of 462 cases of lupus treated. The other patients have had their treatment interrupted by various causes, and but four cases showed themselves refractory. Nothing is more picturesque and interesting to behold in the garden of the Copenhagen Hospital than Prof. Finsen's thirty nurses clad entirely in white, their heads covered with white cotton caps, with wide rims, their eyes protected by large blue spectacles, and their arms entirely bare and browned by the rays of the sun, maneuvering the large blue lenses so as to cause the concentrated rays to fall upon the parts to be treated, which are outlined by the physician by a circle drawn with a dermic pencil. There is no doubt that France will soon follow this example, since MM. Lortet and Genoud have introduced the Finsen method, and their experiments, performed at the Laboratory of Parasitology of the Faculty of Medicine of Lyons, have perfectly confirmed the results of the Swedish physician and have even exceeded their hopes. Although MM. Lortet and Genoud are still in the period of experimentation, numerous patients have already benefited by their laboratory phototherapic installation; and the first results obtained by them are sufficiently conclusive to allow us to hope to see hospitals and clinics adopt their methods upon a large scale. The high hygienic value of soap is instinctively recognized by everyone, but people are as a rule contented with the fact that it cleans and disinfects without troubling their heads about the reason. The soap-maker, however, recognizes as a triumph of chemistry that it has devised a theory of soap action which explains the results obtained in practise. Soap always acts in solution in water. Krafft and his co-workers have confirmed the conclusion of Chevreul that the dissolved soap decomposes, to an extent depending upon the concentration and temperature of the solution, into free fatty acid and free alkali. On cooling, the undecomposed soap forms a double salt with the free fatty acid. This double salt is difficult of solution. The theory of Rotondi and Fricke as to the decomposition of soap by water into a basic and an acid soap is wrong. Krafft explains their results by the fact that neutral oleates, unlike palmitates and stearates, are not decomposed by water. Hence in common soaps, which generally contain all the three classes of salts, the aqueous solution would give a mixture of neutral oleate and free alkali. This might be mistaken for a basic soap, and the double salt above mentioned for an acid soap. In washing with soap four factors coöperate, the free alkali, the free fatty acid, the neutral undecomposed soap, and the acid double salt formed by the reaction of some of the latter with some of the free fatty acid. If we understand by washing the emulsification of the fats which everywhere in nature are the cause of the clinging of dirt, and the removal of it in combination, we contemplate a result which can be obtained perfectly well with soap and water and elbow-grease. The great soaking power of the soap, which is perhaps attributable to traces of freed alkali, enables it to drive all air from the recesses of the fabric, and to come into intimate contact with the dirt. The undecomposed soap emulsifies the fat, and the double salt then incloses the solid particles of dirt set free from the fat, and carries them away when the rinsing is done. The alkali set free, which is only small in amount, plays a subordinate part, and by no means that which is often assigned to it. In very dilute solution its action may be neglected. Only in such solutions is there much set free, and the dilution keeps pace with the increase in the amount of alkali set free. Besides the emulsion tones down the action of the free alkali on the fibre, and in combination with the fused fatty acid diminish the amount of rubbing required, and thereby conduce greatly to the longevity of the articles washed. As Quincke has shown, however, the physical side of the action of soap is of great importance. That chemist has proved that osmotic action causes vortices which loosen the dirt and save rubbing, and tend to preserve the lather. These vortices are largely due to the decomposition of the soap in aqueous solution. Jevons' soap theory is related in Quincke's vortex-hypothesis. Jevons asserts that the soap particles in water have much "pedesis”—i. e., rush vigorously about and push dirt off the linen. This theory is only mentioned here as an illustration of the tendency to explain the action of soap on mechanical grounds. The Suppression of the Mosquito...... Medical Record Since it has been concluded more or less definitely that, in addition to being the chief if not the only means of propagating malaria, mosquitoes are responsible for the dissemination of yellow fever, an unrelenting war of extermination, if possible, has been declared against the anopheles claviger and culex fasciatus. The difficulties in the way of a complete extermination of these two species are, however, so great, that general satisfaction will be given if only measures can be devised to reduce appreciably the numbers of the parasite-conveying insects, especially in tropical regions now largely frequented by white men. It has been shown already, that is so far as malarial fever is concerned, that protective measures-such as rendering the interiors of houses inaccessible at night to mosquitoes and compelling workmen on night duty to wear cowls are to a large extent effective. Nevertheless more radical and wholesale methods than these are called for, and Mr. L. O. Howard of the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, in a book recently published, declares that he sees no reason why the task of exterminating mosquitoes altogether should be looked upon as impossible. While perhaps a large number of those versed in the ways of mosquitoes may be inclined to regard Mr. Howard's views as somewhat unduly optimistic, yet such opinions proceeding from so eminent an authority are worthy of respectful consideration. Colonel Giles, a well-known entomologist, serving in the British Army Medical Corps in India, speaking of the anopheles says: "Far from being, as we have been led to