246 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 250 



of a people. Although this connection is not that ' harmony ' from 

 which conclusions have been made from the development in one 

 region upon a similar development in another, it exists, influenced 

 by numerous conditions, — climate, nature of the land, mental de- 

 velopment, intercourse with adjacent countries, etc., — and it is 

 necessary to convey the idea of such a connection in a museum, 

 the object of which is to throw light upon the origin of a certain 

 stage of civilization. Groups of olijects, severed from their ethnic 

 environment, may be valuable for the study of industry and tech- 

 nology, but an ethnographical museum cannot be arranged in this 

 way, as objects belonging together from an ethnographical point of 

 view are separated, while others of entirely different origin are 

 united in one group. The other system of arranging museums is 

 the ethnographical one. The system according to which all ob- 

 jects belonging to one tribe are placed together, and the single 

 tribes are joined to ethnic groups according to their affinity, is so 

 simple and natural in itself, that it has been generally accepted. It 

 is a long time since ethnologists have ceased to invent more or less 

 valueless systems of mankind which played an important part in 

 the early history of ethnography. The attempt is being made to 

 construct, by the use of strict inductive methods, the science of 

 ethnology on the foundation of careful researches on single tribes 

 and nations ; and not until this has been done will problems of the 

 mutual relation of tribes be taken up. In this way the foundation 

 is laid for researches on the history of civilization. There is no 

 lack of theories on the material and intellectual development of 

 man, on the progress and decline of primitive nations ; but here, 

 also, the only way to reach satisfactory results is the inductive 

 method ; here also, a vast number of researches is necessary, be- 

 fore it is possible to gain that general point of view which is the 

 ultimate aim of ethnology. In consideration of these facts, the eth- 

 nological arrangement is the only one fit for a museum. It does 

 not give a solution of great problems, it does not give results of 

 doubtful value, but it gives, what must be asked by the descriptive 

 treatment of ethnography, the material arranged in such a way that 

 it may be as easily accessible to students as possible. It is only in 

 this way that the museum is able to illustrate the different states of 

 civilization which occur in a single tribe, and, as the principal 

 groups of nations are kept together, it shows the peculiar de- 

 velopment in each group. All museums of any importance have 

 adopted the ethnographic principle in laying out their plans, but 

 not all have been equally successful in carrying their plans out. 

 There are collections in which incidental arrangements disturb the 

 general plan, and they show that the utmost consistency in adher- 

 ing to the plan is necessary, else the museum will become a mere 

 store-room." Dr. Bahnson further says, that, in carrying out such a 

 plan in a large museum, the ethnological collections of each tribe 

 must be subdivided according to sociological principles. These 

 statements and views of the author are of great weight, as they are 

 based on the study of a great number of collections and of a vast 

 material. He shows plainly that there is no foundation to the al- 

 leged impossibility of arranging ethnological collections on an eth- 

 nological plan, and his idea that such a museum is the only one 

 that can serve for the study of the history of civilization is undoubt- 

 edly correct. 



The Basques. — Chamberlain's view in regard to the connec- 

 tion between the Basques and Americans is in part founded on the 

 alleged similar character of their languages. Many grammatical 

 forms of the Basque consist of a combination of mutilated elements, 

 and it was believed that this process was similar to the synthesis of 

 American languages. Recent researches do not confirm this view. 

 W. J. van Eys, one of the most learned Basque scholars, considers 

 such combinations or contractions as similar to those occurring 

 frequently in the vulgar dialects of Romanic and Teutonic lan- 

 guages. He mentions the Dutch hy't'm, which stands for hebt 

 gy het he7n. Our ' ain't ye ' for ' are you not,' and others, belong 

 to the same class. He ascribes the occurrence of such contractions 

 in literary Basque to the late date at which the literature of this 

 people developed. Gerland, who gives a very clear sketch of the 

 Basque language and its relation to the ancient Iberian in 

 'Grober's Grundriss der romanischen Philologie,' expresses the 

 same opinion, and thus far-reaching conclusions on the connection 

 between Americans and Basques must fall to the ground. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 Cholera and Cold Weather. 



