SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 188S. 



The yellow-fever in Jacksonville, although of a mild 

 type and attended by an unusually small mortality, has become 

 epidemic there. The United States Marine Hospital Service, under 

 tlie authority given it by the new quarantine law and previous 

 acts of Congress, has undertaken to prevent the spread of the dis- 

 ease from the infected points in Florida to other cities of the country. 

 It is certain that every person, and every article of clothing, bag- 

 gage, or of any other description, that comes out of Jacksonville, is 

 in danger of conveying the infection to points which it otherwise 

 might not reach. This is Surgeon-General Hamilton's justification 

 for his order forbidding any person, baggage, or mail-matter to pass 

 the quarantine station at Waycross, Ga., which is so situated as to 

 intercept all railway- passengers from Florida, if from an infected 

 district, without a quarantine of ten days for persons and a thor- 

 ough disinfection of all clothing, baggage, and mail-matter. This, 

 of course, causes very great inconvenience to those people of Jack- 

 sonville who desire to laave the city for healthful points in the 

 North ; but Dr. Hamilton has provided a refugee-camp, where any 

 person may spend the period of quarantine free of e.xpense, and in 

 as much comfort as it is possible to give under the circumstances. 

 These are the precautions that have been taken to protect the sixty 

 millions of the people of the United States from sickness and death. 

 It is unfortunate for the comparative few who have to suffer by de- 

 tention in Jacksonville and other infected points in Florida ; but the 

 fact that more than a month has passed since the disease first ap- 

 peared in Jacksonville, Tampa, and other points in Florida, and 

 that not an authentic case has yet been reported as having occurred 

 this side of the government quarantine station, is more than an 

 ample justification for every thing Surgeon-General Hamilton has 

 done. It may be that the yellow-fever will yet be carried to points 

 outside of Florida. The most careful precautions are necessarily 

 imperfect : they may sometimes be evaded, in spite of the most vigi- 

 lant watchfulness. But every day that the contagious disease is 

 confined within its present limits shortens the time that its ravages 

 can continue elsewhere before the autumn frosts cut it short in its 

 destructive career, and saves precious lives that else might have 

 been sacrificed. If Surgeon-General Hamilton should succeed in 

 preventing the spread of the yellow-fever beyond Florida, he will 

 have rendered a service to the country that can never be measured 

 in money. He deserves the most cordial support, which he is re- 

 ceiving, not only from the government, but also from the public 

 press and enlightened public sentiment throughout the country. 



writer how he knew that there was such a thing as speech, and 

 that he would ever be able to exercise that faculty. 



In a recent number of The Medical News appeared a note 

 from a correspondent whose professional eminence is an unquali- 

 fied indorsement of the accuracy of his observation, in which he 

 writes, " I have recently seen in the medical journals that Dugald 

 Stewart was once asked what was the earliest tiling he could 

 remember. He said it was being left alone by his nurse in the 

 cradle, and resolving to tell of her as soon as he c6uld speak_ 

 This may have been copied as a joke ; but it brings to my mind 

 the following statement that I have made from time to time for 

 many years, which has always been received with derision, but 

 which is a perfectly distinct remembrance in my mind : I remember 

 being jolted over the crossings in a baby-wagon by a nurse, and 

 resolving to tell of her as soon as I could speak." In reading the 

 above, it occurred to us that it would not be amiss to ask the 



The attention of our readers has already been called to 

 the passage by the Legislature of New York of an act substituting 

 death by electricity for that by hanging as a punishment for crime. 

 It will be remembered that Dr. William A. Hammond regarded 

 the change as an unwise one, and presented a paper to the Society 

 of Medical Jurisprudence on the ' Superiority of Hanging as a 

 Method of Execution.' The society concurred in the views therein 

 expressed, and protested against the passage of the law. In the 

 Asclepiad, Dr. B. W. Richardson agrees in the main with Dr. 

 Hammond. He believes that death by hanging is painless, and 

 that the " process of hanging looks brutal without actually being 

 so." He is especially severe on those who advocate the change. 

 He says, " In disgust at the foolish barbarism of the time which 

 keeps up the crime of capital murder, the humanitarian fraternity, 

 afraid to support the sound and logical policy of abolition of the 

 extreme offence, tries to dally with reason and conscience by the 

 attempt to divest execution of all pain and all terrors. Euthanasia 

 for the worst of criminals, by the side of so-called natural but often 

 most cruel death for the rest of mankind, is practically the proposi- 

 tion, — a proposition which carries with it its own condemnation." 

 In regard to the practicability of the new law, he expresses a great 

 deal of doubt. In some experiments on the application of the 

 electric discharge for the painless extinction of the lives of animals 

 to be used as food, this mode of death was found to be any thing 

 but certain. Sheep stricken apparently into instant and irrevocable 

 death by electricity, after a few minutes showed signs of life, and 

 were despatched in the ordinary way by the knife ; and a large dog 

 perfectly unconscious, and to all appearance dead, from the stroke 

 of a powerful battery, was submitted to a surgical operation during 

 unconsciousness, and afterwards made a sound and easy recovery. 

 In most cases the electric shock will kill at one discharge, but ex- 

 ceptionally it will simply stun, and may induce the semblance of 

 death instead of the real event. Dr. Richardson thinks that it will 

 be real humanity, therefore, for the authorities of New York to sup- 

 plement death by electricity by a post-mortem examination of the 

 victims, so that the execution may not be crowned by burying the 

 victims alive. 



ON THE ALLEGED MONGOLIAN AFFINITIES OF THE 

 AMERICAN RACE.' 



Were the question I am about to discuss one of merely theoreti- 

 cal bearings, I should not approach it; but the widespread belief 

 that the American tribes are genealogically connected with the 

 Mongolians is constantly directing and coloring the studies of many 

 Americanists, very much as did at one time the belief that the 

 red men are the present representatives of the ten lost tribes of 

 Israel. It is practically worth while, therefore, to examine the 

 grounds on which the .-\merican r.ace is classed by these anthro- 

 pologists as a branch of the Mongolian, and to inquire whether the 

 ancient culture of America betrayed any positive signs of Mongolian 

 influence. 



You will permit me to avoid the discussion as to what consti- 

 tutes races in anthropology. To me they are zoological sub-species, 

 marked by fixed and correlated characteristics, impressed so firmly 

 that they have suffered no appreciable alteration within the historic 

 period either through time or environment. In this sense, Blumen- 



> Paper read by Daniel G. Brinton, M.D.. before the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, at its meeting in Cleveland, 0., Aug. 15-33, i8£3. 



