432 



FOREST AND tfTMAM. 



Trns Tennessee " Man-Pish." — Dr. L. P. 

 Yandell was among the. medical men who 

 took a look at the mac-fish of Mr. Whallen, 

 mentioned some time since in the Courier 

 Journal. He gives in the Medical News the 

 following interesting statement in regard to 

 the wonder : 



A short time since the Tennessee and Ken- 

 tucky newspapers contained a startling ac- 

 count of a wild man lately captured, with 

 great difficulty, in the Cumberland Moun- 

 tains. He was six feet ten inches high, ex- 

 traordinarily fleet of foot and excessively 

 savage. Ho fed chiefly on raw fish, which he 

 captured without artificial aid. He spent 

 much of his time in the water, and after being 

 captured he had to be frequently bathed. He 

 was covered with shining scales, like those of 

 a fish. His hands and feet were webbed like 

 the feet of water-fowls — so the newspaper 

 accounts, with many embellishments, ran. 

 It is scarcely necessary to say that most of 

 this story was only showman's talk, uttered 

 to attract the attention of the curious and 

 credulous public. 



The physicians of Louisville were invited 

 to visit the monster upon his arrival in the 

 city prior to his general exhibition. Among 

 others I visited the merman ; but before see- 

 ing the case I had diagnosed it as one of 

 ichthyosis, and a single glance was sufficient to 

 verify the correctness of my conjecture. The 

 man-fish presents a most magnificent example 

 of the form of icthyosis, or fish-skin disease, 

 called ichthyosis serpentina, or serpent skin ; 

 and his general effect is more that of a ser- 

 pent than of a fish. But upon different parts 

 of his body may be found nearly all the vari- 

 ties of icthyosis. The resemblance of this 

 man's skin to the shed skin of a boa-con- 

 stricter lately brought from the Zoological 

 Garden in London is almost perfect. About 

 his joints the skin is loose and wrinkled, 

 hanging in folds, and the scales are large, 

 suggesting the skin of a lizard or alligator 

 about their limbs and belly. His arms and 

 legs remind one of the skin of the buffalo 

 perch, the carp, or other large fish. The 

 cuticle everywhere is dry and harsh, and 

 never perspires. There seems to be an abso- 

 lute absence of fat, and the man is shrunken 

 and withered, of dead ashen-gray appearance, 

 except here and there, where he is brownish 

 or blackish. Though on.y about fifty years 

 of age, he impresses one as a very old man. 

 The skin of the face is red and shining, and 

 tightly drawn about the cheeks, pulling the 

 lower eye-lids down to such an extent as to per- 

 fectly evert them, making a horrible case of 

 ectropion. In some cases his scales are sil- 

 very, in others dark, and again in others 

 small and brinny. His hair is thin and dead- 

 looking. The backs of his hands are fissured, 

 and on his palms and soles the cuticle is 

 greatly thickened. The fingers and toes seem 

 shorter than natural, and the skin is drawn 

 tightly back over both feet and hands. The 

 septum between the fingers and toes seems to 

 extend much farther down than usual, thus 

 suggesting the webbed appearance before al- 

 luded to. He is considerably over six feet in 

 height, and a man of a low order of intelli- 

 gence. He is married and is the father of 

 several children, none of whom, fortunately, 

 inherit his malady, and as ichthyosis is almost 

 if not always a congenital disease, they are 

 not likely ever to have it. The fish-man fails 

 to present but a single variety of icthyosis, 

 and that is the porcupine disease, as it is 

 called. In this spines, formed by hardened 

 sebacceous material, protrude from the skin, 

 closely packed together. Wilson states that 

 he has observed them a quarter of an inch 

 long. Willan reports having encountered 

 them of an inch in length. I have never seen 

 them louger than an eighth of an inch. Many 

 years ago two brothers in England having 

 this form of ichthyosis were exhibited in the 

 show as porcupine-men. 



Icthyosis is one of the rarest of skin dis- 

 eases. ' I am under the impression that it is 

 more frequent in Europe than in thiscountry. 

 In ten years I have seen less than a dozen 

 cases. Its cause, as I stated in my report to 

 the American Dermatological Association, in 

 1877, is scrofula, according to my observation 

 and experience. It is found in all the walks 

 of life, I have encountered it with equal fre- 

 quency among the -ich and the poor. It is 

 commonly considered incurable, and only 

 temporarily and partially mitigable. — Louis- 

 ville Courier-Journal 



Qurebly Put Togetheb.— A novel exhi- 

 bition in anatomy was given yesterday after- 

 noon to the students of Rush Medical College. 

