838 EEPOET— 1886. 



Experimentally hy such conditions I have produced the disease. Wherever 

 these conditions are, there consumption is found : wherever these conditions are 

 absent, there the disease is unknown : and upon the introduction of the former into 

 the latter the disease makes its appearance. Evidence given to prove these points. 



The causal conditions are those that habitually tend to disuse of the lungs and 

 those that habitually compress or inflict direct injury upon the lungs. Examples 

 given. 



There are therefore two distinct objects to be accomplished in the prevention 

 of consumption. On the one hand we have to secure an adequate amount of 

 breathing capacity in proportion to the rest of the body, and on the other to 

 prevent either compression of the chest or injury to the lungs. This can be done 

 by adopting those measures that tend to the development of the breathing capacity 

 and suppressing or obviating those conditions that compress or injure the lungs. 

 By adopting measures is meant placing men, women, and children under conditions 

 of habitation, clothing, education, and urging upon them habits that tend indi- 

 Andually and collectively to develop the lungs. Some details on these points and 

 on the prevention of inhalation of small particles of various substances and com- 

 pression of chest were also given. 



Diagrams showing the effect on the proportion of the chest to the rest of the 

 body due to various conditions from health to consumption were shown. 



7. Dragon Sacrifices at the Vernal Equinox. By George St. Clair, F.G.S. 



The object of this paper was to show that human sacrifice, which prevailed 

 extensively in early times, was a custom connected especially with the Vernal 

 Equinox, and that the offerings were made to appease a mythical dragon which 

 made its demand at that time. The Dragon of mythology is identified and defined, 

 and it is shown in what sense he opened his jaws at the spring season of the year. 

 Human sacrifices have been ofiered from motives which ought to be respected. 

 In Egypt they had been abolished at an early period ; but in Greece we have his- 

 torical instances. By-and-by substitution came about, and took various forms, 

 one form being to ofier one victim when danger threatened (and the gods demanded) 

 a multitude. Death or the Grave was propitiated in this way, and it came to be 

 symbolised by Darlmess, because the heavenly bodies went down into darkness in 

 the course of their revolution. The Darkness was symbolised by a Dragon. In 

 eclipses the darlmess devours the sun or moon ; nocturnal darkness swallows the 

 sun and stars ; but the chief antitj'pe of the Dragon is the winter half of the great 

 year of the precession cycle. By the rule of reversal which belongs to the great 

 year the darkness encroaches on the eastern side of the heavens, and the dragon 

 opens its jaws at the vernal equinox. 



Human sacrifice was practised more especially at the spring of the year, or (in 

 other instances) in honour of deities who once presided over equinox constellations. 

 Artemis and Cronus, to whom this homage was chiefly shown, were both connected 

 with the zodiacal sign Scorpio : and, according to M. Ernest de Bunsen, Scorpio 

 was the starting-point of the primitive calendar. If the festival of Saturn did not 

 get displaced or misplaced through the precession movement, it was still a festival 

 in honour of the god of the under world — and that meant death and the gi'ave. 



Tradition says that human sacrifices were abolished by Hercules. As Scorpio 

 rises with Hercules, and ceases to be a dark sign, the mythology is consistent with 

 itself. 



The paper might end here, but a paragraph is added to show that the Hebrew 

 Passover may be explained as an equinox festival, at which a lamb was offered as 

 a substitute mercifully provided in the later legislation, in place of an earlier sacri- 

 fice corresponding to that of PhcEnicians and Greeks. But the tradition of child- 

 sacrifice was kept up by the enemies of the Jews, and is the origin of the false and 

 cruel blood-accusation made so often in the Middle Ages, and occasionally still on 

 the Continent. 



