366 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



complaining that men of science or the medical profes- 

 sion neglect their duty to the public and refuse to 

 examine the wonderful cure. In all these cases the 

 cure is either a drug which is perfectly well known and 

 practically worthless for the treatment of the ■disease for 

 which it is recommended, or — as in the case of the 

 celebrated " blue electricity " and " red electricity " (non- 

 sensical names in themselves) sold by an Italian swindler 

 as a cure for cancer and patronized by aristocratic 

 ladies and the late Mr. Stead — is found to be absolutely 

 non-existent. In this last case the liquid sold in little 

 bottles at a high price was nothing but plain water ! A 

 more respectable case was the advocacy a few weeks 

 ago by a correspondent in a morning paper of a common 

 African plant (a kind of basil) as a sure destructive or 

 warder-off of mosquitoes when grown near human habita- 

 tions, and therefore a protective against malaria. Nothing 

 could have been more emphatic than the declaration of 

 the value of this plant by its advocate. But a few days 

 afterwards a letter appeared from a scientific man, giving 

 an account of careful and varied experiments, already 

 made and published, which show that this basil, although 

 containing in its leaves " thymol," as do some other 

 aromatic herbs, yet neither when grown in quantity nor 

 when crushed and spread out in a room has any effect 

 whatever in checking the access of mosquitoes and other 

 flies ! In this case, the reputed medical marvel was to 

 hand : it was dealt with, tested, and, as they say in the 

 old register of the Royal Society, " was found faulty." 



