into a cylinder and well shaken. After waiting until the ether
had separated a few drops of the liquid were put into the
mouth. For a little time no result was perceived, but as soon
as the effect of the ether had passed away the same painful
acridity was manifest as was experienced before the treatment
with the ether. A natural conclusion from this test was that
the acridity might come from some principle soluble in ether.
Observing that the ether was quite turbid and wishing to learn
the cause, a drop or two was allowed to evaporate on a glass
slide. Examining the residue with a microscope it was found to
consist of innumerable raphides or needle-like crystals. Some
of the ether was then run through a filter. The filtrate was
clear. An examination showed it to be entirely free from
raphides, and it had lost every trace of its acridity. The
untreated acrid juice of the Indian turnip, calla, and other
plants of the same family was then filtered and in every
instance the filtered juice was bland and had lost every trace
of its acridity. These tests and others that need not be
mentioned, proved conclusively that the acridity of various
species of the Arum family was not due to a volatile principle,
but was due to the needle-shaped crystals found so abundantly
in these plants.
Several questions yet remained to be answered. (1) If these
needle-like crystals or raphides are the cause of the acridity
of the plants just mentioned, why do they not produce the same
effect in the fuchsia, tradescantia and other plants where they
are known to be just as abundant? (2) Why does the Indian
turnip lose its acridity on being heated? (3) Why does the
dried Indian turnip lose its acridity?
It was first thought that the raphides found in plants having
no acridity, might be of different chemical composition than
those which produce this effect.
A chemical examination proved beyond question that the raphides
were of the same composition. The needle-shaped crystals in all
the plants selected for study were composed of calcium oxalate.
The crystals, found in grape, rhubarb, fuchsia and tradescantia
were identical in form, fineness and chemical composition with
those found in the plants of the Arum family. How then account
for the painfully striking effect in one case and the
non-effect in the other? This was the perplexing question.
In expressing some juice from the stems and leaves of the
fuchsia and tradescantia it was found to be quite unlike that
of the Indian turnip and calla. The juice of the latter was
clear and limpid; that of the former quite thick and
mucilaginous. There was no difference as to the abundance of
crystals revealed by the microscope.
After diluting the ropy, mucilaginous juice with water, and
shaking it thoroughly with an equal volume of ether, there was
no turbidity seen in the supernatent ether. Allowing a few
drops of the ether to evaporate scarcely any crystals could be
found. Practically none of them had been removed from the
insoluble mucilaginous covering. Here and there an isolated
specimen was all that could be seen. So closely were these
small crystals enveloped with the mucilaginous matter that it
was almost impossible to separate or dissect them from it.
It was now easy to explain why certain plants whose cells were
crowded with raphides were bland to the taste, while other
plants with the same crystals were extremely acrid.
In one case the crystals were neither covered nor embedded in
an insoluble mucilage, but were free to move. Thus when the
plant was chewed or tasted the sharp points of these
needle-like crystals came into contact with the tongue, lips
and membranous surface of the mouth.
In the other case the insoluble mucilage which surrounded the
crystals prevented all free movement and they produced no
irritation.
Why do these intensely acrid, aroid plants lose their acridity
on being heated? It is well known that the corms of the Indian
turnip and its allies contain a large amount of starch. In
subjecting this starch to heat it becomes paste-like in
character. This starch paste acts in the same manner as the
insoluble mucilage. It prevents the free movement of the
crystals and in this way all irritant action is precluded. In
heating the Indian turnip and other corms, it was found that
the heat applied must be sufficient to change the character of
the starch or the so-called acridity was not destroyed.
One other question remains to be answered. It has long been
noted that the old or thoroughly dried corms of the Indian
turnip are not acrid like those that are fresh. The explanation
is simple. As the plant dries or loses its moisture, the walls
of the cells collapse and the crystals are closely encased in
the hard, rigid matter that surrounds them. This prevents free
movement and the crystals can not exert any irritant action.
It is generally believed by biologists that the milky juice,
aromatic compounds, alkaloids, etc., found in plants have no
direct use in the economy of the plant. They are not connected
with the nutritive processes. They are excretions or waste
products that the plant has little or no power to throw off.
