of good people; but, alas! the Rappites must soon pass away, as the
Girlingites have expired in England, when Mother Girling could not be
immortal.
A SPIRITUAL TEST OF DEATH.--John R. Fowler, an old steamboat man, who
died at Louisville, in January, 1887, made his wife promise to keep
his body three days to see if he would not recover consciousness. On
the third day after his death, the doctor and coroner pronounced him
dead, but his wife sent for a medium, and through her the deceased
husband stated that he was dead, and the happiness of spirit life was
so great that he had no desire to return, but would wait patiently
until his wife joined him.
The most perfect test of death is by Faradic electricity. As a general
rule, three hours after death, the muscles entirely fail to respond to
the Faradic current. When the muscles cannot be affected, death is
established.
A JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.--The community at large is interested
in a new movement to establish in this city a Jewish theological
seminary. The objects of investigation contemplated by the projected
institution are the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, the part
played by the Jews in ancient, mediaeval, and modern history, and the
influence exerted upon thought and research by Jewish philosophers.
The current knowledge of these subjects is almost wholly derived from
the conclusions and opinions of non-Jewish inquirers, and may
therefore be presumed to be more or less affected by prejudice. A role
of such capital importance in civilization as that of the Hebrew
people ought to be examined from all sides, and the friends of truth
will welcome a systematic study of it from the Hebrew point of
view.--_N. Y. Sun_.
NATIONAL DEATH RATES.--In France, 48 per cent of the deaths are of
persons over fifty years of age; and what is more remarkable, 25 per
cent are of persons over seventy years of age. The French present the
best showing, except, perhaps, the Irish, of any nation as regards
long life. Only about 26 per cent of their deaths are of children
under five years. About 6 per cent only are of persons from five to
twenty years.
No nation of Europe is supposed to be more oblivious of sanitary
science than the Irish, and yet a far greater percentage of the people
of Ireland than of any other people, except the French, live to and
beyond the age of seventy years. Nearly five in 100 of the deaths are
of persons over eighty-five years of age! Only about 35 per cent of
the deaths are of persons under twenty years of age. About 42 per cent
of the deaths are of persons over fifty-five years. One half almost of
the deaths are of persons over forty-five years. In England and Wales
only 33 per cent of the deaths are of persons over forty-five years,
while in the United States only 30 per cent are of persons over forty
years of age.--T. S. Sozinksey, M. D., in _Scientific American_.
RELIGIOUS MEDIAEVALISM IN AMERICA.--Twelve miles from Dubuque, Ia.,
there stands in grim isolation, upon a blackened and desolate prairie,
a monastery of the fifteenth century pattern. Every morning at 2
o'clock the monks who occupy this lugubrious dwelling-place arise from
the hard planks which serve them in lieu of beds, and pray in wooden
stalls, so constructed as to compel them either to stand or kneel.
Their devotions completed, the next duty is for each to go into the
yard and dig a part of his own grave, and when they have it once
completed, they fill it up again, and repeat the operation
indefinitely throughout their lives. They are not permitted to speak
to each other except by special dispensation, which is very rarely
given except at the close of a meal, when each one says to the other
"Memento mori"--remember that you are to die. The system resembles, in
all essential respects, that of the Indian fakirs and other religious
enthusiasts who believe that the only way to please God is to make
one's self as miserable as possible.--_Herald_.
BUDDHISM IN AMERICA.--A high caste Brahmin, Mohini Mohun Chatterjee,
has arrived in the United States at New York, who has been teaching in
England and on the continent. He has the approval of the brotherhood
in Thibet, and has a high intellectual reputation. The JOURNAL will
endeavor to discuss this subject hereafter. Buddhism is much nearer
than Christianity to modern agnosticism, but it embodies fine moral
teaching, and is free from intolerance. Mohini represents, it is said,
"that his visit to this country is simply in the capacity of an agent,
sent by the divine Mahatmas to enlighten a materialistic barbarism
with the spiritual wisdom--religion of the East. He represents a
movement which has for its object the uniting of the East and West in
the acceptance of a universal faith. An attempt was at first made to
interest people in the subject by laying some stress upon the minor
phenomena of occult science. Unfortunately, such wonders attracted
disciples who cared more for thaumaturgy than for doctrine, and these
fell away as soon as they discovered that the object in view was not
the production of marvels. The new world has riches, and the old world
has ideas. It would be to the advantage of both if an exchange could
be effected. The Asiatic philosophers teach that all religions are the
expressions of the Eternal Verity. Life is ephemeral, they say, its
chief value consisting in the opportunities it affords of doing good
and making others happy."
