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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. No. 506 



diet of nursing mothers, have without doubt helped to build up 

 the racial resistance to their national inheritanee, syphilis and 

 tuberculosis. 



In the case of tuberculosis this resistance is so efScient that 

 even the child of a tuberculous mother, fed on what might be 

 supposed to be tuberculous milk until the sixth year, in the ma- 

 jority of cases remains unaffected. Now, if a tuberculous cow's 

 milk transmits the disease to the human organism, why should 

 not this tuberculous mother's milk transmit it ? Even we do not 

 object to the suckling done by our own tuberculous women, 

 which indeed extends generally over but one year, yet their off- 

 spring, for the most part, are unaffected by the disease, at least 

 in childhood ; now it is more thaa likely that, if there were a 

 contagion through milk, its effects would be apparent in the 

 children. All these benefits would, of course, be cut off by the 

 substitution of a foreigu element to the natural means of trans- 

 mission. 



While I was in Japan. I conceived an idea quite satisfactory, 

 at least to my own mind, of the manner in which the iodized 

 food renders its great service to the Japanese race. It is 

 generally supposed that the contagion of tuberculosis is com- 

 municated by the inhalation of particles of dried sputum dissemi- 

 nated in the air. It is my firm conviction that this is not so. I 

 believe that these germs of disease are swallowed with the saliva, 

 and alter the nutrition through the chyle and mesenteric glands. 

 In an organism fed directly or iadirectly by iodized substances, 

 the poison meets and is neutralized by its own antidote. The 

 Japanese mother, as by an instinct, never kisses her child on the 

 lips. Indeed, the whole institution of kissing (except in the 

 sexual act) is practically unknown in Japan. It is even formally 

 condemned because the Japanese know that the kiss is the carrier 

 of tuberculosis and syphilis. I have no doubt but that the caresses 

 of the sick have added enormously to our own statistics of tuber- 

 culosis, and have caused much of the mischief which Dr. Brush 

 would attribute to cow's milk. 



I don't know whether the following has struck any other ob- 

 server, or if I am the first to call attention to it. There is another, 

 an occult and insidious danger which Japan escapes by letting 

 cow's milk alone. If they drank it as we do, it is very probable 

 that they would drink it as we do, nolentes volentes, mixed with 

 a nobler fluid. Now, thanks to the rice plantations, the water of 

 Japan is by no means the best of things ; it is even the worst, for 

 it is pregnant with typhoid germs, being continually polluted with 

 human excrements and swarming with the brood of the distoma. 

 Total abstinence from cold water, an inverted teetotalism, has 

 been the salvation of Japan. Water is only drunk boiled with 

 tea; the boiling kills the typhoid germs and the eggs of the dis- 

 toma. 



THE ETRUSCAN RITUAL BOOK." 



BY DANIEL, G. BRINTON, M.D., LI D. 



The discovery by Professor J. Krall of the fragments of an 

 Etruscan book, written in the time of the Ptolomies, and pre- 

 served in the swathings of an Egyptian mummy, is an epochal 

 event in archaeology and cannot fail to excite the liveliest interest 

 in learned circles. It has just been issued by the Vienna Academy 

 of Sciences, and in a manner entirely satisfactory to the most ex- 

 acting criticism. The mummy bands on which the inscription is 

 written are reproduced photographically with the greatest care, 

 and the judicious text and commentary by the editor are just what 

 are needed, and no more than are needed, to place all the material 

 for a thorough study of the document in the hands of the reader. 



The circumstances of the discovery of the mummy and the in- 

 scription have been already briefly referred to in Science, Sept. 33. 

 The first who noticed the writing was Professor Brugsch, in 1868; 

 but he did not recognize it as Etruscan; nor did Captain Burton, 

 who published a portion of it in 1879, although that versatile 

 writer was the author of a book on Etruscan remains. Professor 

 Krall, in February, 1891, was the first to make this remarkable 

 identification. 



1 Die Etruskischen Mumlenblnden des Acramer National-museums. Bes- 

 chrleben und herausgegebeu von Prof. J. Krall. Wlen, 1892. In commission 

 Dei F. Tempsky. 