There can be little doubt, however, that these excretory
substances often serve as a means of protection. Entomologists
have frequently stated that the milky juice and resins found in
the stems of various plants act as a protection against stem
boring insects. In like manner the bulbs, stems and leaves of
plants that are crowded with crystals have a greater immunity
from injurious biting insects than plants that are free from
crystals. It is quite generally believed that the formation of
crystals is a means of eliminating injurious substances from
the living part of the plant. These substances may be regarded
as remotely analogous to those organic products made by man in
the chemical laboratory.
Some progress has been made in this direction, but so far the
main results are certain degradation-products such as aniline
dyes derived from coal tar; salicylic acid; essences of fruits;
etc. Still these and many other discoveries of the same nature
do not prove that the laboratory of man can compete with the
laboratory of the living plant cell.
Man has the power to break down and simplify complex substances
and by so doing produce useful products that will serve his
purposes. We may combine and re-combine but so far we only
replace more complex by simpler combinations.
The plant alone through its individual cells, and by its living
protoplasm has fundamentally creative power. It can build up
and restore better than it can eliminate waste products.
HOW OUR ANCESTORS WERE CURED
BY PROFESSOR CARL HOLLIDAY
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
SUPPOSE you had a bad case of rheumatism, and your physician
came to your bedside and exclaimed loudly, "Hocus pocus, toutus
talonteus, vade celeriter jubeo! You are cured." What would you
think, what would you do, and what fee would you pay him?
Probably, in spite of your aches and pangs, you would make
astonishing speed--for a rheumatic person--in proffering him
the entire room to himself. But there was a time--and that as
late as Shakespeare's day--when so-called doctors in rural
England used just such words not only for rheumatism, but for
many another disease. And to this hour the fakir on the street
corner uses that opening expression, "Hocus pocus." Those words
simply prove how slowly the Christian religion was absorbed by
ancient Anglo-Saxon paganism; for "Hocus pocus" is but the
hastily mumbled syllables of the Catholic priest to his early
English congregation--"Hoc est corpus," "this is the body"; and
the whole expression used by the old-time doctor meant merely
that in the name of the body of Christ he commanded the disease
to depart quickly.
How superstitions and ancient rites do persist. To this hour
the mountaineers of southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee
believe that an iron ring on the third finger of the left hand
will drive away rheumatism, and to my personal knowledge one
fairly intelligent Virginian believed this so devoutly that he
actually never suffered with rheumatic pains unless he took off
the iron ring he had worn for fifteen years. It is an old, old
idea--this faith in the ring-finger. The Egyptians believed
that a nerve led straight from it to the heart; the Greeks and
Romans held that a blood-vessel called the "vein of love"
connected it closely with that organ; and the medieval
alchemists always stirred their dangerous mixtures with that
finger because, in their belief, it would most quickly indicate
the presence of poison. So, too, many an ancient declared that
whenever the ring-finger of a sufferer became numb, death was
near at hand. Thus in twentieth century civilization we hear
echoes of the life that Rameses knew when the Pyramids were
building.
Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers had great faith in mysterious
words. The less they understood these the more they believed in
the curative power. Thus the name of foreign idols and gods
brought terror to the local demons that enter one's body, and
when Christianity first entered England, and its meanings were
but dimly understood, the names of saints, apostles and even
the Latin and Greek forms of "God" and "Jesus" were enemies to
all germs. Then, too, what comfort a jumbling of many languages
brought to the patient, especially if the polyglot cure were
expressed in rhythmic lines. Here, for instance, in at least
five languages, is a twelfth century cure for gout:
Meu, treu, mor, phor,
Teux, za, zor,
Phe, lou, chri
Ge, ze, on.
Perhaps to our forefathers suffering from over-indulgence in
the good things of this world, this wondrous group of sounds
brought more comfort than the nauseous drugs of the modern
practitioner. Any mysterious figure or letter was exceedingly
helpful in the sick room of a thousand years ago. The Greek
letters "Alpha" and "Omega" had reached England almost as soon
as Christianity had, and the old-time doctor triumphantly used
them in his pow-wows. Geometric figures in a handful of sand or
seeds would prophesy the fate of the ills--and do we not to
this day tell our fortune in the geometric figures made by the
dregs in our tea-cups? Paternosters, snatches of Latin hymns,
bits of early Church ritual were used by quacks of the olden
days for much the same reason as the geometric figures--because
they were unusual and little understood.