 At 4 o'clock the large amphitheatre lecture- 

 room was filled with fledged and unfledged 

 doctors, and in the arena stood Charles War- 

 ren, a man of about thirty years of age, of 

 athletic appearance, and apparently jointed 

 thB same as ordinary mortals. But he soon 

 showed that he differed from most men in his 

 make-up, for there was hardly a joint in his 

 whole body that he could not throw out of 

 place, or at least give that appearance. He 

 went through with his distortions, much to 

 the amazement as well as the amusement of 

 all. He commenced by giving a circulatory 

 movement to the scapulae, moving either one 

 or both at a time, and without any apparent 

 motion of the shoulders. He then threw the 

 humerus into the axilo, disjointed his elbow, 

 wrist and phalanges. This was done merely 

 by the contraction of the muscles of the arm, 

 and not by the pulling of one member by 

 another. In none of his feats was there any- 



such wrench of one joint from another. 

 Without touching any part of his body with 

 his hands, the joints would move out of posi- 

 tion. He. forced the femur from the thigh 

 bone. This he could do while standing on 

 one or both feet or while reclining. The dis- 

 location caused an apparent shortening of the 

 limb. Another striking feat was the turning 

 of his feet so that he could touch the bottom 

 of them while his legs were perfectly straight. 

 Perhaps the most remarkable of all his pow- 

 ers was the wonderful expansibility of his 

 chest. Medical works, upon the strength of 

 examinations of thousands of men in the 

 army and navy, generally give five inches as 

 the maximum of expansion. The exhibitor 

 could expand his from nine to twelve inches. 

 Those who did not take much interest in 

 other performances were wonder-struck at 

 this. This feat was performed by the re- 

 markable degree of the compressibility of the 

 chest and his power to force his heart and 

 lungs into the abdominal cavitj', and then of 

 the power to force his viscera into his chest. 

 The abdomen was hardly less curious when 

 the viscera was forced upward by the dia- 

 phragm than was the inflated chest. At such 

 time there seemed to be an entire absence of 

 organs in that part of the body, and to be no 

 distance at all from the front walls of the ab- 

 domen to the spinal column. 



This .subject proved a fine study in the 

 anatomy of the muscles, because he could 

 contract them so as to show the position of 

 each one from origin to insertion. He had 

 this power over the muscles in pairs or separ- 

 ately, and could make them as distinct as if 

 dissected. 



Mr. Warren concluded with an exhibition 

 of his ability to contort his whole body, draw- 

 ing himself through rings and performing 

 other things, much to the amusement of the 

 students and the professors if they had only 

 felt at liberty to give way to laughter. Mr. 

 Warren has a daughter who takes after him- 

 self, and can dislocate her joints with such 

 ease that they sound like rattles. — Chicago 

 Journal. 



Dispbesal of Bbeds. — In relation to the 

 means, both natural and artificial, for the dis- 

 persal of seeds, Professor Grant Mien gives 

 the following in the Popular Science Month- 

 ly: — " The thistle, the dandelion and the cot- 

 ton bush provide their seeds with long tufts 

 of light hair, thin and airy as gossamer, by 

 which they are carried on the wings of the 

 wind to bare spaces, away from the shadow 

 of their plant, where they may root them- 

 selves successfully in the vacant soil. The 

 maple, the ash and the pine supply their em- 

 bryos with flattened wings, which serve them 

 in like manner not less effectually. Both 

 these we may classify as wind dispersed 

 seeds. A second set of plants have seed ves- 

 sels which burst open explosively when ripe, 

 and scatter their contents to a considerable 

 distance. The balsam forms the commonest 

 example in our European gardens ; but a well 

 known tropical tree, the sand box, displays 

 the same peculiarity in a form which is most 

 alarming, as its hard, dry capsules fly apart 

 with the report of a pistol and drive out the 

 disk shaped nuts within so forcibly as to 

 make a blow on the cheek decidedly unpleas- 

 ant. These we may designate as self-dis- 

 persed seeds. Yet a third class may be con- 

 veniently described as animal dispersed, 

 divisible once more into two sub-classes — the 

 involuntary and the voluntarily aided. Of 

 the former kind we have examples in those 

 seeds which, like burs and cleavers, are 

 covered with little hooks, by which they at- 

 tach themselves to the fur or wool of passers- 

 by. The latter, or voluntarily aided sort, are 

 exemplified in fruits proper, the subject of 

 our present investigation, such as , apples, 

 plums, peaches, cherries, baw^ and bramble 

 berries. Every one of these plants are pro- 

 vided with hard and indigestible seeds, coated 

 or surrounded by a soft, sweet, pulpy, per- 

 fumed, bright colored and nutritious cover- 

 ing known as fruit. By all these means the 

 plant allures birds or mammals to swallow 

 and disperse its undigested seed, giving in as 

 it were the pulpy covering as a reward to the 

 animal for the service thus conferred." 



