March ii, 1875 J 



NATURE 



363 



The highest recorded temperature in the shade occurs 

 at Sandhurst in January, and was 117°; at Melbourne 

 I u°. " There are other localities in which higher tempera- 

 tures prevail in the same month, especially in the plains 

 north of the dividing range, and along the banks of the 

 Murray, in which the temperature has been as high as 

 123° to 125° for several days together. It is during the 

 hot winds to which the climate is subject in summer that 

 our highest temperatures occur, but they seldom last many 

 hours, and are usually followed by a change in the direc- 

 tion of the wind, and by a comparatively low thermometer, 

 when a fall of 20° to 25° often occurs in as many minutes." 



We intended to make some remarks on the general 

 advantages of a Department of Agriculture, but shall 

 resen'e them for a review of a similar volume which has 

 come to us from the United States of America. 



. OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Pathological Significance of Nematode Hcematosoa. 



By T. R. Lewis, M.B., Staff-Surgeon H.M.B.F., on 



Special Duty. (Calcutta: 1874). 

 This little w^ork may be regarded as a companion volume 

 to Dr. Lewis's essay " On a Hcematozoon in Human Blocd." 

 Both are reprints from the Annual Reports of the Sani- 

 tary Commissioner with the Government of India, for 

 the years 1S71 and 1S73 respectively, and as such testify 

 to the high class of scientific labour performed by the 

 staff officers on special duty. 



The main points brought out by Dr. Lewis are such as 

 afford proof that chyluria (or a milky-looking condition 

 of the urine) and the elephantoid state of the tissues are 

 associated with the presence of a microscopic nematode 

 entozoon in the human blood. Having fairly established 

 that conclusion, he next proceeds to show that the dis- 

 orders in question are immediately " due to the mechanical 

 interruption to the flow of the nutritive fluid in the capil- 

 laries and lymphatics." No one who takes the trouble to 

 look into the evidence so carefully collected by the author 

 can fail to see that he has thrown a great deal of light upon 

 the pathology of chyluria, elephantiasis, and other more 

 or less closely allied morbid conditions ; but Dr. Lewis has 

 done more than this, for he has extended our knowledge 

 of the habits and genetic relations of the microscopic 

 ha:matozoa of the dog (so long a puzzle to helmintholo- 

 gists), and has shown that the so-called Filaria san- 

 guinis hominis are perfectly distinct from the canine 

 filaiice, which latter, moreover, he proves to be the 

 progeny of the Filaria sanguinolenta. Further than 

 this, the author has detected numerous specimens of an 

 aberr,ant type of nematode worm in the walls of the 

 stomach of pariah dogs. These parasites occupy small 

 tumours, two or more being usually coiled together in the 

 centre of each swelling. He speaks of them as Ecliino- 

 rhynchi, which, indeed, they somewhat resemble ; but it 

 is quite clear from the very admirable figures accom- 

 panying the description, that the worms are not members 

 of the order Acanthoccphala. They are, in fact, exam- 

 ples of the Chciracanthns robustns hitherto found only in 

 various species of Fclis. The illustrations, throughout, 

 are remarkably clear, and show the internal stiucture of 

 the parasites to perfection, T. S. Cobbold 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor docs not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 



by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 



or to correspond Tvith the '^uriters of, rejected manuscripts. 



No notice is taken oj anonymous communicalions.'\ 



The Origin of the Jewish Week 



Mr. E. a. Proctor's paper on "Saturn and the Sabbath of 



the Jews," in the Contemporary Rezieiu ol ihis month, reopens 



one of the oldest and most interesting questions in the history of 

 astronomy. Unfortunately, the writer is very imperfectly ac- 

 quainted with the literature of his subject, and in consequence 

 has, I thmk, imported not a little confusion into the discussion. 

 That the week of seven days is directly connected with the 

 worship of the seven planets known to the ancients, is a theory 

 which lias alvv.ays had many supporters. It is at once suggested 

 by the familiar names of the seven days, and would be absolutely 

 proved if we could show that these names are as old as the 

 division of the lunar month into four weeks. Again, it is also a 

 well-known, though less wide-spread doctrine, tliat the Jewish 

 Sabbath passed into Mosaism from an earlier planetaiy religion. 

