88 



NATTJKAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



or mined and sold each year to 

 ignorant believers in their efficacy. 

 The truth is, this vaunted Oriental 

 trash is probably no better than 

 the stuff sold for mad-stones in 

 America, or any other country, 

 but the fakirs of the Eastern coun- 

 tries are very smooth and have 

 gained much credit, whether de- 

 servedly or dishonestly, you are 

 left to judge. Let us suppose a 

 case: 



A common tourist sees a man 

 bitten, or more likely sees the man 

 after he is bitten. He may not 

 have seen the snake, and if he does 

 he does not know the species and 

 whether it is a noxious kind or not. 

 The natives may not know them- 

 , selves whether the snake is poison- 

 ous, but in a country like India 

 where there are so many deadly 

 species, nearly all snakes are con- 

 sidered poisonous. The tourist is 

 at least told that the snake was 

 one of the most deadly kind. He 

 sees the mad-stone applied, fall off, 

 and the man recover. Then that 

 tourist marvels much, and writes 

 up a great lingo to the English 

 and American papers of the mar- 

 velous powers of the Oriental Mad- 

 stone. 



The facts are about like this. 

 Assertions if you wish to call them 

 so. for I only claim and cannot 

 prove. If a large Cobra di capello 

 or a full-sized Diamond Rattler 

 sticks his half inch fangs into the 

 meaty part of one's calf or thigh, 

 and injects the poison into the 

 wound, then all the snake-stones 

 or suction pumps in the world are 

 of little avail. 



If I might suggest it, the best 

 means of combating an accident 

 of this nature would be to cord the 

 limb, if possible, above the wound 

 and then have continued suction 

 applied by the mouth. While 

 your companion is performing these 

 necessary acts, you should drink 

 copious draughts of whiskey. If 

 youhave no companion or whiskey, 

 write a note to your friends, say 

 your prayers and pass in your checks. 



About ten years ago some one 

 in Virginia advertised first-class 

 mad-stones; warranted to cure any- 

 thing from a flea bite to a case of 

 hydrophobia in no time. The 

 prices ranged from £5 to $100, ac- 

 cording to size, and as I was rath- 

 er skeptical it was not thought 

 best to invest too heavily. So I 

 corresponded and at last secured a 

 $10 chunk of yellowish-red porous 

 light-weight stone, of irregular 

 shape, for $2 in exchange. Busi- 

 ness was not very good for that 

 dealer and so you see I beat him 



down, which is not according to 

 my usual custom. But it is well 

 no more was invested, and I am 

 not at all sure but that if too much 

 eagerness was not shown I might 

 have secured a $100 chunk for 50 

 cents. 



On my first trip to Florida the 

 stone accompanied me, and I was 

 constantly on the lookout for some- 

 one who was bitten. Of course 

 the wish was not expressed that 

 some one should luckily be struck 

 by a rattler. Still I felt much like 

 the good little Sunday-school boy 

 who goes to see the balloon ascen- 

 sion and legalized criminal parachute 

 drop, and "kind o' hopes sumthin 

 exciting will happen." But it nev- 

 er happened when I was about. 

 In truth the small boys as well as 

 men run about in woods and scrub 

 more freely than they do at the 

 North. 



So the mad-stone (clay) was ap- 

 plied to flea-bites, mosquito bumps 

 and sand-fly punctures, and it may 

 be stated that if one had enough 

 of mad-stones to fit the parts affect- 

 ed, and friends to apply them, why 

 the scheme worked well. The 

 trouble was, that while one was 

 working on one damaged spot, ten 

 other insects would attack other 

 portions of uncovered cuticle. 

 This is difficult to believe by some, 

 but those who have visited certain 

 portions south of the 27th parallel 

 will acknowledge the accuracy of 

 the assertion. So I re-attired my- 

 self in my covering of thick netting 

 and kept the "pesky varments" off 

 with a palm leaf. 



In the case of a bee-sting the 

 stone was undoubtedly beneficial, 

 and as well with hornet stings, but 

 the effect was not nearly so quick 

 or thorough as in the results ob- 

 tained from the soft clay mixed 

 with water and applied as every 

 boy knows how. So I gave my 

 stone to a native who firmly be- 

 lieves in the sartin deadly natur of 

 every snaik, and I doubt not that 

 he has saved dozens of lives with 

 it; that is acccording to his story. 



Of course the name mad-stone 

 is given to these supposed preser- 

 vers because they are believed to 

 remove the virus from the wound 

 made by rabid dog's bite. As a 

 matter of fact, it is much more 

 difficult to combat the effects of a 

 rabid dog's bite, than to treat the 

 wound made by a poisonous snake. 

 Many a case of poisoning by snakes 

 has been saved by judicious treat- 

 ment, and not rarely one quickly 

 recovers without treatment of any 

 kind. But no authenticated case 

 of developed hydrophobia has ever 



been successfully treated and sav- 

 ed that I can learn of. The poison 

 in dog bite is much slower to act, 

 and its presence is not known for 

 from a few days or weeks to over 

 a year. 



Considering the great number of 

 dog bites that are harmless, and 

 the gullability of those who are 

 bitten, and their readiness to be- 

 lieve in any cure-all, it is easy to 

 understand how mad-stones readi- 

 ly become prized articles in most 

 any neighborhood. When my 

 readers are informed that out of 

 20,000 dog bites,not one will prob- 

 ably prove fatal from virus, it can 

 be readily understood that hydro- 

 phobia is a rare disease in man. 



Still in a neigborhood where 

 there was a mad-dog scare, a man 

 with a lot of mad-stones could 

 make a barrel of money in quick 

 order by playing on the credulity 

 of the citizens. 



Morris Gibbs, 

 Kalamazoo. 



Relic 3 of the Great Auk. 



At Steven's salesrooms yesterday the 

 skin of a Great Auk. a bird believed to 

 be extinct, was offered from the col- 

 lection of Sir Frederick Milner, M. P. 

 The specimen in question is believed to 

 have come either from the Orkneys or 

 from the coast of Ireland, and is guar- 

 anteed genuine to a feather. Ihere 

 are about eighty known skins, and only 

 twenty^four of these are in Great 

 Britain^ ten being in museums and 

 fourteen in private hands. The bid- 

 ding started at 100 guineas, and slow- 

 ly rose to 350 guineas. As, however, 

 the reserve price was not reached, the 

 specimen did not change hands. It is 

 believed the bird will eventually go to 

 one of our museums. At the same 

 sale an egg of the Great Auk was offer- 

 ed. Other specimens have fetched as 

 much as 300 and 260 guineas, but that 

 in the market yesterday, though the 

 bidding started at 100 guineas, _ only 

 reached 180 guineas, at which price it 

 was bought for a private museum in 

 the neighborhood of Regent's Park. — 

 London Times. 



Mr. A. E.Colburn, Taxidermist, 

 of Washington, D.C. recently pur- 

 chased an American Otter in the 

 meat. The Otter was taken in 

 Anacostia River or Eastern Branch 

 of the Potomac, within sight of 

 the National Capitol. 



The copyrights on the books of 

 Prof. Asa Gray, the celebrated bot- 

 anist, yielded $3,067.44 last year, 

 and the popularity of his works as 

 text-books and general authorities 

 seems to have increased steadily 

 since his death several years ago. 