A Dog Star. — The piece was Miss Lina 

 Tetterhorn's sensational drama, "Tina, the 

 Milk Vender," which has been rendered with 

 some success in English. This time it was 

 given in its original German. In the princi- 

 pal scene a large dog is introduced, hauling 

 the milk wagon of Hartina, the heroine of the 

 play. The dog understands English thor- 

 oughly, but, having had only the advantage 

 of ft single rehearsel in German, he became 

 somewhat mixed as to his business, — not un- 

 derstanding the language, and of course mis- 

 taking his cue. When the comedian comes 

 on and says " Hartina, are you heie " it is the 

 dog's cue to stand still until Hartina and her 

 lover embrace and then sing a duet. Then he 

 follows Hartina around the stage with the 

 milk-cart, and so on. On this occasion, when 

 the words " Hartina, bist du hier?" were ut- 

 tered, the dog made a jump for the comedian, 

 who took fright and ran off the stage. The 

 dog followed, barking furiously, and scatter- 

 ing the milk-pails all over the stage. Hartina 

 screamed and took refuge among' the opposite 

 wings. The dog presently reappeared, and 

 spying the prompter seated, in his half -moon 

 in front of the footlights, he made a plunge 

 for him. The prompter dropped his book 



and dived through the trap door . The dog, 

 now thoroughly aroused, went after him, fol- 

 lowed by ike milk-wagon and what was left 

 of the cans. Amid the "yells of the audience 

 an effort was made to rescue the unhappy 

 and affrightened prompter. Seizing the tail- 

 board of the cart, some of the people gave a 

 strong pull, and a pull altogether, when up 

 came the wagon, and then the dog, and fin- 

 ally the prompter— the latter in a helpless 

 condition,with the fangs of the infuriated ani- 

 mal firmly fastened to that part of his gar- 

 ment which was the last to disappear from 

 sight. A muzzle was procured, and the dog 

 was led from the stage, yelping at the 

 prompter, and looking daggers in the direc- 

 tion of the comedian. Order was eventually 

 restored, and the piece proceeded,— St. Paul 

 Globe. 



The Waltzing Cuampiox. — The cbarn- 

 pion8btp-of-America craze is making fearful 

 havoc among all classes in these days. Here 

 is a victim, whose feat is thus told in the 

 New York World : 



William Stiegel stood in Clinton street 

 yesterday and proclaimed himself the "cham- 

 pion American waltzer." A crowd gathered, 

 and he waltzed against time till a policeman 

 carried him off. At the Union Market sta- 

 tion he offered to bet the Sergeant that he 

 could outdance Professor Cartier, the eight- 

 hour man, and laying hold of Doorman Perry 

 danced him round the room. He was in- 

 duced to go into the sitting-room, where he 

 spent four hours dancing to his own whistle 

 and then fell asleep on a chair. He lives at 

 No. 172 Clinton street. 



^Mbmien's §oods. 



Fed by the Ravens. — The California 

 wood pecker's habit of dropping acorns and 

 other nuts into knot-holes and hollow trees as 

 a source of future supply is well known, and 

 an ingenious Napa armer has turned it to 

 good account by knocking out a knot in the 

 side of his barn antl placing a trough under- 

 neath. As the birds drop their acorns in his 

 barn, the hogs seize them, and are thus fat- 

 tened at no expence to himself, 



A Pabrot's Call. — A friend of ours has a 

 mocking-bird and a parrot, which are on very 

 good terms with each other. Occasionally 

 their cages are placed together that they may 

 enjoy a little social intercourse. The parrot 

 will then thrust its poll through the bars and 

 say, "Scratch my head!" whereupon the 

 moclving-bird will peck the parrot's head with 

 its bill with an air of great gravity. 



— An Iowa deacon went into his bam the 

 other evening to milk a cow, and hung the 

 lantern on a peg near the cow's tail. The 

 foundation stones of the barn and some of 

 the cow's bones were found all right next 

 morning, but the deacon has not been heard 

 from.— Boston Post. 



— When a man gets bald in Colorado, they 

 say his head has got above the timber line. 



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Recent examples of Ginori's reproductions 

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Specimens of Capo di Monti ware, Austrian 

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