 Of course, if it can be shown that the Sabbath was originally 

 sacred to Saturn, we have a strong pioof of the antiquity "of the 

 names of the week-days, and a probability that these names areas 

 old as the seven day week itself In this way a question in the his- 

 tory of Semitic religions comes to have .m important bearing on a 

 question in the history of astronomy. Mr. Proctor reverses the 

 argument. He assumes that we have the clearest possible 

 evidence that all nations that adopted the seven day week named 

 the days after the planets, and did so in that peculiar order 

 which is generally explained by assuming that a new planet 

 presides over every successive hour of the week, and that each 

 day takes the name of the planet of its first hour. It is then argued 

 that Saturn, as the highest planet, was the supreme god of Assyria, 

 and so also of the Egyptians who received their astrological lore 

 from Chaldea. The Egyptians, we are told, certainly consecrated 

 the seventh day of tlie week to Saturn, and since the Israelites left 

 Egypt observing the Sabbath, while there is no evidence of a 

 Sabbath in patriarchal times, " it is presumable that this Hay 

 was a day of rest in Egypt." Now, whatever may be the ulti- 

 mate solution of the problem of the origin and diffusion of the 

 seven-day week, this theory rests partly on uncertain assump- 

 tions, partly on undoubted blunders. It is notorious that several 

 Semitic nations, not to speak of tire Peruvians, had a seven-day 

 week without planetary names ; so that Mr. Proctor's funda- 

 mental assumption begs the whole question. Then, again, it is 

 the opinion of so great an authority as Lepsius that the 

 Egyptians had no seven-day week, but divided the month into 

 three decades. The passage of Dion Cassius from which the 

 contrary opinion is drawn is certainly not decisive for ancient 

 Egyptian usage, and Mr. Proctor seems to quote his author at 

 second hand ; for he asserts, in ilat contradiction to Dion, that 

 when the latter wrote, neither Greeks nor Romans used the 

 week. For the supposition that Saturn was the supreme god of 

 the Egyptians, not a shadow of proof is offered, while what is 

 said of the Assyrian Saturn is directly in the teeth of the most 

 recent researches. If Mr. Proctor had read Schrader's essay on 

 the Babylonian origin of the week, he wouH have knov.-n that 

 Adar or Saturn is quite distinct from the supreme god Asur. 

 Thus, apart from the late and doubtful testimony of Dion, Mr. 

 Proctor has no other evidence for his Egyptian theory of the 

 week than that which he derives from the presumed non-exist- 

 ence of the Sabbath among the Hebrews before they entered 

 Egypt. But the seven-day week appears in the narrative of the 

 flood, which is certainly not an Egyptian legend. I say nothing 

 of numerous minor inaccuracies in Mr. Proctor's paper, but 

 repeat that the point on which new light requires to be thrown 

 is whether it can be made out that the names of the seven days 

 are as old as the week itself This again seems to depend partly 

 on the question whether the division of the day into twenty-four 

 hours is older than the week, and partly on what can be deter- 

 mined as to early Egyptian and Chaldean subdivisions of the 

 month. The Egyptians had a day of twenty-four hours, but 

 had they a wetk ? The Chaldeans may have had the week, but 

 they seem to have divided tire day (including the night) into 

 twelve hours. Perhaps, however, it ought to be borne in mind 

 that Dion gives another way of accounting for the names of the 

 day, depending not on the division of the day into hours, but 

 on the analogy of musical harmony (rj dp,uovia i\ 6id T«T<rdpu!v). 

 The Jewish Sabbath can contribute little to the aigument unless 

 one is prepared with Lagarde to maintain that Shabbat is a 

 name of Saturn. W. R. Smith 



Kirkes' Physiology 

 I HAVE observed in your issue of Jan. 2S (vol. xi. p. 24S) a letter 

 in answer to some previous remarks of mine concerning the true 

 function of the sinuses of Valsalva. Your correspondent, Mr. 

 Prideaux, does not, it seems, quarrel with the actual method of 

 my reasoning, but urges that the conditions necessary for the 



