December 4, 1891. J 



SCIENCE. 



3i» 



tised by the Japanese blind takes nine years to learn. The pupil 

 for the first three years practises on his master; then he spends 

 three jears acquiring the art of acupuncture; and for the remain- 

 ing three years he is on probation, his master receiving half his 

 earnings. Blind men sometimes distinguish themselves out- 

 side their regular occupations. One was a famous go player; and 

 it is recorded tliat, having beaten a prince at (he game, his antag- 

 onist in a fit of jealou"! anger killed him, and was himself exe- 

 cuted for the crime. Another was a famous author, and compiled 

 a valuable repertory of information in 635 volumes. The blind 

 also practised usury, and acquired much unpopularity from the 

 way in which Ibey treated their debtors. 



Cornet {3e'dschrift fiir Hygiene, x, 1891) has estimated that 

 in Ihe past fifteen years 45.82 per cent of all deaths among males, 

 and 49.33 per cent among females, in prisons, were due to tuler- 

 culous disease. Below the age of twenty there was no material 

 difference between rhe death-rate from tuberculosis among pris- 

 oners and that among the ordinary population; but between 

 twenty and forty the death-rate was five times as liigh among 

 prisoners as auiohg the general population. Some of this excess 

 is attributable to insufficient exercise and ventilation, and to want 

 of variety in food. Another cause lies in the probable infection 

 of cells by tubercle bacilli, insufficient care in disinfection being 

 observed. In a considerable proportion of cases of tuberculosis in 

 prisons the disease had existed prior to the incarceration, as is 

 shown by the number of deaths from tuberculosis during the first 

 few months of impriionment. 



— Max O'Reil is a little previous in saying in his " Frenchman 

 in America" that St. Johnsbury, Vt , has a museum, but the 

 Franklin Fair^banks Museum of Natural .Science is to be opened to 

 the public in a fev? weeks. In anticipation of the opportunities 

 to be afforded by the museum, a Natural History Society was or- 

 ganized last spring. Some interesting meetings were held in 

 Atheneum Uall but during the latter part of the summer not a 

 large number could attend. This airtumn a reorganization of the 

 society was made, good meetings have been held, and quite a 

 programme laid out for the winter. The meetings will be held 

 in the hall of the museum when that is opened, where special fa- 

 cilities will be afforded the departments of ornithology, conchol- 

 ogy, mineralogy, and botany for pursuit of these branches so far 

 as collections may be an aid. 



— A very valuable find of skeletons has been made in Egypt by 

 Mr. Flinders Pelrie, who has recently opened a number of tombs 

 previously intact at Medum, belonging to the beginning of the 

 fourth dynasty. This is the earliest known date of Egyptian re- 

 mains, and that to which Egyptians ascribe themselves. The 

 skeletons are well preserved, but lender and friable. Some of 

 tbem bear unmistakable evidence of rheumatic changes, and con- 

 sequently indicate that at that very remote period man was sub- 

 ject to and suffere.^ from this, as is now shown from its antiquity, 

 venerable disease. No ornaments or objects of art, except occa- 

 sionally some rough jjottery or a wooden headrest, were found 

 with these remains. The greater number were interred in a con- 

 tracted position with the kneesdrawn up to the breast, even when 

 the tomb was long enough to allow burial in the extended posi- 

 tion, the body placed on the left side, wrapped in linen cloth, the 

 head always to the north and the face to the east. A few, how- 

 ever, apparently the bodies of the highest class or race, were in- 

 terr-ed in the extended position along with vases of stone or pot- 

 tery and headrests. At this period there is no trace of mummifi- 

 cation. The essential difference in the mode of interment seems 

 to point to difference of race, and it is probable that the con- 

 tracted burials are those of the prehistoric race of Egypt, while 

 the dynastic race were interred with the body extended. It is 

 extremely interesting to find these contracted burials common at 

 so early a date in Egypt, as a similar mode was adopted by the 

 earliest inhabitants of Great Britain. Mr. Petrie has brought the 

 skeletons to England, and deposited them at the College of Sur- 

 geons, where they are being treated {Brit. Med. Jour.) so as to 

 strengthen them and render them available for the anatomical 

 investigation which Mr. Petrie intends to have made in order to 

 determine, if possible, their ethnographical affinities. 