expect, confined to a few marshy pools of moderate size, they are omnipresent and seem to be capable of developing in water of 'very varying degrees of purity." Anopheles Rossii is in fact what Facalbi would speak of as a "foveal" and not a "paludal" or even "sub-paludal" species. A consideration of these few facts makes it therefore self-evident that the task of extirpating malaria by the systematic treatment of mosquitobreeding places with larvicides, is by no means so simple as it was hoped it might prove. Ross wrote in 1899, that the anopheles seemed to prefer, as a rule, natural collections of water on outskirts of towns and in rural districts as a place of deposit for eggs. If Giles is right and the anopheles is omnipresent, as assuredly the culex is, it will be plainly evident that to hope for a wholesale massacre of mosquitoes, or even of the larvæ, would seem hardly to be entertained. Much, however, can doubtless be done in the direction of suppressing mosquitoes in a given locality. Mr. Howard lays down three lines of procedure with this object in view. First, the treatment of their breeding places with an agent destructive to the life of the larvæ; second, the abolition of breeding places by drainage; and third, the introduction of natural enemies into those breeding places which it may be impracticable or undesirable to drain or to treat with larvicides. Before putting into practise any of these methods, it will be essential to examine, in the most careful manner possible, any district in which operations against the mosquito are to be undertaken, in order to locate accurately any pieces of water used as breeding places or which, from their appearance, seem likely to become such. In this connection, it may be well to bear in mind advice given by Ross, who says that an infallible sign in the detection of a breeding place is the invariable habit of the insects of congregating in large numbers in its near locality. Permanent pools not used for watering stock should be treated with kerosene, swampy ground should be drained, and small pools should be filled with earth. Particular attention should be paid to this last measure, for however omnipresent the mosquito of any species may be, there can be no doubt that, as a place of deposit for its eggs, it has a decided predilection for bodies of water of circumscribed area. The reason for this is said to be that pools of comparatively small size contain no minnows, the inveterate enemy of the embryo mosquito. Petroleum would appear to be the most effectual means of destroying the larvæ of mosquitoesjudging from the results of experiments conducted up to the present. According to Mr. Howard a light fuel kerosene has been found to be most effective. The lamp-burning oil is too volatile and the crude oil is too thick. The destructive action of the oil will last from ten days to two weeks, when a similar process must be again gone through, and continued until the wished-for results have been obtained. When a house is infested with mosquitoes, it should first be screened, and after that the mosquitoes within the building destroyed. In order to accomplish this latter purpose effectually many methods have been recommended. Fermi and Lumbao are in favor of the liberation of chlorine gas by treating chloride of lime with crude sulphuric acid. This plan can be carried out only in an uninhabited house, or in one in which the vapors can be allowed to remain for a considerable time. The burning of pyrethrum powder has been also suggested, while Major Havard recommends formaldehyde gas. To effect the destruction of the larvæ in sheets of water where kerosene cannot be used, it is proposed to introduce certain kinds of fishes which are the natural enemies of the mosquito and which will devour the larvæ with avidity. Most of the small carnivorous fish which dwell in still water highly esteem the larvæ as a delicacy, and Colonel Giles declares that golden carp will consume them in enormous quantities. The common sunfish is especially partial to the eggs of the mosquito, and owing to its large mouth and almost insatiable appetite, will make short work of the ovarious deposits of a vast number of the insects. The larvæ of the dragon fly have also a natural enmity to the mosquito larvæ. Again, some authorities have asserted that certain balsamic trees of the eucalyptus and pine species possess anti-malarial properties, but Celli says that such trees so far from banishing mosquitoes are favorite hiding places of the insects. By others the castor-oil shrub is said to be obnoxious in a high degree to the mosquito, while Giles claims similar properties for an Indian floating water-plant, resembling a lettuce, called in Hindustani "alkumi." Thus it will be seen we have now at hand numerous methods of more or less efficacy for the suppression of the mosquito, and in view of the experiments to be undertaken on a large scale under the direction of Ross in Africa, and those already being conducted by our own army surgeons in Cuba, it may be anticipated that some yet more effective measures will be discovered for the ridding of the earth of these parasite-conveying pests. At any rate a crusade conducted against the eggs and larvæ would seem to promise definite and practical results. It is now eighteen months since the Society for the Study of Inebriety appointed a special committee to consider the relation of heredity to inebriety. The committee was composed of five physicians, two surgeons, a professor of bacteriology, an army surgeon, and five general medical practitioners. Eighteen months have been spent in investigation. The report of this committee has just been published and it is signed by nine of the fourteen members, some of whom have made comments, while one has sent in an independent report. The reference to the committee was in these terms: to investigate the conditions under which the tendency to drunkenness is capable of transmission to offspring. It does not appear to be contended that inebriety in itself is hereditary but that a capacity or tendency to it is heritable. The report declares that the inebriety of an individual depends upon three conditions-the first being an