It would have been well had our Anglo-Saxon forefathers
confined their healing practices to such gentle homeopathic
methods as those mentioned above; but instead desperate
remedies were sometimes administered by the determined
medicine-man. Diseases were supposed to be caused mainly by
demons--probably the ancestors of our present germs--and the
physician of Saxon days used all the power of flattery and
threat to induce the little monsters to come forth. When the
cattle became ill, for instance, the old-time veterinarian
shrieked, "Fever, depart; 917,000 angels will pursue you!" If
the obstinate cow refused to be cured by such a mild threat,
the demons were sometimes whipped out of her, and, if this
failed to restore her health, a hole was pierced in her left
ear, and her back was struck with a heavy stick until the evil
one was compelled to flee through the hole in her ear. Nor was
such treatment confined to cattle. The muscular doctors of a
thousand years ago claimed they could cure insanity by laying
it on lustily with a porpoise-skin whip, or by putting the
maniac in a closed room and smoking out the pestering fiends.
One did well to retain one's sanity in those good old days.
This use of violent words or deeds in the cure of disease is as
ancient almost as the race of man. The early Germans attempted
to relieve sprains by reciting confidently how Baldur's horse
had been cured by Woden after all the other mighty inhabitants
of Valhalla had given up the task, and even earlier tribes of
Europe and Asia had used for illness such a formula as: "The
great mill stone that is India's is the bruiser of every worm.
With that I mash together the worms as grain with a mill
stone." Long after Christianity had reached the Anglo- Saxons
of England, the sick often hung around their necks an image of
Thor's hammer to frighten away the demon germs that sought to
destroy the body. This appeal to a superior being was common to
all Indo-European races, and the early Christian missionaries
wisely did not attempt to stamp out a belief of such antiquity,
but merely substituted the names of Christ, the Virgin Mary and
the saints for those of the heathen deities. And even into the
nineteenth century this ancient form of faith cure persisted;
for there are living yet in Cornwall people who heard, as
children, this charm for tooth-ache:
Christ passed by his brother's door,
Saw his brother lying on the floor;
What aileth thee, brother!
Pain in the teeth.
Thy teeth shall pain thee no more,
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
I command the pain to be gone.
Let us no longer boast of the carefulness of the modern
physician; the ceremonies and directions of the Anglo-Saxon
doctor were just as painstaking in minuteness and accuracy.
When you feel the evil spirits entering you, immediately seek
shelter under a linden tree; for out of linden wood were not
battle-shields made? Long before Christianity had brought its
gentler touches to English life the tribal medicine man wildly
brandished such a shield, and sang defiantly to the witch
maidens or disease demons:
Loud were they, lo! loud, as over the land they rode;
Fierce of heart were they, as over the hill they rode;
Shield thee now thyself, from their spite thou may'st escape
thee.
Out, little spear, if herein thou be!
Underneath the linden stand I, underneath the shining shield,
For the might maidens have mustered up their strength,
And have sent their spear screaming through the air!
Back again to them will I send another,
Arrow forth a-flying from the front against them!
Out, little spear, if herein thou be!
This business of singing was very necessary in the old time
doctor's practice. Sometimes he chanted into the patient's left
ear, sometimes into his mouth, and sometimes on some particular
finger, and the patient evidently had to get well or die to
escape the persistent concerts of his physician. Not
infrequently, too, the doctor placed a cross upon the part of
one's anatomy to which he was giving the concert, and often the
effect was increased by putting other crosses upon the four
sides of the house, the fetters and bridles of the patient's
horse, and even on the foot prints of the man, or the hoof
prints of the beast. Faith in the cross as a charm was
unwavering; "the cross of Christ has been hidden and is found,"
declared the Saxon soothsayer, and by the same token the lost
cattle will soon be discovered.
Many and marvelous were the methods to be followed scrupulously
by the sick. Cure the stomachache by catching a beetle in both
hands and throwing it over the left shoulder with both hands
without looking backward. Have you intestinal trouble? Eat
mulberries picked with the thumb and ring finger of your left
hand. Do you grow old before your time? Drink water drawn
silently DOWN STREAM from a brook before daylight. Beware of
drawing it upstream; your days will be brief. It reminds one of
the practice of the modern herb doctor in peeling the bark of
slippery elm DOWN, if you desire your cold to come down out of
your head, or peeling it up if you desire the cold to come up
out of your chest. One not desiring to place his trust in roots
and barks and herbs might turn for aid to the odd numbers, and
by reciting an incantation three or seven or nine times might
not only regain health, but recover his lost possessions. Or
the sufferer might transfer his disease by pressing a bird or
small animal to the diseased part and hastily driving the
creature away. The ever-willing and convenient family dog might
be brought into service on such an occasion by being fed a cake
made of barley meal and the sick man's saliva, or by being
fastened with a string to a mandrake root, which, when thus
pulled from the ground, tore the demon out of the patient.