The original condition of the book can be restored from its frag- 

 ments. It was written on a piece of linen, at least 3.50 meters 

 long, by 35-40 centimeters wide. The writing was in columns, so 

 that when the linen was rolled, by unrolling it moderately, one such 

 column, about 25 centimeters wide, could be commodiously read. 

 The writing was done with a reed, and with ink made from car- 

 bon, like that which we know as "India ink," and which was 

 usually employed in ancient Egypt. The letters were firm, clear 

 and regular, plainly the work of a skilled caligrapher. The alpha- 

 bet is that of a high class of Etruscan literature, — quite apart 

 from those degenerated forms which are found in northern Italy. 

 It is probable that the original roll was longer than the fragments 

 indicate, and therefore that they only represent a fraction of the 

 original work. 



The linen on which the book is written is of Egyptian manu- 

 facture. But as at the date of its preparation Egypt supplied 

 much of the Mediterranean world with the products of her looms, 

 this does not prove that it was written in Alexandria. The ques- 

 tion must be left undecided ; but there is nothing else Egyptian 

 about the scroll. The text contains no names of Egyptian gods 

 or personages and no sign of foreign influence. It is wholly 

 Etruscan in language, proper names, and general character, and 

 at most may have been an Egyptian copy of an original brought 

 from some Etrurian city. 



The text offers twelve columns of about twenty-five lines to a 

 column, six or seven words to a line. A number of the lines are 

 incomplete, others are lost ; but enough remains to offer an excel- 

 lent apparatus to study the language. There are a number of 

 repetitions, as of set phrases, and at the beginning of several para- 

 graphs the Etruscan numerals are found, applied always to certain 

 words of frequent recurrence. The names of various Etruscan 

 divinities, as Nelhunsl, Tinsin, Thesan, Usil, Uni, etc., are re- 

 peated, indicating clearly that this is some kind of a religious 

 work. Professor Krall pronounces it a ritual to set forth the char- 

 acter and number of offerings {Opferritual}. From certain ar- 

 rangements noticeable in the text, I think rather it belongs to the 

 class of works on divination, for which the Etruscan haruspices 

 were so famous. 



Something may be added to show the exceptional value of this 

 find. 



There is no greater mystery in the whole of European antiquity 

 than that which surrounds the Etruscans. Niebuhr once said that 

 he would willingly part with a large part of his fortune to be able 

 to identify their ethnic relations. Up to the present time, this has 

 been impossible. Not a single theory has been offered which has 

 proved acceptable. Some of the ancients maintained that the 

 primitive Etruscans came from Asia Minor ; Virchow has written 

 an article tracing them over the Alps toward the north-east; Dr. 

 Isaac Taylor wrote a book to prove they were " Turanian; " Bur- 

 ton, in his ' ' Etruscan Bologna," tore Taylor's hypothesis to tatters, 

 but did not have better success with his own ; and so on with an 

 endless chain of attempted identifications. 



The uniform tradition of the Etruscans themselves was that 

 their ancestors came by sea to the shores of Italy, and landed first 

 on the west coast, approximately about 1200-1300 B.C. Thence 

 they extended over central and northern Italy as a conquering 

 race, developing a remarkably high civilization, and finally suc- 

 cumbing to the Romans on the south and to the Celtic and other 

 barbarous tribes on the north. They had settlements as far as the 

 Rhetian Alps, and I have seen in the Museum of Chur, in Switzer- 

 land, tombstones with inscriptions in the Etruscan character from 

 that locality. It is true, however, that this is not conclusive evi- 

 dence; as it is quite certain that some inscriptions in this alphabet 

 are not in the Eti'uscan language. Their alphabet was adopted 

 by the Veneti, an lUyrian people, and also by the Celts, both of 

 whom wrote in it their own tongues, or at least employed it in 

 their mortuary inscriptions. As the matter now stands, in spite 

 of our possessing over five thousand Etruscan inscriptions, some 

 of considerable length and others bilingual, I do not hesitate to say 

 that there is not a single word whose meaning we positively 

 know. 



A true Etruscan inscription was discovered some years ago on 

 the island of Lemnos, in the ^gean Sea, showing that this sea- 



