416 
MABORE 
[ AUGUST 31, 1899 
authoritative evidence for the existence of Negritos in 
Borneo. 
The fascinating promises of Mr. Hose when he sent 
me his invitation to visit him were amply fulfilled so far 
as time permitted, and we have to thank him for a most 
enjoyable and instructive visit. Mr. Charles Hose is 
well known as a highly successful and enthusiastic 
naturalist. He has made collections in all departments 
of the land fauna of Sarawak, and he has monographed 
the mammals and the birds. His geographical explor- 
ations are also well recognised ; but it is not generally 
known that he has a most minute and extensive know- 
ledge of all that pertains to the numerous and varied 
natives that have been entrusted to his sympathetic care. 
I have seen piles of immensely valuable ethnographical 
manuscript which we sincerely hope will be suitably and 
speedily published. Not only has Mr. Hose from time 
to time presented his old University with numerous 
zoological specimens, but he has entrusted to me an 
extensive and very valuable collection of ethnographic 
specimens which he has given to the University of 
Cambridge. In addition he has presented the unique 
collection of stone implements and a large collection of 
human crania, each skull being labelled with its tribe 
and provenance. 
I shall endeavour on another occasion to do justice to 
Mr. Hose’s success as an administrator. What we were 
able to accomplish was largely due to those personal 
qualities of a ruler which awaken a feeling of affection 
and loyalty in the natives. 
The Cambridge University Press will publish the 
scientific results of the Expedition in due course asa 
series of memoirs which will be obtainable separately. 
The volume on experimental psychology will be written 
by Dr. Rivers and Messrs. Myers and McDougall, with 
some supplementary observations on the natives of the 
mainland of New Guinea by Mr. Seligmann. Mr. Ray 
has ample matter for a volume on linguistics. 
The linguistic results of the Expedition were on the 
whole very satisfactory. Materials were obtained for 
complete grammars of the two Torres Straits languages, 
and the vocabularies were revised. In New Guinea the 
Melanesian languages around Hood Bay were studied, as 
well as those of Rabao (Yule Island) and the adjacent 
mainland. In New Guinea also material was obtained 
to elucidate the somewhat complex structure of the 
Papuan languages of the Koitapu in the Port Moresby 
district, of the Cloudy Bay peoples, and of the Kiwai and 
Mowatta tribes in the Fly Delta. No grammar of any 
of these languages has hitherto been written. The 
materials obtained in Borneo for grammars of the two 
dialects spoken by the Land Dayaks and Sea Dayaks, 
and vocabularies obtained in forty-six dialects spoken 
by various tribes of Sarawak have already been re- 
ferred to. 
The physical anthropology of Torres Straits and New 
Guinea will mainly be worked out by myself, but Mr. 
Seligmann has some additional measurements from the 
mainland of New Guinea. Dr. Rivers will publish and 
expound his statistical inquiries. Mr. Myers is making a 
comparative study of native music. Mr. Seligmann has 
studied native medicines and charms, and has made 
various ethnological observations of some interest. Mr. 
Wilkin has made notes on native houses in New Guinea. 
The religious ceremonies, legends, and general ethnology 
will be -treated by various members of the Expedition. 
Mr. Wilkin took a large number of excellent photographs 
in Torres Straits and New Guinea, which will be drawn 
upon for illustrative purposes. As there is no room for 
them in the present Museum of Archeology and Ethno- 
logy, the extensive collections are deposited temporarily 
in a couple of small houses in Cambridge, where, unfor- 
tunately, they run risk of deterioration. 
ALFRED C, HADDON. 
NO. 1557, VOL. 60] 
WHY PEOPLE GO TO SPAS, 
(EN observer who has the curiosity to pass in review 
the modern methods of medical treatment cannot 
fail to be struck by the increasing amount of attention 
which is being paid at the present time, both by the 
laity and the profession, to the spa treatment of disease. 
The fact that many thousands of patients flock annually to 
the different health resorts to seek relief from their ills, and 
the idea which prevails among a large section of the 
educated public, chiefly the well-to-do classes, that their 
existence is not complete without a yearly visit to one or 
other of the many spas, either at home or abroad, and 
that for their bodily well-being an annual “cure” is 
necessary, are phenomena which call for comment and 
demand explanation. The practice is by no means of 
recent growth, for it finds its origin in the almost universal 
belief, prevalent in ancient times, in the efficacy of 
natural mineral waters and baths in the cure of disease. 
Many instances of this might be quoted. The waters of 
Spa in Belgium were celebrated in the time of Livy ; the 
Romans built Bath in England, and fully recognised the 
value of its springs ; and they in turn derived their fond- 
ness for bathing from the Greeks. There is not want- 
ing evidence to show that more ancient civilisations 
appreciated in a rude way the benefits to be obtained in 
this direction from the resources of nature. Throughout 
the middle ages the same belief was held, and many were 
the pilgrimages to the various springs then known. In 
the present day the same idea, shorn of much of the 
superstition that formerly clung to it, still prevails, and 
each watering place claims annually its numerous 
devotees. Not only among the laity is the assurance of 
the therapeutic value of natural mineral waters and baths 
firmly rooted, though doubtless there still remains a 
substratum of lingering superstition as a part foundation 
of that assurance, but also by the medical fraternity their 
utility is accepted, as is witnessed by the freedom with 
which their patients are sent to take the waters of this or 
that spring. In the minds of the latter, however, super- 
stition has been replaced by knowledge, and they are 
well assured that such treatment has a definite and real 
value. ; 
It becomes, then, a matter of interest to seek answers 
to the following questions: Whether, in the light of 
modern knowledge and research there is a solid founda- 
tion in fact for the faith that is placed by patients and 
their doctors in the utility of bathing and water-drinking ; 
whether such measures possess any advantages over 
treatment by ordinary medicinal means ; whether the 
lines of treatment followed at spas cannot be carried 
out equally well at the patient’s home, and the necessity 
for a perhaps inconvenient visit to a watering place 
thereby be obviated ; and, lastly, whether equal facilities 
for such treatment, and results equally good, are not 
obtainable in this country as at similar places on the 
continent ? ; 
Up to comparatively recent times the use of waters 
and baths in the cure of disease was purely empirical. 
Through long experience and repeated trial it came 
gradually to be ascertained that certain waters were 
beneficial in certain cases, and certain kinds of baths 
produced certain effects ; wherefrom was elaborated a 
system of spa treatment on more or less rule of thumb 
principles. The exact nature of the action of these 
agents, the physiological effects they produced and the 
pathological conditions they influenced were ill-under- 
stood; the rationale, in short, of the treatment was 
wanting. Of late years, however, a large amount of sound 
scientific work has been done in this department of medi- 
cine. The action of mineral waters and baths has been 
made the subject of definite experiment and the results 
obtained applied to the perfection and extension of the 
methods ; and thereby this branch of therapeutics, which 