The cure of children was a comparatively easy task for the
Anglo-Saxon doctor; for the only thing to be done was to have
the youngster crawl through a hole in a tree, the rim of the
hole thus kindly taking to itself all the germs or demons. So,
too, minor sores, warts and other blemishes might easily be
effaced by stealing some meat, rubbing the spot with it, and
burying the meat; as the meat decayed the blemish disappeared.
So to this day some Indians, and not a few Mexicans make a
waxen image of the diseased part, and place it before the fire
to melt as a symbol of the gradual waning of the illness. So,
too, the ancient Celts are said to have destroyed the life of
an enemy by allowing his waxen image to melt before the fire.
To cure a dangerous disease or the illness of a full-grown man
was, however, a much more difficult matter. Inflammation, for
instance, was the work of a stubborn demon, and stubborn,
therefore, must be the strife with him. Hence, dig around a
sorrel plant, sing three paternosters, pull up the plant, sing
"Sed libera nos a malo," pound five slices of the plant with
seven pepper corns, chant the psalm "Misere mei, Deus" twelve
times, sing "Gloria in excelsis, Deo," recite another
paternoster, at daybreak add wine to the plant and pepper
corns, face the east at mid-morning, make the sign of the
cross, turn from the east to the south to the west, and then
drink the mixture. Doubtless by this time the patient had
forgotten that he ever possessed inflammation.
Long did the superstitions in medicine persist. In Chaucer's
day, the fourteenth century, violent and poisonous drugs were
used, but luckily they were often administered to a little
dummy which the doctor carried about with him. As we read each
day in our newspapers of the various nostrums advertised as
curing every mortal ill, we may well wonder if the average
credulity has really greatly lessened after twelve centuries of
fakes and faith cures, and we almost long for the return of the
day when the medicine man practiced on a dummy instead of the
human body.
EMINENT AMERICAN NAMES
BY LAUREN HEWITT ASHE
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
THE article entitled "The Racial Origin of Successful
Americans," by Dr. Frederick Adams Woods, which appeared in the
April (1914) issue of The Popular Science Monthly, set forth
some very interesting and instructive results. The methods used
to arrive at these results, however, do not seem to be such as
to establish them as final and conclusive.
It is not sufficient to consider merely the number of persons
bearing certain names in "Who's Who in America," for the
purpose of establishing the relative capability of various
nationalities. The percentage of the number bearing that name
in the city in question is the significant figure.
The writer has, therefore, taken the directories[1] of the four
American cities, which were the subjects of study in the
original article, and has estimated the number of persons of a
certain name living in each city by first counting the number
of names printed in a whole column of the directory and then
multiplying this figure by the number of columns occupied by
that name. The number of persons bearing the same name in
"Who's Who in America" (1912-1913) is then taken for each city.
The percentage is finally calculated of the number of the
"Who's Who in America" names in the number of those bearing
that name in the directories.
[1] (1) Trow's General Directory--Boroughs of Manhattan and
Bronx, City of New York, 1913. Trow Directory, Printing &
Bookbinding Company, Pub. (2) Boyd's Philadelphia City
Directory, 1913. C. E. Howe Company, Pub. (3) The Lakeside
Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1913. Chicago
Directory Company, Pub. (4) The Boston Directory, 1913. Simpson
and Murdock Co., Publishers.
It seems best, furthermore, to narrow down the consideration
from the fifty most common names in each city to only those of
this number which are common to all four cities in order that
any one family may not have too great a weight. The names in
each city are then arranged according to the established
percentages.
The grouping of names as an indication of race or nationality
is taken from Robert E. Matheson's "Surnames in Ireland." It is
found to agree exactly with the grouping in the article by Dr.
Woods, who classified them from the table given in the New York
World Almanac and Encyclopedia for 1914, which table was, no
doubt, compiled from Matheson.
