544 



NA TURE 



[September 27, 1906 



Indo-China it is a surrogate for confectionery, and 

 in parts of India, America, and elsewhere its use is 

 due to the perverted taste often found in dyspepsia 

 and hysteria, or to the strange abnormalities asso- 

 ciated with pregnancy. 



In the paper here noticed ' the composition of the 

 earth, marl, clay, or shale has been carefully 

 analysed ; the main constituents are silica (the percent- 

 age varying from 84 per cent, to 22 per cent.), lime 

 (61 per cent, to a mere trace), alumina (26 per cent, to 

 2.5 per cent.), and ferric oxide (20 per cent, to a mere 

 trace). But as a rule there is little definite informa- 

 tion, other authors being content to speak of clay 

 or earth without closer definition. We know, how- 

 ever, that steatite is favoured by the Indians of Hud- 

 son's Bay, and ferruginous clay by the Ottomacs, by 

 the negroes of the Antilles, and by the Batanga of 

 VVest Africa; earth rich in diatoms is used in North 

 Europe, and the New Caledonians resort in time of 

 famine to a mineral rich in lime, and ants' nests, 

 with or without the larva, are eaten in Africa. The 

 physiological basis of the habit varies probably in some 

 degree with the different composition of the earths. 

 On the Gold Coast white clay is used as a sweet- 

 meat ; in India the taste or odour is often the attractive 

 feature ; it may be noted in this connection that 

 steatite (one of the minerals mentioned above) is not 

 only eaten by wolves, reindeer, and other animals, but 

 actually used as bait for attracting them. To the 

 pleasant taste may be due the Roman use of chalk 

 mentioned above; we have a parallel in the Bolivian 

 Indian's use of a sauce of clay with his potatoes. In 

 this category, too, we may range the German work- 

 man's " Steinbutter," and perhaps the salty earth 

 used in Persia. In Senegal ochreous earth is mixed 

 with rice, but it does not appear whether this is due 

 to its pleasant taste or to a desire to increase the 

 mass available for ingestion so as to produce a feel- 

 ing of repletion. 



In Rajputana the latter cause is undoubtedly the 

 main factor; for only in times of famine are ashes, 

 powdered steatite, clay or mud mingled with bark- 

 meal. On the other hand, it is not so much actual 

 famine in Persia as the desire to keep the digestive 

 organs at work without suffering inconvenience from 

 an over-supply of nourishment which is said to lead 

 to the use of the two kinds of earth frequently sold 

 in bazaars; one is described as a fine, white, " fatty " 

 clay, the other as forming hard and irregular lumps. 

 The material of ants' nests, like the Bergmehl 

 (Kieselgur) of North Europe, is rich in organic matter, 

 and may have real nutritive value ; but "on this point 

 little positive information is available. 



Espedally in India the habit of earth-eating is 

 indicative of a morbid condition, either anterior to the 

 acquisition of the taste or after it has been adopted 

 from imitation or some other cause. The same con- 

 ditions seem to prevail widely in .South ,^merica, 

 where not only Indians and negroes, but whites, are 

 slaves to the practice; it is even said that masks are 

 put on children at night to restrain them from pulling 

 mud or plaster from the walls and eating it. 



The medicinal use of earths is a wide subject on 

 which a large literature exists; our authors quote, 

 among others, El-Baltar, who gives a list of the earths 

 used in Soain in the thirteenth century; but the use 

 of mineral substances in medicine hardlv belongs to 

 the same category as the other facts with which" they 

 deal ; the same may be said of the ingestion of earths 

 for magical purposes. 



The effects on the eater seem to differ widely. In 

 AVest Africa no bad effects follow, according to' some 



\ w^'i^"':"''''^ ""Z "1^ Parth-estlne Habit in Inrtia." Bv D. Hoooer 

 and H. H. Mann. (Memoirs oj Ihe Asiatic Society o/ Bengal, vol. 1., No. 

 12, pp. 249-270.) 



NG. 7026. VOL. 741 



authors ; but when the negroes reached the West 

 Indies they found that ill-health resulted from their 

 indulgence in decomposed porphyroid lavas as sub- 

 stitutes for their African earths. In India and South 

 .America anasmia and early death seem to follow as a 

 matter of course, but the ansemic diathesis often exists 

 before the habit is acquired, and may be the actual 

 cause of it. 



The quantity of earth or clay consumed is often con- 

 siderable. Half a pound daily is the allowance for 

 the Ottomacs ; six ounces is recorded from Bengal. 

 They are sometimes eaten raw, sometimes roasted ; 

 one of the most curious features is that the earth or 

 clay is sometimes made up into cups, figurines, and 

 other forms ; thus the Lemnos earth used in Spain in 

 the sixteenth century was cup-shaped, so is the clay 

 used to-day in Bengal ; in Bolivia figures of saints are 

 among the forms, and the Javanese eat figures of men 

 and animals. In these cases a magical element may 

 perhaps be present. But the commoner form is that 

 of powder ; the only edible earth of which the present 

 writer can speak from personal experience was in this 

 shape ; it was alkaline and more like tooth-powder than 

 anything else. N. W. T. 



Dr. L. .'\. Bauer's resignation from the United States 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey took effect on September i. 

 As already announced in Nature, he has accepted the 

 permanent directorship of the department of terrestrial 

 magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. All 

 his correspondence should be addressed to " The Ontario," 

 Washington, D.C. 



At the annual meeting of the Hull Scientific and Field 

 Naturalists' Club just held, Mr. T. Sheppard, who for 

 thirteen years has been the honorary secretary, was elected 

 president of the society. 



Prof. \. H. Church, F.R.S., will give six lectures on 

 chemistry at the Royal Academy of Arts on Mondays and 

 Thursdays, beginning on October i at 4 p.m. The subjects 

 of the lectures are : — Paper, canvas, panel, and other 

 grounds ; composition and classification of pigments ; tests 

 and trials of pigments ; selected and restricted palettes ; 

 vehicles and varnishes ; and methods of painting. 



A NOTE from the Rev. Guy Halliday recording the dis- 

 covery of Goodyera repens near Holt, in Norfolk, was re- 

 ferred to in Nature of September 6 (p. 472). Mr. W. A. 

 Nicholson, honorary secretary of the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalists' Society, informs us that the plant was found 

 at Holt so far back as 1891, and at Westwick in 1885. 

 It has since been noted in two other places in Norfolk. 



A Reuter message from Palermo states that earthquake 

 shocks were felt on September 19 at 11.20 a.m. and 

 1.38 p.m., principally at Trabia and Termini. A message 

 from Lima reports that shocks were felt on September iS 

 at Huarmey, Alija, and Casma. 



An International Congress for Cancer Research was 

 opened at Heidelberg on Tuesday by the Grand Duke and 

 Grand Duchess of Baden in the presence of numerous re- 

 presentatives of medical, scientific, and municipal institu- 

 tions of the world. At the same time, a new hospital and 

 scientific laboratories for investigations into the cause and 

 cure of cancer was opened. We learn from the Times 

 correspondent at Heidelberg that the new buildings occupy 

 nearly an acre, and are fitted with all Ihe latest improve- 

 ments, both for the treatment of operable cases and for 



