July i, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



healthy condition, their flesh proves to be tender, juicy beef, but not 

 so firm or so sweet and well flavored as if wholly fed on grain, or 

 even grass. The second-class beef is from animals wholly confined 

 in these large distilleries, fed the greater portion on swill, with 

 plenty of hay, and occasionally a little grain. I might add, that the 

 Northern distiller)' swill is of a superior quality to that which is run into 

 troughs at the various distilleries where it is sold by the hogshead 

 or other particular quantities. These Northern distilleries own both 

 the swill and the cattle, and the quantity of swill made by them is 

 fed up clean. This second class of animals, although they may be 

 fat, produce a softer quality of beef, not so well flavored, but juicy 

 and tender. When they are slaughtered, the flesh will show or 

 produce the peculiar smell attached to this beef. The third class is 

 to be found in some of your neighboring distilleries, where the 

 visitor could almost swear (unless he could see the hay given to the 

 animals) that they had little else to eat than the thin, poor, and 

 sometimes spoiled swill. The beef from the general run of the 

 third class has a very peculiar, unpleasant smell, especially when 

 slaughtered. I have known it so disagreeable as to create nausea, 

 especially on opening the animal to take away the paunch or belly : 

 this and some other parts I have sometimes opened to discover 

 some signs of hay, and in some instances found none. This class 

 of beef retains that smell, especially when cutting it up fresh into 

 pieces, and also when cooking it. It is usually flabby or soft, and 

 often appears adhesive or sticky, like very young veal that had not 

 yet lost nature's first flesh. My conclusions and convictions were 

 made up long before this subject was so strongly agitated, both as 

 to the meat and milk of the distiller)f-fed cow, ^vhich I have con- 

 sidered under the third class ; and these conclusions are that neither 

 the milk nor the flesh of these animals can furnish healthy human 

 food." The committee, in summarizing its labors, says that the 

 beef produced from the animals fed in the distillery stables is un- 

 savory, and easily recognized by its offensive odor ; that the odor is 

 not dissipated even by the process of cooking ; and that the fibre is 

 fiaccid, and its cellular tissue is infiltrated with watery fluids in- 

 stead of solid fat. The milk of these cows does not exhibit the 

 characteristics of wholesome milk : it presents almost invariably an 

 acid re-action. The cases collected by Dr. Percy demonstrate the 

 fact, independent of any chemical examination or any a priori 

 reasoning, that the milk procured from these swill-fed animals is 

 injurious to those who use it. In view of the disclosures made, the 

 committee states that it is evident that the traffic in the milk of 

 swill-fed cows is one which is detrimental to the health of the com- 

 munity, and should be discontinued. 



' Sanitary Control of the Food-Supply.' By W. K. Newton, M.D., 

 health officer of Paterson, N.J. {Third Annual Report of 

 the State Board of Health of New Hampshire^ 



Distillery waste, and sometimes beer-grains, produce a quality of 

 milk of low nutritive powers, and dangerous to infants. 



References are also made to the following authorities : ' Milch- 

 Cows and Dairy-Farming,' by C. L. Flint (Boston, 1874 and 1887) ; 

 ' Infant Mortality,' by E. Jarvis {Fourth Annual Report of State 

 Board of Health of Massachusetts) ; and ' Milk,' by C. F. Chand- 

 ler {fohnson's Cyclopsdid). 



[To be continued,'] 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 



Preliminary Report of the Commission appointed by the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania to investigate Modern Spiritualism 

 in accordance with the Request of the late Henry Seybert. 

 Philadelphia, Lippincott. 12°. 

 That peculiar medley of alleged fact and fanciful theory, of 

 Occidental pseudo-science and Oriental mysticism, which goes by 

 the name of ' Modern Spiritualism,' has been examined more or less 

 frequently, publicly and ably. The advocates of the tenets which 

 this belief imposes have given little attention to the adverse opin- 

 ions, explaining them away by a piece of logic which would be 

 admirable did it not need such frequent modification, and were it 

 not so evidently manufactured for the purpose, and have vaunted 

 and gloried over all their successful efforts, large and small, in 

 securing proselytes. The commission, whose long-expected report 



is now before the public, is most favorably constituted for receiving- 

 a hearing destined to be called authoritative, and for registering an 

 important turning-point in the rather sad history of the modern, 

 movement. The commission takes its name and its resources 

 from the fund intrusted to the University of Pennsylvania by the 

 will of Henry Seybert, a strong believer in Spiritualism and its 

 physical manifestations. The personnelle of the commission leaves 

 nothing to be desired. Its members originally appointed were Dr. 

