good quality need no 

 addition of salicylic acid to prevent fermentation, 

 and that this addition is really for the purpose of 

 giving to the beer an apparent superiority which it 

 does not possess. 



" The danger to the public health from salicy- 

 lated beers has been actually proved by science. 

 Salicylic acid is really a medicine, sometimes use- 

 ful, often dangerous, the administration of which 

 should be made under the direction of an experi- 

 enced person, and which the government cannot 

 relegate to merchants acting only for the interest 

 of their business, as the purchaser may thus re- 

 ceive injury to his health by the employment of 

 this pretended preservative agent, which, when 

 taken in doses more or less frequently repeated, 

 may act greatly to his prejudice. 



" Considering, then, that the falsifications result- 

 ing from this fraudulent mixture tend to change 

 the nature of the substance sold, to the prejudice 

 of the purchaser, it is decided that the lower court 

 has made a correct interpretation of the law." 



THE FEEDING OP CHILDREN. 



Not until three years old should a child be per- 

 mitted to take its meals at the table. Parents 

 should understand that even, then he has not 

 reached an age when a full diet can safely be 

 allowed. 



First of all, he must be taught to eat slowly; and 

 parents certainly ought to set the example. The 

 habit of " bolting " food, so common to many, both 

 children and adults, is an extremely pernicious one, 

 for which there is no excuse. 



Even before this period, sound fruits may be 

 allowed children, provided, of course, those easy 

 of digestion are selected, and care is taken to 

 remove the seeds, skins, etc. It will be well to 

 encourage them, when they join the family at the 

 table, to eat a small quantity of fruit for breakfast, 

 and before other foods are served. For this meal, 

 children may be allowed milk, oatmeal, bread and 

 butter, and eggs either lightly boiled, poached, or 



