200 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 299 



typhoid-bacillus is transported, are contact with the typhoid-dejec- 

 tions, the use of water or milk contaminated with the bacilli, or 

 of various substances infected through the medium of the air. 



MENTAL SCIENCE. 

 Intellect in Great Britain. 



That the study of the origin, distribution, and characteristics of 

 eminent men both lends a peculiar charm to history and at the 

 same time furnishes the key to many of the influences that shape 

 civilization, is a thought that has inspired many a student. The 

 temperaments and training of different writers have led them to 

 attack the problem from various points of view. In our own day 

 much interest has been exhibited in the study of great men from 

 what might be called the ' natural history ' point of view, — a view 

 that emphasizes the importance of average results in contradistinc- 

 tion to a minute study of the individual as individual ; that inquires 

 into the influences of ancestry, of environment, physical, mental, 

 and moral. M. de CandoUe's study of scientists, and Mr. Francis 

 Galton's work upon ' Hereditary Genius,' are eminent instances of 

 work in this field. It is as a minor contribution to this study that 

 Dr. A. Conan Doyle {The Nineteenth Century, August, i8S8) 

 analyzes the geographical distribution of eminent men in the Great 

 Britain of to-day. Such an analysis may suggest the influences of 

 climate, as well as of educational, political, and other artificial sur- 

 roundings. 



The first question is, naturally, who are the eminent men ? Dr. 

 Doyle does well in requiring as a test of eminence the appearance 

 of the name in a standard biographical dictionary, such as the ' Men 

 of the Time,' excluding as far as possible all merely local celebri- 

 ties. He thus finds about 1,150 men, " who have, during the latter 

 part of the Victorian era, attained eminence in literature, poetry, 

 art, music, medicine, sculpture, engineering, law, and other intel- 

 lectual walks of life." Of these, 824 were born in England, 157 in 

 Scotland, 121 in Ireland, and 49 were born abroad (it should be 

 added that an appreciable number of men are of immediate Irish or 

 Scottish extraction, though born in England). Comparing these 

 numbers with the populations of the three countries (including 

 Wales under England), we find that Scotland ranks first, with r 

 man of distinction to 22,000 of the population ; England next, with 

 I to 31,000; and Ireland last, with I to 49,000. If we take Wales 

 separately, England's proportion becomes I in 30,000, and Wales 

 foots the list with but I in 58,000. 



The showing of London, as the great intellectual centre, is a 

 chief point of interest. Of the 824 Englishmen, 235 are of London 

 birth, which, placing the population of London as one-seventh of 

 that of England, gives London I celebrity to 16,000, and the prov- 

 inces not more than i in 34,000. This shows at once how strongly 

 the brightest intellects are attracted to the metropolis. But Dr. 

 Doyle points out, that while London stands so well as regards celeb- 

 rities, if we confine our attention to men of first-rank ability, the 

 provinces show a superiority. While not re-enforcing this state- 

 ment with percentages, he asks us to remember that Darwin, Owen, 

 Hooker, and Tyndall ; that Leighton and Millais ; that Herbert 

 Spencer ; that Tennyson, Carlyle, Freeman, Lecky ; that Dickens 

 and ' George Eliot,' — are all country-born. 



Continuing this analysis, it is found that London is especially 

 strong in the production of artists and scientists, — both branches 

 in which organized educational institutions are of supreme value. 

 The following table may serve for a partial comparison of London 

 with the counties to the north and south : — 



men, 8 lawyers, 5 sculptors, 4 soldiers, 4 seamen, and 22 who must 

 be classed as miscellaneous. 



The detailed analysis of the standing of the several counties is 

 hardly of interest to an American public. In the southern counties 

 there appears i celebrity to 23,000 of population. The county of 

 Hampshire stands best, with a ratio of I in 13,000. The midland 

 counties are unmistakably and regularly less fertile intellectually 

 than the southern counties, producing only about half the propor- 

 tion of celebrities, or i in 4t,ooo. Physical surroundings furnish no 

 clew to this difference ; and Dr. Doyle regards it as racial, as due 

 to a purer and better-developed stock. The four eastern counties 

 of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex stand even higher than 

 the southern, with a ratio of 1 in 22,000. It is interesting to note 

 that Suffolk is the county of famous women, producing Agnes 

 Strickland, Jean Ingelow, Miss Edwards, and others. In the north- 

 ern counties the statistics do not bear out their reputation for saga- 

 city, making only i in 43,000 celebrated. 



" All English results for the larger divisions of the country are 

 put in the shade by the lowlands of Scotland, where 1,800,000 peo- 

 ple yield 97 celebrities, or i in 18,500. These figures put that por- 

 tion of Scotland which lies between the Forth and Clyde on the 

 north, and the English border, in the proud position of having 

 reared a larger number of famous men m the later Victorian era 

 than any other stretch of country of equal size." " The single town 

 of Edinburgh has produced no less than 46 worthies, which, when 

 compared with the population, gives an average of i in 5,500, nearly 

 three times as high as that of London." The north of Scotland fur- 

 nishes 31 names, in which the Aberdeenshire district ranks best. 



The following table for Ireland shows that Dublin can well hold 

 its own with any English city in its contribution to English wor- 

 thies : — 



The remaining Londoners include 20 theologians, 12 medical 



In reviewing these results. Dr. Doyle notices, that, if a line be 

 drawn through the centre of Lincolnshire, the poetry of the nation 

 will be found on the south of it. The list includes Tennyson, Swin- 

 burne, Browning, William Morris, Matthew Arnold, Sir Edwin 

 Arnold, Gosse, and a host of lesser lights ; while the few above 

 this line are readily counted. " It may be generally stated, that, 

 with a few notable exceptions, music, poetry, and art reach their 

 highest development in the sotith, while theology, science, and en- 

 gineering predominate in higher altitudes." Again : the towns 

 have a greater intellectual activity than the country, and the agri- 

 cultural districts are usually richer in great men than manufactur- 

 ing or mining districts. 



Speech and Music in Disease. — In those strange mental 

 disorders in which one of the factors of speech is lost, it is a general 

 law that the most recently organized function, the one representing 

 the higher stages of civilization and education, is the one first to be 

 affected. A German alienist {Neurologisches Centralblatt, Sept. 

 15) has recently described cases admirably illustrating the truth of 

 this generalization. Expression by gesture, without the use of sym- 

 bolic words, is a more primitive form of expression than is regu- 

 lated speech. Similarly the expression of emotional states by mere 

 sound, by music, is an earlier acquisition than speech. In 16 cases 

 of aphasia, 1 1 showed marked inability to express their thoughts by 

 the ordinary vocal articulation. The defect was not a loss of intelli- 

 gence or a paralysis, but the association between the ideas and the 

 feeling of the vocal mechanism when uttering the sounds expressing 

 such ideas is lost. In these eleven cases the power of singing arid 

 understanding melodies was retained. These patients, too, retained 

 the gesture-language and full powers of emotional expression. 

 They could automatically repeat what was spoken to them just as 

 well when this made sense as when it did not. In the other five 



