276 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1290 



ing or decaying would produce tHis position. 

 We know first of all that the pull is exerted 

 by the muscles and tendons, and the reason 

 why opisthotonos is the more commonly seen 

 is that the muscles of the neck are strongest. 

 In this spastic condition all the muscles of 

 the body are intensely contracted and the 

 more powerful muscles overcome the resist- 

 ance of the weaker ones. It is interesting to 

 observe in this connection that in the arm 

 muscles of the male frog the pull of the strong 

 flexors, used in the mating season for re- 

 taining the female, overcome the extensors 

 and flex the arms into the attitude of em- 

 bracing, while in the female frog the ex- 

 tensors overcome the flexors and the arms 

 stick out straight, while in a spastic condition. 

 Occasionally, however, as in pleurothotonos, 

 the lateral muscles overcome the dorsal ones. 

 Secondly the ligaments of the vertebral col- 

 lunn are but slightly elastic, and I am sure it 

 would puzzle Dr. Dean to furnish examples 

 of opisthotonos caused by the action of the 

 ligaments. If the ligaments did cause this 

 phenomenon then the head should be pulled 

 the other way, for the ventral ligaments dry- 

 ing flrst would overpower the dorsal ones. 

 Sheep, cattle and horses are commonly seen 

 dead in this position on the western plains, 

 but no one can prove that the drying or 

 rotting of the ligaments caused the attitude, 

 while it is easily and daily proven that they 

 died in a spastic condition, in opisthotonos. 



Opisthotonos and its related phenomena 

 can not be rightly regarded as a special form 

 of disease, but rather as a result accompany- 

 ing many forms of disease and poisoning. 

 The Century Dictionary regards opisthotonos 

 as a malady, but the word malady in medicine 

 is almost meaningless. 



Another important phase of the matter and 

 a more difficult one to solve was suggested 

 by Dr. Matthew. Vertebrate fossils are not 

 always figured and studied in the x)ositions 

 in which they died. They are subject to so 

 many disturbing agencies, wind, water and 

 predatory animals, that we can not be sure 

 that the position is really the one in which 

 they died. Often the limbs and parts of the 



body are shifted in preparing for museum ex- 

 hibition. On this point, of course, no one 

 can speak with more authority than can Dr. 

 Matthew, but it occurs to me that a sufficient 

 number of animals have been discovered in an 

 undisturbed jxjsition to warrant the conclu- 

 sion that some of the vertebrates preserved in 

 the opisthotonos were the victims of disease. 

 The beautiful skeleton of Sieneosaurus hollen- 

 sis in the U. S. National Museum, exhibits 

 one of the most interesting examples of this 

 known to the writer. 



The point is still open to discussion. "We 

 need more evidence from the medical side as 

 to the exact nature of opisthotonos, and from 

 the paleontological side more exact observa- 

 tions by paleontologists of the positions in 

 which the animals are preserved in the rocks. 

 It will be with extreme interest that further 

 discussion on this interesting topic, the an- 

 tiquity of disease in all its phases, will be 

 read. 



EOY L. MOODIE 



College or Medicine, 



TjNrVEESITY OF ILLINOIS, 



Chicago 



a chinese lamp in a yucatan mound 



A RECENT publication of the United States 

 Bureau of Ethnology is a report of Thomas 

 W. F. Gann on the " Maya Indians of South- 

 ern Yucatan and Northern British Honduras." 

 Herein is given an interesting account of the 

 I)eople and a description of a series of mounds 

 presenting very curious examples of the an- 

 cient Maya pottery and odd-shaped objects of 

 obsidian. In one mound there was foimd 

 near its surface a soapstone lamp which Mr. 

 Gann recognizes as markedly unlike other 

 objects of Maya fabrication. He says: 



So widely does it differ from Maya standards 

 that there can be but Kttle doubt that it was in- 

 troduced in post-Columbian days, probably very 

 soon after the conquest. Another explanation 

 which suggests itself is that the lamp was buried 

 in the mound at a much later date (possibly dur- 

 ing the troublous times of the Indian rebellions, 

 between 1840 and 1850) by someone who wished to 

 hide it temporarily, and that it had no connection 

 with the original purpose of the mounds. 



