266 



NA TURE 



\July 19, 1883 



as it has been heretofore. It remains for all who are 

 concerned to see that our water sources, whether public 

 or private, shall be free from all risk of contamination, 

 and so to arrange our means of house and of public 

 drainage as to secure all dwellings against the entrance 

 of sewer air into them. Much has been done in these 

 directions since cholera last threatened our shores, but 

 more remains to be done if we are to rid ourselves of all 

 the conditions which will tend to favour the spread of 

 that disease should it succeed in finding an entrance into 

 our country. 



MODERN PERSIA 



The Land of the Lion and Sun : or, Modern Persia. By 

 C. J. Wills, M.D. (London : Macmillan and Co., 

 1883.) 



ONE of the " Fathers," the great Austin we believe 

 of Hippo, when asked which was the first Christian 

 virtue, replied, Humility ! And the second? Humility! 

 And the third ? Still Humility ! So Dr. Wills would 

 seem consciously or unconsciously to think that of 

 travellers the first, second, and third virtue is anecdote ! 

 The result of this belief is one of the most graphic and 

 entertaining books of travel ever published. With 

 anecdote it begins, with anecdote it ends, and its sub- 

 stance is anecdote, and all these endless anecdotes are 

 themselves distinguished by three cardinal virtues. They 

 are characteristic, they are well told, and they are 

 infinitely varied. By way of experiment we have opened 

 the book at haphazard at twelve different places, and at 

 every place there was an anecdote, some pithy story or 

 other illustrating the social customs and habits of the 

 Persians and even of the very plants and animals of the 

 Iranian world, where the author's lot was cast for the 

 space of fifteen years (1866-1881) as " one of the medical 

 officers of Her Majesty's Telegraph Department in 

 Persia." On one of the pages thus exposed occurs the 

 subjoined incident bearing directly on the "scorpion 

 controversy " recently carried on in the correspondence 

 columns of Nature : — 



" A story was told me by the late Dr. Fagergren, a 

 Swede who had been twenty-five years in Shiraz, to the 

 effect that scorpions, when they see no chance of escape, 

 commit suicide ; and he told me that when one was sur- 

 rounded by a circle of live coals, it ran round three times 

 and then stung itself to death. I did not credit this, 

 supposing that the insect was probably scorched and so 

 died. I happened one day to catch an enormous scorpion 

 of the black variety, and to try the accuracy of what I 

 supposed to be a popular superstition, I prepared in my 

 courtyard a circle of live charcoal a yard in diameter. I 

 cooled the bricks with water, so that the scorpion could 

 not be scorched, and tilted him into the centre of the 

 open space. He stood still for a moment, then to my 

 astonishment ran rapidly round the circle three times, 

 came back to the centre, turned up his tail where the sting 

 is, and deliberately by three blows stabbed or stung him- 

 self in the head ; he was dead in an instant. Of this 

 curious scene I was an eye-witness, and I have seen it 

 repeated by a friend in exactly the same way since, on 

 my telling the thing, and with exactly the same result. 

 For the truth of this statement I am prepared to vouch " 

 (p. 249). 



More startling is the account at p. 307 of the "house- 

 snake and sparrow." 



" One morning I heard a great twittering of birds, and 

 on looking out I saw some thirty sparrows on the top of a 

 half-wall. They were all jumping about in a very excited 

 manner, and opening their beaks as if enraged, screaming 

 and chattering. Presently I saw a pale-yellow coloured 

 snake deliberately advancing towards them from the 

 ornamented wooden window from which he hung. They 

 appeared all quite fascinated, and none attempted to fly 

 away. The snake did not take the nearest, but deliber- 

 ately chose one and swallowed him. I got my gun, 

 and notwithstanding the entreaties of my servants, some 

 of whom wept, assuring me that the reptile was inhabited 

 by the late master of the house, I gave him a dose of 

 duckshot. He was a big snake, some four feet long. I 

 cut him open and extracted the sparrow. After some ten 

 minutes' exposure to the sun, the bird got up, and after 

 half an hour flew away apparently unhurt. The snake 

 was not a venomous one, nor do we find venomous ones 

 in houses in Persia." 



Suitable also for the columns of a scientific journal may 

 be the subjoined about the " transit of Venus " : — 



" On the high road to the capital from the Caspian the 

 members of the expedition sent by the German Govern- 

 ment to observe the transit of Venus met a lovely vision 

 in habit and hat on a prancing steed. They halted, 

 saluted, and declared their errand. 



" ' To observe the transit of Venus, ah, well, you can go 

 home now, gentlemen, your duty is done, good bye ; ' and 

 the pretty vision disappears at a smart canter 'away in 

 the ewigkeit,' as Hans Breitmann says. That joke 

 dawned on those Germans after some hours " (p. 331). 



Dr. Wills has naturally a good deal to say about the 

 Persian system of medicine, which "has its advantages 

 in its delightful simplicity. All diseases are cold or hot. 

 All remedies are hot or cold. A hot disease requires a 

 cold remedy, and vice versd. Now if the Persian doctor 

 is called in, and has any doubt as to the nature of the 

 disorder, he prescribes a hot treatment, let us say. If the 

 patient gets better, he was right ; if worse, then he pre- 

 scribes a cold remedy, and sticks to it. He thus gets 

 over all need for diagnosis, all physiological treatment, 

 and he cannot, according to his own lights, be wrong. 

 . . . His fee is a few pence, or more generally he under- 

 takes the case on speculation : so much, of which he is 

 lucky if he gets half, if the patient gets well ; nothing if 

 he doesn't. . . . Remedies and contrivances of a bar- 

 barous nature, such as putting the patient in fresh horse- 

 dung, or sowing him up in a raw hide, are the rule rather 

 than the exception" (p. 34). 



Talismans, spells, and charms of all sorts are also 

 much relied upon, in connection with which a charac- 

 teristic story is told : — 



" During the cholera in Shiraz I was attending the 

 daughter of the high priest, who was sitting surrounded 

 by a crowd of friends, petitioners, and parasites. He was 

 writing charms against the cholera. I, out of curiosity, 

 asked him for one; it was simply a strip of paper on 

 which was written a mere scribble, which meant nothing 

 at all. I took it and carefully put it away. He told me 

 that when attacked by cholera I had but to swallow it 

 and it would prove an effectual remedy. I thanked him 

 very seriously, and went my way. That day he called 

 and presented me with two sheep and a huge cake of 

 sugar-candy weighing thirty pounds ! I did not quite see 

 why he gave me the present, but he laughingly told me 

 that my serious reception of his talisman had convinced 

 the many bystanders of its great value, and a charm 

 desired by an unbelieving European doctor must be 

 potent indeed. ' You see, you might have laughed at my 