 William Pepper, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, Profs. 

 Joseph Leidy, George A. Koenig, Robert Ellis Thompson, and 

 George S. FuUerton, all of the same university, and the eminent 

 Shakspearian Dr. Horace Howard Furness. To these were after- 

 ward added Mr. Coleman Sellers, Drs. J. W. White, C. B. Knerr, 

 and S. Weir Mitchell. The members individually expressed entire 

 freedom from all prejudices against the subject, and readiness to 

 accept any conclusion warranted by facts ; Dr. Furness, more- 

 over, confessed to a leaning in favor of the doctrine. 



The method of work of the commission was to take a definite 

 subject for investigation, invite both professional and non-professional 

 mediums (had they been able to procure them) claiming the power 

 of presenting the desired manifestations, and to meet them under 

 fair conditions. The mediums were often exorbitant in their 

 charges (asking a hundred dollars from the commission for what 

 they would do for five for a private citizen), and arbitrary in their 

 conditions. Nevertheless the commission has seen enough to tell 

 a very important and a very interesting story. 



They first looked about for a ' professional independent slate- 

 writing medium.' This medium was to take a double slate firmly 

 fastened together, with a bit of slate-pencil placed between, and 

 produce writing on the previously blank slate, professedly the work 

 of spirits in answer to questions addressed to them. Their first 

 medium (a Mrs. Patterson) kept them waiting one hour and a half,, 

 and on another occasion one hour and twenty minutes ; but the 

 slates remained as clean as at first. Their next medium was the 

 famous Dr. Henry Slade, with whom they had several sessions, all 

 with the object of obtaining the slate-writing under conditions 

 varying in detail, but not in principle, from that above described. 

 Dr. Slade has two methods : for the long, clearly written messages, 

 he substitutes at a favorable moment a prepared slate for the one 

 given him ; for the short, hardly legible messages, he in one way or 

 another writes on the slate while hidden from view of the two or 

 three observers (he allows no more) seated with him. Every par- 

 ticular of the process has at one time or another been seen by the 

 committee. In fact, on the day when Dr. Slade received three 

 hundred doUlars in payment for his services, he was so excited that 

 he could hardly sign the receipt ; and the cause of this excitement 

 was simply that shortly before. Dr. Furness had kicked over a 

 slate placed at the foot of the table, and thus exposed the prepared 

 writing upon it. In short, their verdict with regard to the doings of 

 this their most famous medium is, " that the character of those which 

 passed under our observation was fraudulent throughout. There 

 was really no need of any elaborate method of investigation : close 

 observation was all that was required." 



Next with regard to rappings. Their preliminary conclusion 

 reads that " the theory of the purely physiological origin of the 

 sounds has been sustained by the fact that the mediums were in- 

 variably and confessedly cognizant of the rappings whenever they 

 occurred, and could at once detect any spurious rappings, however 

 exact and indistinguishable to all other ears might be the im- 

 itation." 



The commission attempted to procure some ' spirit photographs,' 

 but were asked three hundred dollars for this luxury, and were to 

 be excluded from the room at the critical moment. They very 

 properly refused any such terms. 



The brother of the would-be photographer (Keeler is the family 

 name) is also a medium. His specialty is to ' materialize ' a right 

 hand when apparently holding his neighbor's wrist with both his 

 hands, and have this hand perform the usual simple tricks with the 

 musical instruments, etc. The trick was afterwards repeated by 

 one of the commission, and consists in really holding the wrist with 

 one hand only, but producing the feeling in the owner of the wrist of 

 its being clasped by both. The right hand is then free to do all the 

 hocus-pocus. 