CRANIOLOGY AND CRIME.--The _British Medical Journal_ presents at some
length the results arrived at by Prof. Benedict, in his examination of
the brains of criminals--some sixteen in all. Every one of these, in
comparison with the healthy brain, proved to be abnormal. Not only,
too, has he found that these brains deviate from the normal type, and
approach that of lower animals, but he has been able to classify them,
and with them the skulls in which they were contained, in three
categories.
First, absence of symmetry between the two halves of the brain;
Second, an obliquity of the interior part of the brain or skull--in
fact, a continuation upward of what is usually termed a sloping
forehead; third, a distinct lessening of the posterior cerebral lobes,
so that, as in the lower animals, they are not large enough to hide
the cerebellum. In all these peculiarities, the criminal's brain and
skull are distinctly of a lower type than those of normal men.
That a diminution of the posterior lobes should be recognized as a
mark of inferiority, does not harmonize with the old ideas of
phrenology. Nevertheless, it is true that a good development of the
posterior part of the brain is essential to the superiority of man
over animals.
MORPHIOMANIA IN FRANCE.--In the course of the last few years the
disease which the doctors call morphiomania has made formidable
headway all over France. In the capital its victims almost rival those
of alcoholism. At Bellevue a great hospital has been opened for the
care, and, if possible, for the cure of these patients. The disease in
its present form is necessarily but of recent origin. Morphia itself
was only discovered in the year 1816. The cure of it is very rare. It
is found that both the use and the deprivation of the drug lead the
victims almost inevitably to suicide, and at Bellevue there are
cushioned rooms for some of the patients and a constant watch kept on
all. One is not surprised to hear that the chief sufferers are women.
After women come doctors. Very many Parisian women carry about with
them a small ivory syringe. In this delicate toy is contained morphia,
and it may often be remarked how ladies at convenient opportunities
take out this little trinket and give themselves a prick in the arm or
wrist with it. But ere long these little pricks no longer suffice to
stimulate the nerves of the votaries of the habit--the dose is too
small. Then it is necessary to have recourse to recently established
morphine institutes, where old women, under the name of
"morphineuses," carry on their profession, and give the Parisian dames
pricks in the arm and breast, according to all the rules of the art.
MONTANA BACHELORS.--There are no less than 30,000 bachelors in
Montana, and every single one of them is in need of and anxious to get
a wife, writes a correspondent of the _New York Times_. These
entertaining young fellows and would-be benedicts have no time to go
courting themselves, and so, much of that thing is done by proxy. They
are entirely too busy amassing fortunes, either at sheep herding,
cattle growing, or mining, in which at least fifty per cent of them
are bound to become millionaires sooner or later. There is the
greatest possible need in Montana for young girls and maidens, old
women, and old maids, too, for that matter, each and every one of whom
would fill a long-felt want. Domestics are in high demand. As servant
girls they can command wages here that would give them comfortable
competences in a short time, with very little offered in return. But
the trouble with the girls who come out in this way looking for a job
is that none of them remain in service for any length of time. They
are soon gobbled up by young fellows in search of a wife.
RELIEF FOR CHILDREN.--A very beneficent action is now required by law
in Germany and Switzerland, by which holidays are obligatory in all
public and private schools when the temperature reaches a certain
height. These heat-holidays are called _hitzlenien_, and are worthy of
adoption in other schools. In Basle new regulations have just been
issued concerning heat-holidays. When the temperature rises to
seventy-seven degrees in the shade at ten o'clock in the morning,
holiday is to be proclaimed to the scholars until the afternoon. Two
such holidays were proclaimed during a recent hot week, to the no
small delight of the boys and girls. It would be equally beneficent to
dismiss the schools whenever, for any reason, the temperature of the
schoolroom could not be kept up to sixty-five degrees.
"THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE."--The atrocities of landlordism in Ireland,
evicting the poor in midwinter, tearing down their cabins, and burning
their roofs to drive them out, have excited horror in England, and
sympathy for the Irish.
CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.--The Rev. Mr. Harris has expressed the opinion
that in ten or twenty years Christianity might become the national
religion of Japan, as the heathen temples are going into decay. If it
does, Christianity will be as much benefited by it as the Japanese.
The cast iron theology of the Anglo-Saxon race will not suit the
Japanese. The works of agnostic scientists and liberals have already a
strong hold on the Japanese. The Christianity of the past will have to
be reformed and ameliorated to suit Japan. They will never appreciate
the theology of the Andover creed, which has been versified as follows
by _Puck_:
"There is a place of endless terror
Prepared for those who fall in error,
Where fire and death and torture never
Cease their work, but rule forever;
To this dark cave, for Adam's sin,
Must all his children enter in.
But the all-merciful Creator
Took pity on the fallen traitor,
Prepared a narrow path of pardon
That led to heaven's happy garden;
And, lest mankind prefer to sin,
_Predestined some_ to walk therein.
But millions still in error languish,
Doomed to death and future anguish,
Who ne'er had heard of Adam's sin,
Nor of the peril they are in;
Who know not of the way of pardon,
Nor of the fall in Eden's garden.
"This, my friends, is the Andover creed;
Put it aside for the time of need!
In the hour of grief and sorrow
From it consolation borrow;
When your dearest friends are dying,
Read it to the mourners crying;
Teach it to the tender maiden,
To the man with sorrow laden;
Teach it to the timid child,
Watch its look of horror wild,
Note the half-defiant fear,
Flushing cheek and pitying tear;
Teach it to the broken hearted,
From their loved ones newly parted;
Show them that their pride and beauty--
Type of love and filial duty--
This, their darling, whom they cherished,
Has in hell forever perished,
All because of Adam's folly!
'Twill drive away your melancholy.
A wonderful thing is the Andover creed,
Put it aside for the hour of need!"
THE HELLFIRE BUSINESS.--This expression is homely English, and such
language is best in describing _horrible realities_. The managers of
the American Board (sturdy champions of hell) have been compelled by
public opinion to let Mr. Hume go back to India as a missionary,
though he will not agree to send all the heathen to hell. To keep up
their dignity, however, they represented Mr. Hume as having backed
down, and compelled him to show that he had not. Since passing Mr.
Hume they have refused to allow Mr. Morse to go on the same terms,
because he will not insist on the absolute _certainty_ that the
heathen are all in hell. The _Boston Herald_ says the Board's moral
obliquity is a puzzle to honest people.
REV. SAM JONES AND BOSTON THEOLOGY.--The _Herald_ says: "Brother Sam
Jones and Brother Sam Small do chiefly limit themselves to the simple
things of the gospel, and have less theology to the square inch than
the average of ministers, as Brother Sam Jones would express it. But
they are hardly fitted for this field, we should say."
Perhaps the following extracts from Rev. Samuel's sermons explain his
relations to Boston. Before an audience of 7,500 he said, "There are
100,000 people in twenty different states praying that I may succeed
in arousing Boston to a sense of her moral and spiritual degradation.
"I love to live in the world, but not to be troubled with
creeds. I know I am on dangerous ground here in Boston when I
am on creeds, for a fellow could get up a fight here on that
question quicker than he could on stealing."
"Whiskey is the worst enemy God or man ever had, and the best
friend the devil ever had."
"We have got sentiment enough to put whiskey out of Boston."
"You have enough church members in Boston to vote the whiskey
out of Boston any morning before breakfast."
"It is every preacher's duty to denounce the things of hell
just as much as it is to preach the beauty of Christ."
"I know you denounce drunkenness, but how few pulpits pull out
their dagger and stab it."
