JU.VE 15, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



283 



■" The general remark may be made with regard to the Ojibwa 

 in the several localities where they are now found with the least 

 amount of civilized influence, that they in a marked degree live a 

 life of religious practices, and that their shamanistic societies have 

 a wonderful influence over their sociologic and religious character. 

 This is to so great an extent (before not appreciated), that, in my 

 opinion, a careful study of these people will develop facts corre- 

 sponding in interest with those which have recently surprised the 

 world as reported by Mr. Gushing among the Zufii. There is 

 probably no body of Indians in the United States whose inner life 

 can now be studied to greater advantage than the remoter bands 

 of the Ojibwa. With reference to the subject with which this 

 paper is more directly concerned, that is, pictographs in their vari- 

 ous modes of representation, it is certain that the understanding of 

 the mythology and religion of these people will furnish the best 

 interpretation to their ancient drawings and etchings. 



" It is desirable to explain the mode of using the Mede and other 

 bark records of the Ojibwa. The devices are not only mnemonic, 

 but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely in- 

 vented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved there- 

 from. A general mode of explaining the so-called ' symbolism ' is 

 by a suggestion that the charts of the order, or the song of a myth, 

 should be likened to the popular illustrated poems and songs lately 

 published in Harper s Magazine ; for instance, ' Sally in our Alley," 

 where every stanza has an appropriate illustration. Now, suppose 

 that the text was obliterated forever, — indeed, the art of reading lost, 

 — the illustrations remaining, as also the memory to many persons 

 of the ballad : the illustrations, kept in order, would supply always 

 the order of the stanzas, and also the general subject-matter of each 

 particular stanza, and the latter would be a reminder of the words. 

 This is what the rolls of birch-bark do to the initiated Ojibwa, and 

 what Schoolcraft pretended, in some cases, to show, but what, for 

 actual understanding, requires the obtaining of the literation of the 

 actual songs and charges of the initiation ceremonies, or in other 

 instances the literation in the aboriginal language of the non-eso- 

 teric songs and stories." 



Yellow-Fever in Florida. 



Dr. Jerome Cochran, of the State Board of Health of Alabama, 

 in a recent report has stated that the late epidemic of yellow-fever 

 in Florida was not introduced into the State by the usual trade 

 channels, but by smugglers. This confirms unofficial statements 

 received by Supervising Surgeon-General Hamilton, of the marine- 

 hospital service, several weeks ago. Dr. Cochran says that the 

 last case was discharged May ir, and the last death May 8, and 

 that there have been active precautions taken to prevent the re- 

 appearance of the disease. 



Interesting Phenomenon. 



Captain Friis, of the Norwegian steamship ' Viking,' reports to 

 the Hydrographic Office that he observed at midnight, April 20, 

 between Chatham and Davis South Shoal, when the moon was in 

 its last quarter and about two hours above the horizon, two dark- 

 looking narrow strata of clouds ; the upper one extending across 

 the face of the moon, the upper and lower limbs of the latter ap- 

 pearing above and below the cloud-stratum. The cloud was mov- 

 ing south-westerly. On the same line with the moon, and to the 

 westward of it, was a nearly circular luminous spot, larger than the 

 moon, which looked as the sun might when shining through a thick 

 mist. The second stratum of cloud was about halfway between 

 the first and the horizon. The phenomenon continued until the 

 moon set at two o'clock, when there shot upwards from the upper 

 limb fan-shaped rays of light. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 Yellow-Fever. 



In a recent number of the Medical Record is published a letter 

 from Dr. Charles Finlay of Havana, dated April 17, 1888, in which 

 he says, — 



" In your issue of April 7 there is a short paragraph stating that 

 the microbe of yellow-fever described and cultivated by Dr. Do- 



mingos Freire of Rio Janeiro ' has gone the way of many other 

 specific germs,' your grounds for this assertion being that Dr. 