NAMES COMMON TO ALL FOUR CITIES, NATIONALITY, ATTBIBUTED TO
THEM, AND THE PROPORTION FOR EACH NAME OF THE NUMBER OF TIMES
IT OCCURS FOR EACH CITY IN "WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA" (1912-1913)
AND THE TOTAL NUMBER OF THE SAME NAME IN THE SAME CITY
New York (Exclusive of Brooklyn)
E White 1.39%
E Williams 1.18
E Clark 1.05
E Taylor 1.02
E Jones 0.89
E Martin 0.87
E Smith 0.78
E Thompson 0.74
E-Sc-G Miller 0.73
E Wilson 0.71
E Brown 0.70
E-Sc Moore 0.60
E Davis 0.59
E-Sn Johnson 0.56
Sc-Sn Anderson 0.55
I Murphy 0.46
I Kelly 0.37
E Klien 0.24
E Hall 0.23
Sc Campbell 0.17
I O'Brien 0.14
E Lewis 0.12
E-Sc Young 0.10
Nationality Averages
G German 0.73%
E English 0.69
Sn Scandinavian 0.55
Sc Scotch 0.43
I Irish 0.32
Chicago
E Hall 0.72
E-So Moore 0.41
E Wilson 0.35
E Davis 0.27
E-Sc Young 0.27
E Thompson 0.26
E Brown 0.22
E Lewis 0.20
E Taylor 0.17
E-Sc-G Miller 0.17
E Martin 0.16
I Kelly 0.16
E Williams 0.15
E White 0.14
E Clark 0.14
E Smith 0.14
E Allen 0.13
Sc Campbell 0.11
E Jones 0.10
E-Sn Johnson 0.06
I Murphy 0.06
Sn-ScAnderson 0.05
I O'Brien 0.00
Nationality Averages
E English 0.22%
Sc Scotch 0.20
G German 0.17
I Irish 0.11
Sn Scandinavian 0.05
Philadelphia
E White 0.46%
E Lewis 0.32
E Taylor 0.31
E Wilson 0.30
E Jones 0.27
E-Sn Johnson 0.23
E Williams 0.22
E-Sc Moore 0.20
E Davis 0.18
E-Sc Young 0.18
E Clark 0.14
E Smith 0.13
E Brown 0.13
E-Sc-G Miller 0.12
E Martin 0.08
E Thompson 0.08
I Murphy 0.08
Sc Campbell 0.08
Sn-Sc Anderson 0.00
I Kelly 0.00
E Allen 0.00
E Hall 0.00
I O'Brien 0.00
Nationality Averages
E English 0.18%
Sn Scandinavian 0.16
G German 0.12
Sc Scotch 0.11
I Irish 0.02
Boston
E Allen 0.72
E Williams 0.67
E Brown 0.61
E Hall 0.43
E Campbell 0.33
E Clark 0.30
E Smith 0.29
E Thompson 0.28
E Taylor 0.25
Sn-Sc Anderson 0.22
E Lewis 0.20
E-Sn Johnson 0.19
E White 0.18
E-Sc Moore 0.17
E Wilson 0.13
E Jones 0.11
I O'Brien 0.08
I Murphy 0.05
E Martin 0.00
E-Sc-G Miller 0.00
E Davis 0.00
I Kelly 0.00
E-Sc Young 0.00
Nationality Averages
E English 0.25
Sn Scandinavian 0.20
Sc Scotch 0.14
I Irish 0.06
G German 0.0?
Name Averages
E Williams 0.55
E White 0.54
E Taylor 0.44
E Brown 0.41
E Clark 0.40
E Wilson 0.37
E Jones 0.34
E Thompson 0.34
E-Sc Moore 0.34
E Hall 0.34
E Smith 0.33
E Martin 0.27
E Allen 0.27
E Davis 0.26
E-Sn Johnson 0.26
E-Sc-G Miller 0.25
E Lewis 0.21
Sn-Sc Anderson 0.20
Sc Campbell 0.17
I Murphy 0.16
E-Sc Young 0.14
I Kelly 0.13
I O'Brien 0.05
Nationality Averages
E English 0.34
G German 0.25
Sn Scandinavian 0.24
Sc Scotch 0.22
I Irish 0.12
The nationality attributed to each name is indicated in the
tables below by capital letters in the parallel columns. In
some cases a name is shared by two or even three nationalities.
The percentages belonging to such names are attributed to each
of the sharing nationalities in making the final averages.
This, of course, is a serious source of error, since the
division of such names among the nationalities is not known. No
stress can be laid on our figures for the German, Scotch and
Scandinavian nationalities, because they contain so many of
these indecisive names.