— There are not many remains of the ancierrt Mexican feather- 

 work which excited the surprise of the Spanish conquerors of the 

 New World. The most famous surviving sppcimen is the standard, 

 described by Hochstetter, which is now in the Vienna Ethno- 

 graphical Museum. Another specimen has lately been discovered 

 by Mrs. Zelia Nultall in the Schloss Ambras, near Innsbruck, says 

 Nature, Nov. 10. It is mentioned in an inventory, drawn up in 

 1596, of the treasures of the castle. This very valuable relic is the 

 decorative part of a round shield made of interlaced reeds, and 

 consists of feat her- mosaics representing a monster-, the contours 

 of which are fastened by strips of gold. Formerly the shield was 

 adorned with costly quetzal feathers, only small fragments of 

 which survive. Globus, which has an inteiTsting note on the 

 subject, speaks of similar old Mexican schields in the Stuttgart 

 Museum, and refers to a statement of Stcll to the effect that 

 beautiful feather-ornaments are still made by the Indians of 

 Guatemala. 



— Thompson {Lancet, Oct. 24, 1891) has recorded the case of a 

 blacksmith who was struck in the left eye by a fragment of fi)ing 

 steel. Bolh eyes soon displajed evidences of irritaiion. with con- 

 siderable impairment of vision in the left. Ophthalmoscopic ex- 

 aujination of tlie injured eye revealed the presenre of a foreign 

 body in the retina, together with slight exudation and hemorrhage, 

 and a number of fine, obaque strise in the vitreous body. Tbe 

 patient being etherized, the original wound was reopened and the 

 curved pole of an electro-magnet was introduced and passed 

 through the vitreous in a direction corresponding to that Hppar- 

 ently traversed by the foreign body. The second application was 

 followed by the appearance of the bit of steel " in tow'' of the 

 magnet. The small bead of vitreous that presented was snipped 

 off, the eye was antiseptically irrigated, and a compress was ap- 

 plied. In the course of a short time the manifestations of irrita- 

 tion subsided and vision bncame improved, though a slight patch 

 of opacity remained upon the retina, and the field of vision was 

 correspondingly limited. 



— At the Academic de Medecine M. Chaveau read a long paper 

 on the relations existing between small pox and vaccine as regards 

 the transformation of the virus {Medical Press, Nov. 4j. He said 

 that the idea that vaccine was only a transformation of small- pox 

 continued to obtain a large number of [artisans. He, on the con- 

 trary, believed that the virus in both cases proceeded from the 

 same origin. It was true the absolute proof was not yit estab- 

 lished, but that they were distinct afiEections de did not doubt. 

 Attempts were made by a Lyons committee to transform human 

 small-(jox into vaccine by inoculating cows, but the virus remained 

 the same as to its nature even after several cultivations, conse- 

 quently it must be accepted that the simple passage of pox virus 

 in the organism of the cow or horse is entirely incapable of chang- 

 ing this virus into vaccine. Vaccine never product d small-pox in 

 man. nor did human small-pox ever become vaccine when inocu- 

 lated into animals. Vaccine is not, consequently, an attenuated 

 small- pox. 



— A Colombo journal gives an interesting description of the 

 manner in which the natives of Ceylon mine for plumbago. A 

 native usually drives a shaft until he is no longer able to contend 

 with the flow of water in the mine. He then s;nps working, and 

 afterwards drives galleries, and this he continues to do as long as 

 his lamps will burn ; but the moment they are extinguished by 

 the gases collected in the gallery he ceases working in ihat part and 

 continues upwards, refilling the shafts he has dug with the debris 

 from the mine. In other cases, instead of sinking a shaft, a large 

 open cutting is made, in which the vein is followed, and galleries 

 afterwards run as occasion may require. There is no svstem for 

 ventilating the mines, and the result is that after a blast much 

 time is wasted before the mine is sufficiently cleared of foul gases 

 to allow working to be resumed. The great object of the native 

 proprietor is to keep his expenses as low as possible. As to the 

 timber he is using, he knows nothing of its strength, and is quite 

 unable to wort out the strain it will stand. The result is that 

 the shafts and galleries are frequently insufficiently timbered. 

 The windlass used is frequently not strong enough and has no 

 ratchet-wheel, so that serious accidents may occur in raising and 



