SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



In a paper presented to the American philo- 

 sophical society, Dr. Brinton of the University of 

 Pennsylvania has developed some considerations 

 concerning a form of writing intermediate be- 

 tween the iconographic and the alphabetic. This 

 intermediate form of writing Dr. Brinton calls 

 ikonomatic, since that to which the figure or 

 picture refers is not the object represented, but 

 the name of that object. In this ikonomatic 

 writing, which Dr. Brinton finds in the Mexican 

 and probably in the Maya hieroglyphics, he sees 

 the explanation of the process by which the great 

 advance was made from thought- writing to sound- 

 writing. Thought-writing, we are told, is the 

 oldest and simplest form, and is subdivided into 

 iconographic and symbolic. In iconographic 

 writing the object thought of is represented by a 

 more or less skilfully drawn picture, while in 

 symbolic writing a single characteristic serves to 

 represent the object ; as, for example, the track 

 of an animal is represented instead of the animal 

 itself. 



Of course, the gap between this thought-writing 

 and sound-writing is enormous, and endeavors 

 have been made to explain how it was bridged by 

 a study of the Egyptian and Chinese alphabets, 

 each of which began as simple picture-writing, 

 and developed into almost complete phoneticism. 

 Dr. Brinton calls in ikonomatic writing to explain 

 the transition. In this form of communication 

 the picture or sign does not refer to a sound as the 

 name of the object in question, but to the sound 

 of the name of some other object or idea. The 

 plan is that pursued by the constructors of rebuses, 

 who, to use Dr. Brinton's illustration, can repre- 

 sent the infinitive ' to hide ' by the figure 2 and a 

 skin or hide. Of this system, Dr. Brinton finds 

 several sets of instances, and says that there is 

 little doubt that all the Egyptian syllabic and 

 alphabetic writing was derived from this early 

 phase of which the governing principle was that 

 of the rebus. He finds evidence of this in medi- 

 aeval heraldry also. 



No. 202. — 1886. 



One of the earliest stimuli to the development of 

 phonetic writing was, Dr. Brinton thinks, the wish 

 to record proper names, which, when we rise above 

 the savage state, are not usually significant ; 

 and therefore, if recorded at all, they must be 

 recorded phonetically. The Mexicans added to 

 their ikonomatic system a feature peculiar to them- 

 selves in assigning a phonetic value to colors. The 

 Egyptian sign-writing is also polychromatic, but 

 the polychromes seem not to have had any pho- 

 netic value. So in heraldry, while colors have 

 definite significations, these are seldom phonetic. 

 But the Mexican writing offers many instances 

 where the color of the object as pictured is an 

 essential phonetic element of the sound which is 

 intended to be conveyed. The Aztecs developed 

 the ikonomatic system beyond proper names, 

 and composed in it words, sentences, and treatises 

 on various subjects. Outside of these races. Dr. 

 Brinton finds evidence of but very slight progress 

 toward a phonetic system made by natives of the 

 American continent. 



' Bovine tuberculosis ' was the subject of a 

 paper read by Dr. Blaine of Willard asylum, Ovid, 

 N.Y., before the New York academy of medicine 

 recently. In the paper and the remarks upon the 

 same by Dr. Edson, of the New York health de- 

 partment, attention was called to the prevalence 

 of consumption in cattle, and to the danger of 

 human beings contracting the disease through 

 the milk and meat of infected animals. As we 

 have already repeatedly pointed out, there is but 

 one way to prevent the sale and use of such meat 

 and milk, and that is by a rigid inspection of the 

 cows at the stables where they are kept, and of 

 the carcasses at the slaughter-houses before the 

 viscera are removed. Tuberculous milk cannot 

 be distinguished from that which is non-tuber- 

 culous, and the most thorough expert examina- 

 tion of the meat of a tuberculous animal will not 

 suffice to exclude such meat from the market un- 

 less the inspector can also examine the lungs and 

 other internal organs in which the disease mani- 

 fests itself. The cow-stable being situated, for the 

 most part, in the country, the inspection of these 

 should be performed by officers of the State board 

 of health ; while the slaughter-houses, being in the 



