July Z, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



At a time when the German tribes began moving, 

 that is to say, at the end of the third century A.D., 

 a gradual immigration of Slavonic tribes into the 

 Balkans began; their invasions became more and 

 more frequent, since the Goths chose Western Eu- 

 rope as the goal of their conquering expeditions 

 and left to the Slavs an open passage into the Bal- 

 kan countries. But a real Slavonization of some 

 Greek territories took place only in the eighth cen- 

 tury, and attained its highest point when a horrible 

 plague in 746 depopulated the Greek territories. 



I am aware of the fact that some have 

 objected to considering the present inhab- 

 itants of Greece as descendants of ancient 

 Greeks. The former have been designated 

 as "so-called Greeks," "a bastard people," 

 "a mosaic of Vlacks, Arnauts and Slavs." 

 Some years ago Fallmerayer made the very 

 positive statement that ' ' no drop of ancient 

 Greek blood flows in the veins of the 

 modem Greek." Thumb has shown the 

 absurdity of these statements and declares 

 that cranial measurements, local names, 

 customs and religion show that while some 

 admixture with the Slav has taken place, 

 the modern Greek is a lineal, and on the 

 whole a fairly pure descendant of those 

 who established the greatest civilization of 

 antiquity. Modern Greek Christianity is 

 only a modification of ancient Greek pagan- 

 ism, in which gods have been supplanted 

 by saints. 



Charon the old ferry-man in the underworld is 

 to-day the god of death; he conducts the souls jn 

 a dreary procession to his realm. As in antiquity, 

 a copper coin is put into the mouth of a dead per- 

 son as a fee for the ferry into the other world. 

 The ancient Moirai or fates (to-day. Mires) still 

 determine the fate of the new-born child, spin and 

 cut the thread of life. The bride is conducted into 

 her new home, the dead are buried with ceremonies 

 which the Greeks used already two thousand years 

 ago. A sick person seeks recovery by laying down 

 to sleep in the church of a saint, like those persons 

 who once made a pilgrimage to the temple of Ask- 

 lepios in Epidaurus. The Greeks of to-day are de- 

 scendants of the ancient Hellenes, not in the sense 

 in which every modern Greek could trace his origin 

 back to an ancient Athenian or Spartan, but in the 



sense that in the modern people ancient blood flows 

 largely and in some districts almost purely, and 

 still more in the higher sense that the modern race 

 shows a development of the Greek population of 

 the ancient world. 



The broken remnants of older civiliza- 

 tions found refuge and asylum in the salu- 

 brious climate of the Italian peninsula and 

 soon its hillsides were covered with vines 

 and olives while its plains and valleys bore 

 abundant harvests. Eome was built and 

 her empire promised to extend to the re- 

 motest parts of the world, but the ancient 

 Roman contributed but little to science, 

 and we are told by the historian that 



a pestilence raged for fifteen years (251-265) and 

 carried off one half of the inhabitants of the em- 

 pire. 



The seat of civilization was moved to the 

 shore of the Bosphorus, but the lamp of 

 science was well-nigh extinguished and the 

 clouds of the middle ages enveloped the 

 world and shrouded its inhabitants for 

 more than a thousand years. 



A fabulous and formless darkness overcame the 

 fairest things of earth. 



If one reads the history of the decline of 

 the Roman Empire, he can hardly fail to 

 see that disease was an important factor in 

 that retrograde movement, which involved 

 the greater part of the then known world. 

 Jones and Ross find the earliest reference 

 to malaria among the Romans in the come- 

 dian Plautus, who died 184 B.C., and they 

 quote Terence, who died 159 B.C., and whose 

 language is explicit in showing not only 

 the prevalence of malaria, but also the 

 recognition of the different forms. From 

 that time on, reference to the wide preva- 

 lence of malarial diseases, not only in the 

 open country, but also in the city, is fre- 

 quent and definite. Jones says : 



There is then, every reason for supposing that 

 malaria was unknown in Italy in early times, was 

 well known at the beginning of the second century 