"God has not lost his power, but the pulpit has lost its
voice."
"Boston had a fire once, but that does not hurt you half as
much as the fire of damnation that is smouldering in the
hearts of people of this town."
"I don't know what will become of my converts if I leave them
in Boston."
The greatest religious work that has been done in Boston, is that of
Jones and Small. Every hall they occupied was crowded, and at mid-day
in the week they filled Fanueil Hall.
PSYCHOMETRY.--The entire pages of the JOURNAL OF MAN would be
insufficient for the presentation which this subject demands, and for
the present readers must be content with the "Manual of Psychometry."
The article designed for this number must be postponed until April,
after which it will receive more attention.
THE AMERICAN PSYCHICAL SOCIETY, poor thing, is in a bad way. It needs
nourishment, warmth, and interested attention, to prevent it from
dying of a compilation of infantile maladies which arise from bad
nursing. The chief nurse, Professor Newcomb (president), gave the
bantling an _ice-bath_ in January (his presidential address), and this
practically puts the thing in its coffin. We have never had high
anticipations of the usefulness or continued existence of this
organization. It is a queer proceeding to throw a new-born baby on a
rubbish-heap, and leave it there, while its parents walk around _on
stilts_ to look at it. The British society is glowing with warmth
compared with the state of its American cousin. It is clear that the
psychical knowledge which the society desires to obtain will never
come to it under its present management; indeed, we are inclined to
think no society under any management can obtain satisfactory
knowledge of the kind which is sought. It must be obtained in
_private_, under conditions far different from any which can be
secured in organizations, where men act together with diverse views
and opinions.--_Pop. Sci. News_.
PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM.--In all European countries, Spiritualism is
making rapid progress. In England, the eloquent and distinguished
lecturer, Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, says in a recent letter to the
_London Medium_ that "Spiritualism in England is not only on the
increase, but has already take too deep and earnest a hold of the
public heart, up here in the north, to be uprooted by imbecile
antagonism, or even marred by the petty shams of imposture. In places
where I have been told it was recently difficult to collect together a
score of people to listen to spiritual lectures, the largest halls are
often found insufficient to accommodate my Sunday evening audiences,
and the spoken blessings and thanks that follow me, as well as the
floods of inquiring letters that besiege me, bear ample testimony to
the fact, that the seed sown has not all fallen on stony places."
Its progress is rapid in Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, and Russia,
and is steadily onward in France and Germany. On our Pacific Coast,
the _Golden Gate_ says, "it is advancing with grand strides." In the
Eastern States it is obtaining a much needed purification by
discussing the genuineness of the phenomena.
THE FOLLY OF COMPETITION.--We live under a ruinous system of
_competition_ instead of _co-operation_, in which the weakest sink
into poverty, beggary, disease, crime, and suicide. Every day the
horrors of our social system are recognized and commented on, but how
little is done, and how little thought for its amendment. According to
_Bradstreet_, during the first six weeks of this year the loss of
wages by strikers has amounted to _three millions of dollars_. This
damage falls on those who cannot afford it, the most of whom find
themselves in a worse and more hopeless condition in consequence of
the strike, if not entirely out of employment. It has been a matter of
comparatively little importance to the parties against whom the
strikes were made. The JOURNAL will pay some attention to the remedial
measures which are being introduced.
INSANITIES OF WAR.--Senator Vest recently stated to the Senate that
"there was not in the history of the civilized world a page of
maladministration equal to that of the Navy Department of the United
States since 1865.... There had been expended for naval purposes since
the close of the war over $419,000,000." Query: How much over
$5,000,000 would it all bring if sold out to-day? Would it bring that
much?
THE SINALOA COLONY has had too great an influx already, and Mr. Owen
positively prohibits any more arrivals. If any more come they will not
be received until due preparation has been made. The colony has a
splendid harbor in a delightful climate, and large tracts of fertile
land, capable of producing everything belonging to semi-tropical and
temperate climates.
Other attempts by societies to solve the great social question are
beginning. A society with the same objects and principles as the
Sinaloa colony is now organizing to found a colony in Florida on the
margin of a beautiful harbor.
