yime 27, 1872] 



NATURE 



159 



on the use and abuse of opium. There is a curious paper 

 on the efifecfs on health of the use of the feet in working 

 sewing machines. There are others on slaughtering and 

 bone boiling, vegetable parasites and the diseases pro- 

 duced by them, on small-pox, and on health of towns 

 generally, with special reference to the occurrence of 

 typhoid fever. 



Our space will only admit of a cursory glance at the 

 chief questions dealt with in these papers as illustrations 

 of the discounting process alluded to. 



Somebody, for example, discovers that papers coloured 

 with arsenic are fair to look on, and may possibly become 

 a source of profit. He makes such papers, and people 

 hang their rooms with them. The maker flourishes, and 

 the purchasers find to their cost that they are poisoned ; 

 but not always. If they were always poisoned they would 

 cease to buy, but this not being the case, the law assumes 

 the manufacture to be legitimate, and people take their 

 chance. 



The .State of Massachusetts was in former times almost 

 entirely exempted from intermittent and remittent fevers. 

 But, unforfunately, the State has numerous "water privi- 

 leges," which an industrious people may take advantage 

 of They erect dams and backwater large areas of land, 

 many of which became built on, and now Massachusetts 

 has its fair quota of periodic fevers passing into typhoid 

 fever when the streams dry up in summer. 



We next approach the pons asiiionim of social legisla- 

 tion, viz., the drink traffic, which we, in this country, 

 appear disposed to deal with by reversing the principles of 

 political economy, which teach that demand will ensure 

 supply. We, on the contrary, propose to cut short the 

 supply in hope that the demand may become less in con- 

 sequence. In a report on this subject, the Chairman of 

 the Board, Mr. Bowditch, endeavours to raise intemper- 

 ance causes to the dignity of a science, but then he also 

 states that " open dram shops are an unmitigated evil." 

 AVhoever wishes to master the question of intoxicating 

 drinks, and to learn something of the cost to a community 

 at which the profit of vending them is pui'chased, will 

 find much to instruct him in this report. The remedies 

 suggested are shutting up drunkards until they are cured, 

 and using beer and wine instead of spirits. Might we 

 suggest for the consideration of our Transatlantic cousins 

 and also of our own national temperance societies, that the 

 amounts of crime, lunacy, and pauperism produced by 

 drink are possibly ascertainable quantities, and that while 

 we charge railway casualties on companies under whose 

 administration they occur, we charge the costs of crime, 

 limacy, and pauperism, not on the parlies who, for their 

 own profit, arc accessory to their production, but on the 

 public at large. If we do the one why do we do the 

 other ? Why should railway shareholders be made to 

 refund part of their profits, and publicans be allowed to 

 pocket all theirs .' ,\nd may not the cure for drunken- 

 ness be found after all in leaving supply and demand to 

 themselves, and charging all the damage accruing to the 

 State on the liquor retailers ? Might not such a course 

 help to reduce rates and taxes, and convert the publicans 

 into an efficient unpaid police .■" At all events, it is worth 

 while to ask these questions. 



Another kindred subject is the abuse of opium. It 

 appears that the domestic consumption of opium in the 



United States has increased tenfold in thirty years, for a 

 population little more than doubled. We are sorry to 

 say that teetotalism is blamed for this result. The re- 

 porter states that in countries where vine culture prevails 

 drunkenness and opium eating are comparatively un- 

 known, and he argues in favour of domestic wine manu- 

 facture as a remedy for both evils. 



We learn from the paper on sewing machines, that 

 while making a shirt requires 14 hours 26 minutes by 

 hand, it can be put together by the machine in i hour 

 and t6 minutes. A coat requires 16 hours and 35 minutes 

 hand sewing, and only 2 hours 38 minutes by machine 

 sewing. A silk dress can be made by machine in i hour 

 13 minutes, but requires S hours 27 minutes of hand 

 labour. The work is mainly done by the feet acting on 

 treadles, which, if imperfectly applied, make a great call 

 on certain sets only of muscles and nerves, and the result 

 is a development of various nervous and constitutional 

 affections peculiar to the female sex. 



The best remedy is, of course, applying a motive power 

 to the machine, and next to this to do away with the heel 

 and toe movement of the treadle, and to substitute a 

 swinging backward and forward movement of the feet 

 and legs, or by other improved adaptations of leverage. 



The only other paper we can notice is the one on the 

 effect of vegetable parasites on man, which contains a 

 good digest of the present state of knowledge on the sub- 

 ject. The moral of the paper is that, if people will keep 

 their skins dirty and thus allow their vitality to fall below 

 pai-, nature will kindly step in and supply fungal spores 

 to convert the dirt into some product which is sure to 

 call attention to the fact. 



It appears that Boston young men are apt to contract 

 a peculiar kind of ringworm by being shaved in barber's 

 shops, the cure for which is, of course, to learn to shave 

 themselves at home. 



These Reports will do much good by enlightening public 

 opinion, and so leading to better habits of life and to 

 greater consideration of the interests of others, while 

 people are looking after their own interests, results which 

 there is small chance of arriving at by any mere legisla- 

 tive enactments. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Note sur Ics Singes fossils iroiives en I/nlie, prceede d'vn 

 aperai snr les qvadrnmaiies fossiles en getihal. Forsyth 

 Major, M.D. (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the 

 Italian Society of Natural Sciences.) 



The primary object of this paper, which was read last 

 month, was to describe certain fossil Simian remains which 

 have lately for the first time been discovered in Italy. 

 One which was found in the valley of the Arno, and pre- 

 sented by the Marquis Ermes-Visconti to the Museum of 

 the city of Milan, consisted of a fragment of a maxilla 

 with the last three molars. It is referred by the writer to 

 a species closely related to the Barbary ape [Macactis 

 iniiiis. Linn.), still found at Gibraltar. It appears to have 

 been romewhat smaller than \\\^ M.friscus of Montpellier, 

 de'^cribcd by Gervais. A second ''ossil, part of a mandible, 

 belonging to the same species, has. been found by M. 

 Cocchi in the Upper Arno valley. A third, also a mnndible 

 and also discovered in Tuscany, at Monte Bamboli, has 