In a recent editorial in the New York Medical Record the state- 

 ment was made that " cholera is always stopped by cold weather, 

 and an epidemic here now would be impossible." In a letter to the 

 editor of that journal. Dr. Reginald H. Sayre of New York takes 

 exception to the statement, and quotes a number of instances to 

 show that cholera is one of those scourges whose march is not 

 stopped by heat or cold, high or low altitude, dryness or dampness, 

 or any other condition of the weather. He says, — 



"In 1830 the cholera appeared in Moscow in the month of Oc- 

 tober, and continued its ravages until the end of December, in spite 

 of the severities of a Russian winter, and caused the death of 8,130 

 persons out of a population of 250.000, or about i in 30. From 

 Moscow it went north to Yarasy, thence to Rybinsk, sixty leagues 

 north of Moscow, where it appeared on March 19, 1831, in spite of 

 the ice and snow which covered the ground. 



"In October, 1831, the cholera appeared in Great Britain, and 

 continued there until March, 1832, doing most of its destruction in 

 December. About one-third of the people affected died. 



" On the 27th of March, 1832, the disease appeared in Paris, and 

 the mortality was so frightful that 861 people died in ten days. 



" In 1848 the emigrant ship ' New York ' left Havre on the 9th 

 of November, having no sickness on board, and no cholera being 

 then in Havre. During the voyage the weather became bitterly 

 cold. There were some German emigrants on board, from a town 

 where cholera had prevailed, who had a trunk which had belonged 

 to a man who had died of cholera. They opened the trunk, took 

 out the clothing, and wore it. On Nov. 22 a child died of cholera, 

 and seven persons in all succumbed to it before reaching New York 

 harbor. They were strictly quarantined, and the disease limited to 

 those who died on Staten Island in the quarantine. 



" About this same time another vessel from Havre, bound for 

 New Orleans, developed the cholera on the twenty-seventh day out, 

 and, owmg to imperfect quarantine regulations, the disease spread 

 rapidly through the town Ibon after the arrival of the vessel, there 

 being then no other cases in the United States except those in the 

 quarantine on Staten Island. From New Orleans the disease trav- 

 elled to Memphis, appearing there toward the end of December, 

 and at St. Louis in the first week of January, 1849. Toward March 

 several places in the Upper Mississippi valley were affected, and 

 then gradually the disease moved east through Chicago, which it 

 reached in May, to New York, which became infected then, and 

 not till then, although the disease had been imported to the city 

 six months previously, but had not been allowed to land ; and the 

 city in this way kept free from infection until the cholera effected a 

 flank movement, by way of New Orleans, and attacked her in the 

 rear, having made its progress in spite of the winter, and having 

 attacked the cities through which it passed in the cold weather. 



" These facts in regard to the prevalence of cholera in spite of 

 cold, and the well-known futility of a quarantine on land, make any 

 attempt to lull the medical profession into a false sense of security 

 fraught with great danger to the country, and I have therefore 

 wished to call attention to the fact that cholera is not stopped by 

 cold, and that to be quarantined effectively it must be arrested in 

 our ports, which can only be done by having a general quarantine 

 under the direction of the Federal Government." 



In answer to this, the editor of the Record says that cholera has 

 never prevailed in New York City in the winter-time, and rarely in 

 any northern latitude save under very peculiar and exceptional cir- 

 cumstances. In support of this view, he quotes from Ernst's ' Ref- 

 erence Handbook of the Medical Sciences,' which states that "the 

 progress of an epidemic is invariably arrested by cold, the winter 

 season having always stopped those of which we have any record." 

 He further says that cholera has frequently been imported into 

 warm New Orleans in the winter-time, notably in 1873, when it 

 commenced in February. But it did not winter over that year, or 

 notably any other year. But constant importations into New Or- 

 leans almost every month of the year during the California gold- 

 fever times sent much cholera to St. Louis and Chicago, and other 

 Western places, almost every month in the year ; so that it seemed 

 to winter over, but, in fact, was kept alive by almost incessant new 

 importations. The effect of cold on the further spread of cholera. 