Another scheme has been proposed by a company of Chicago Knights of
Labor, who "have gone to Tennessee to found a co-operative colony. The
purpose is the establishment of a manufacturing community in which the
rule shall be 'eight hours and fair wages,' and the spot chosen is
represented as a salubrious table land of 120,000 acres, 2,000 feet
above sea level, abounding in iron, timber, and limestone. Here it is
intended to set up an iron furnace, a nail factory, and the sash,
door, and blind industry, to build 200 houses within 30 days, put up a
city hall, public school and engine house at once, and secure
incorporation as a city within two weeks. They have begun to sell
choice locations at $7 to $10 per acre."
MEDICAL DESPOTISM. The bill which has been introduced into the Rhode
Island Legislature for the suppression of independent physicians by
confining all practice to those licensed by a medical board, is so
great an outrage on common sense and justice, that it meets with
strenuous opposition. The editor of the JOURNAL made an address in
opposition to the bill in the hall of the House of Representatives on
the sixteenth of February, occupying about an hour and a half, showing
that the proposed legislation was more despotic and unjust than the
laws under European despotisms. The _Providence Star_, in reporting
the address, spoke of it as the most eloquent ever delivered in the
House on any subject.
"MIND IN NATURE," the best monthly publication of its kind in the
world and the nearest approach in its character to the JOURNAL OF MAN,
has just expired at Chicago after issuing two volumes. A few bound
copies may be obtained at $1.25 per single volume, or $2.25 for two
volumes, by addressing the editor, J. E. Woodhead, Chicago.
PHYSIOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN THE COLLEGE OF THERAPEUTICS.
The resolutions of my most recent class in Boston are the same in
spirit as have been expressed during forty years, and will no doubt be
expressed again by my students in May, 1887. They not only know the
truth of the science but recognize sarcognomy as "the most important
addition ever made to physiological science by any individual," and
their testimony was based on their own personal experience. To the
students of sarcognomy this is a familiar idea, but to others some
explanation may be necessary.
What are the greatest discoveries in physiology? Common opinion would
mention as the foremost the action of the heart in circulating the
blood,--a discovery not originated but consummated by Harvey; and yet
the discovery is of so simple and obvious a nature that we wonder now,
not so much at the ability manifested in the discovery, as at the
stupidity which permitted it to remain so long unknown, and even to be
denied and ridiculed when published. Harvey's work on the generation
of animals entitled him to a higher rank as a pioneer in science than
his theory of the circulation.
A far greater discovery was that of Dr. Gall, which embraced not only
the anatomy but the functions of the brain as a mental organ--a
discovery twenty times as great, whether we consider the superior
importance of the brain, or the greater investigating genius necessary
to the discovery. It easily ranks at the head of the physiological
discoveries of the past centuries.
Next comes the discovery of the motor and sensory roots of the spinal
nerves by Majendie and Bell, which did not, as commonly supposed,
include the motor and sensory of the spinal cord. This was a small
discovery compared to Gall's, but not inferior to Harvey's discovery
of the cardiac function.
A fourth discovery, perhaps of equal rank, was the discovery by
Harvey's contemporary, Aselli, of the lacteals that absorb the chyle.
A fifth discovery or discoveries of importance was that of the
corpuscles of the blood, and the Malpighian bodies of the kidneys, by
Malpighi.
A sixth discovery, considered more important and occupying a larger
space in medical literature, is the cell doctrine of Schwann, a
doctrine still under discussion and by no means a finality.
Anatomical science has few first class discoveries. Anatomy has been a
growth of observation and description--not discovery. Vesalius and
Eustachius may be considered the fathers of modern anatomy, and the
name of the latter is immortalized by the Eustachian tube, which he
first recognized and described. But the Fallopian tubes, named after
Fallopius, were not his discovery. They had been described long before
by Herophilus and others. Eustachius was nearly two centuries ahead of
his age in anatomy, and should be gratefully remembered as a
struggling scientist. His valuable anatomical works, which he was too
poor to publish, were published one hundred and forty years after his
death, by Lancisi.