 Gibier ' denies utterly the existence of the germ claimed to be spe- 

 cific' This conclusion has evidently been come I0 under the im- 

 pression that the Parisian bacteriologist just mentioned has had 

 full opportunities for verifying in Havana, within the brief space of 

 six weeks, the results previously obtained in Brazil by Dr. Freire, 

 in such a manner as to warrant his abrupt denial of what he had so 

 warmly approved while experimenting in Paris upon Dr. Freire's 

 Brazilian cultures. That such has not been the case, I think you 

 will admit after hearing the particulars of that investigation. 



" Dr. Gibier saw his first yellow- fever case on Nov. 16, at the 

 military hospital of this city. Between that date and Dec. 28, he 

 examined altogether five patients, and performed four autopsies. 

 He collected fresh blood from four of the patients, and urine from 

 three, besides the pieces of viscera and secretions from the cadav- 

 ers. In the urine of the first patient he thought at first that he 

 had recognized Dr. Freire's micrococcus, but afterward changed 

 his mind, having ' satisfied himself ' that what he had seen were 

 mere insignificant organic granulations. In the blood and secre- 

 tions, as also in the sections of viscera, he failed to discover any 

 micro-organisms, nor did he succeed in developing any colonies in 

 his numerous attempts with the same pathological material. One 

 of the tubes of agar-agar jelly inoculated by him with heart- 

 blood, and presented to a military colleague, did, however, develop 

 a yellow superficial colony, which Dr. Gibier attributed to an acci- 

 dental atmospheric contamination, although the constituents of the 

 colony turned out to be a tetragenous microbe quite distinct from 

 the plain atmospheric micrococcus with which he had thought it 

 could be identified. 



"This scanty material, collected at a time when yellow-fever was 

 sporadic in Havana, almost the only cases signalled being those 

 present at the military hospital, constitutes the sole foundation for 

 the abrupt retractation of Dr. Gibier from his former enthusiastic 

 advocacy of Dr. Freire's views ; never considering that the sporadic 

 and epidemic forms of the disease might not be identical, any more 

 than the equivalent forms of cholera have turned out to be, not- 

 withstanding their clinical resemblance. Other observers had pre- 

 viously noticed that the same yellow-fever products which, in their 

 hands, had given colonies when collected from epidemic cases, 

 failed to do so with the sporadic. In collecting blood from yellow- 

 fever patients, Dr. Gibier was noticed to disinfect the skin with 

 bichloride solution, but took no pains to remove any excess of the 

 germicide which might remain and sterilize the drop of blood as it 

 would ooze out on the surface. Neither does it appear that he 

 varied his culture-media as to acidity, alkalinity, etc., nor that he 

 kept his tubes at a uniform summer temperature. Yet, in spite of 

 such obvious deficiencies, Dr. Gibier does not hesitate to condemn 

 as erroneous the results of Dr. Freire's patient and laborious inves- 

 tigations, and likewise all others that might claim to have obtained 

 successful cultures from similar yellow-fever products. 



"Dr. Gibier had brought over some cultures proceeding from 

 Dr. Freire's own tubes, inoculated at Rio Janeiro ; and shortly after 

 his arrival in Havana, full of faith in their prophylactic virtue, he 

 inoculated himself, and thought he had gone through the phenom- 

 ena of an experimental attack of yellow-fever. In this, I fancied at 

 the time, and he now acknowledges, that he was mistaken ; but 

 after examining my own cultures from yellow-fever blood and urine, 

 obtained by me last summer in Havana, and cultivated in sub-acid 

 agar-agar jelly, he has repeatedly declared that both macroscopi- 

 cally and microscopically they were identical to Dr. Freire's. This 

 coincidence, one would think, should have checked his precipitancy, 

 and induced him, at any rate, to wait until the epidemic season be- 

 fore formulating his conclusions. 



" The only excuse, if so it can be called, for such haste in a prac- 

 tised bacteriologist, must lie in his unacquaintance with the disease, 

 and in his anxiety to proclaim a new bacillus of his own, isolated 

 from the intestinal contents of yellow-fever cadavers, and which he 

 .believes better entitled than its fellow claimants to be considered 

 as the true yellow-fever germ. 



" My object in bringing forward these facts is to guard the 

 American medical public against hasty deductions, and to show 

 that Dr. Gibier's researches have not in any way altered the previ- 



