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SCmNCE. 



[Vol. Vlil , No. 194 



can not prevent people from falling in love ; but 

 can it not so influence public opinion as to make 

 falling in love even a more efficient and beneficial 

 process of selection than it now is ? 



That the laws which now exist for the pro- 

 tection of the ignorant, both poor and rich, against 

 quacks and charlatans, are totally inadequate to 

 that end, must be painfully evident to every one 

 who keeps himself at all informed on the general 

 news of the day. It is not long ago that one death 

 was caused by the application of kerosene, and 

 another by the fluid extract of the St. Ignatius 

 bean. Within the present year a strong, robust 

 farmer in middle life, and apparently having a 

 long life before him of usefulness and enjoyment, 

 was, within ten hours after the application to the 

 lip of strong potash and chloride of zinc by one 

 of these harpies, dead from the absorption of this 

 corrosive poison. The fii'st two cases mentioned 

 were brought to a successful issue in the courts ; 

 the judge holding, that if a person publicly prac- 

 tising as a physician, on being called to a sick 

 person, prescribes with foolhardy presumption a 

 course of treatment which causes death, proper 

 medical assistance being at the time procurable, 

 he may be found guilty of manslaughter, although 

 he acted with the patient's consent, and with no 

 ill intent. There is no more important legislation 

 than the regulation of the practice of medicine ; 

 and it is to be hoped that the medico-legal societies 

 or some other organizations will prepare laws 

 which will drive from the country the thousands 

 of impostors who are to-day ' living and growing 

 rich upon the credulity and ignorance of the 

 people. 



American archeologists might conveniently 

 be divided into two classes, — those who dig, and 

 those who do not dig. The diggers seldom get be- 

 yond the range of articles which they or some one 

 else has dug up : the non-diggers rely chiefly on 

 the chroniclers or contemporaneous historians for 

 their facts. It is seldom that we meet with a man 

 who, like Mr. Maudslay, combines the best fea- 

 tures of the two schools. At a recent meeting of 

 the Royal geographical society, he gave an inter- 

 esting account of his exploration of the ruins and 

 site of the old Indian pueblo of Copan. This 

 place was apparently unknown to Cortes, who 

 passed near it in his celebrated march to Hon- 

 duras. Our author argues from this that it was 

 uninhabited at the time, — a deduction that does 



not seem to us altogether safe. At all events, the 

 place is not mentioned by any early writer, and 

 the first account we have of it is in a letter from 

 the licentiate Diego de Palacio, an officer of the 

 Audienciaof Guatemala in the year 1576. Copan, 

 in the usual sense of the word as applied to the 

 village which has been built amidst the ancient 

 ruins, is situated just within the western boundary 

 of the republic of Honduras, on the right bank 

 of the Copan River. Mr. Maudslay went to work 

 in a truly methodical and scientific way, and the 

 results of his research are in some respects re- 

 markable. 



Although Professor Frothtngham has left 

 Baltimore to accept a chair at Princeton, the 

 Johns Hopkins university is not to be without an 

 instructor in archeology this winter. Prof. Ro- 

 dolfo Lanciani is announced to give a course of 

 six or more lectures during the current academic 

 year, probably in January next, on Roman arche- 

 ology. Professor Lanciani, though still a young 

 man, has made a wide reputation for himself, and 

 is one of the very first authorities on Roman arche- 

 ology. He has been for some years inspector of 

 excavations at Rome, and professor of archeology 

 at the university there. He is a leading member 

 of the Roman archeological commission and of 

 the Pontifical archeological society. He has fol- 

 lowed with great care the very important excava- 

 tions that have, since 1871, laid bare so large a 

 portion of the ancient Latin capital. In 1880 he 

 published "I comentarii di Frontino intorno le 

 acque e gli aquedotti, sylloge epigrafica aquaria," 

 — a work which was crowned by the Academy 

 of the Lincei. This book forms but a part of 

 Pi-ofessor Lanciani's great critical and historical 

 work on the topography of ancient Rome, on 

 which he has been at work for a long time. 



A case of great interest and importance 

 has just been decided in Brooklyn against the mu- 

 nicipal authorities. In 1881 the legislature of the 

 state passed what is known as the ' plumbing law/ 

 by which the plumbing and drainage of all new 

 buildings were required to be done under the direc- 

 tion of the board of health. For the guidance 

 and instruction of the plumbers, rules and regula- 

 tions were established governing the construction 

 of the works refen-ed to in the law. Some of the 

 plumbers violated these rules in various ways, 

 among others by putting in iron pipe of a less 

 thickness than was permitted. Although such a 



