THE PHONETIU ARITHMETIC OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS. 
BY DAVID CERNA, M. D., PH. D. 
Demonstrator of Physiology and Lecturer on the History of Medicine in the Med¬ 
ical Department of the University of Texas , etc. 
The value of the forms of speech iu determining the relation and descent of 
nations has been steadily increasing as the correct principles of application have 
been more clearly defined and its positive results recognized. The proper com¬ 
parison of language must be instituted from two directions—the one, the sim¬ 
ilarity of their words, or lexical identity ; the other, the similarity of their form¬ 
ation of sentences, or grammatical structure. — Brinton. 
Not strictly as an original investigation, but as an introduction to the 
subject therein treated of, I offer this paper to the Academy, that Mu view 
of it some of the fellows or members of this scientific body may institute 
further studies in an almost inexhaustible field, particularly those stu¬ 
dents especially interested in philology. 
What a series of striking similarities, indeed, exists betAveen ancient 
western civilization, as exemplified by the Mexicans and the Peruvians, 
and eastern civilization of old, as met with among the various races of 
that part of the world. Could there have been at one time a direct com¬ 
munication between the West and the East, particularly between this 
continent and Asia ? Speaking of the subject with special reference to 
the ancient Mexicans, Chevallier has said: “ It may be conceived that 
Asia, the common mother of all the civilizations of the ancient world, 
had contributed in some part to furnish the elements of Mexican societ}', 
or had at least supplied a contingent to the religious notions and to the 
science of Anahuac nations. Traditions, which come near in various 
points to our Biblical revelations, and which are to be found, sometimes 
with a slight modification, in the religions of Asia, would seem to have 
reached them from thence. * * * At the epoch when China, having 
more vitality than at the present day, felt the need of room—though 
since that its every effort has been for segregation—the spirit of com¬ 
merce and religious propagandism impelled men to track that immense 
causeway of more than three thousand miles long—sometimes submarine, 
and at others making its appearance in archipelagos stretched along the 
surface of the waters—which connects the most beautiful regions of Asia 
with the New World. Two hundred years before the Christian Era, the 
Chinese annals mention the mystical expedition of Tain-Chi-Houang-si, 
[13] 