inborn capacity for enjoying the sensations which alcohol produces, and the second and third being acquired personal experience of the pleasures of alcohol and the increased delight which continued indulgence confers in the case of the inebriate. That one drunken generation often succeeds another suggests an hereditary taint. Popular opinion has taken for granted that the acquired characteristics of parents are likely to be inherited and, of course, "temperance reformers," well-meaning, but often ignorant and misguided, have not been slow to urge upon the public that each man's drinking is pretty sure to produce for him a generation of children who will become drunkards. If this be not true the temperance reformer (who is generally in favor of entire abstinence rather than of temperance) must bear a heavy responsibility for the vast amount of mental torture which he has inflicted on the moderate-drinking citizen. The last word of science, however, as declared by teachers of physiology, biology, and botany, is a very definite assertion that no instance of the hereditary transmission of an acquired characteristic has ever been demonstrated either in the animal or the vegetable kingdom. If this be a fact a man can only transmit to his son the hereditary taint with which he was born, and if a man having no inborn tendency to excess yet acquires drunken habits his progeny are in no more danger than are those of his neighbor, leaving out of consideration. the effect of environment on youth. It is not denied that drunken parents who become thus mentally and physically weak are liable to have children who are degenerate-weak in body and feeble in mind; such persons, in fact, as under unpropitious circumstances tend to become paupers, criminals, epileptics, and drunkards. The point. which is denied is that the drunkard's child has the specialized tendency to become inebriate rather than vicious in some other direction. It seems probable that the question of environment is of more importance after all than that of heredity, and a man of strong will is just as likely to exercise it in the gratification of his desires as in the contrary direction. If a man of powerful will finds that alcohol gives him pleasure he will take good care to repeat the experience. The habitual drinker is one to whom alcohol brings enjoyment, either as positive pleasure or cessation of pain, whereas the voluntary abstainer is one who from constitutional peculiarity finds little pleasure in alcoholic exhilaration. Alcohol weeds out from every race the individuals who most enjoy and indulge in it. The races of Southern Europe who have had the longest experience of alcoholic drinks are now more temperate than the British, the Scandinavians, and the Russians. The committee is of opinion that the continued abuse of alcohol tends to render a race less innately prone to inebriety than it would otherwise have been, this result being brought about by the elimination of the drunken unfit. The Romance of Antiquity: Archæology Buddhist Discovery of America....... John Fryer.........Harper's The religious customs and beliefs of the nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America, their architecture, their calendar, their arts, and many other things which were found by the Spaniards when they conquered America, exhibit the most surprising coincidences with the details of Asiatic beliefs and Asiatic civilization. So much is this the case that those independent observers who have known nothing of the story of Hui Shen have been convinced that there must have been some kind of communication between America and Asia since the beginning of the Christian era. Thirty-five of these coincidences are given by Mr. Edward P. Vining, of San Francisco, in his exhaustive study of the subject, contained in his work entitled, An Inglorious Columbus. He says: "Almost any one of these coincidences might be fortuitous, but it seems impossible that so many coincidences could have existed unless the civilization of one continent was to some extent borrowed from the other." It may be added that the majority of these coincidences point most unmistakably to Buddhism, and if not actually introduced by Hui Shen and the party of Buddhist priests which he mentions, they must have been introduced in some similar way. Searching for traces of Buddhist origin among the old names of persons, places, and things in America, brings to light some curious facts. The name "Buddha" is not in general use in Asia, but instead is used his patronymic, "Gautama," or the name of his race, "Sakhya." Hence we may expect to find these names constantly recurring in America. In the places Guatemala, Huatamo, etc., in the high-priest Guatemotzin, etc., we find echoes of the first of these names. In Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Sacatepec, Zacatlan, Sacapulas, etc., we find more than a hint of the second. In fact, the high-priest of Mixteca had the title "Taysacca," or the man of Sacca. On an image representing Buddha at Palenque there is the name "Chaac-mol," which might have been derived from Sakhyamuni, the full rendering of one of Buddha's names. The Buddhist priests in Tibet and North China are called "lamas," and the Mexican priest is known as the "tlama." A deified priest or lama, who is said to have lived on a small island near the Colorado River, had the name of Quatu Sacca, which seems to combine the two names Gautama and Sakhya. No very great value, however, is due to any single case of these resemblances to Buddhist names, but there being so many makes it highly probable that they are not all accidental. When we come to look for visible traces of Buddhism among the antiquities of Mexico, we are soon amply rewarded. Images and sculptured tablets, ornaments, temples, pyramids, etc., abound that cannot well be ascribed to any other source with the show of reason. Among these may be mentioned the following: A large image found in Campeachy representing accurately a Buddhist priest in his robes.-An image of Buddha at Palenque, sitting cross-legged on a seat formed of two lions placed back to back, closely representing images found in India and China. An elaborate elephant-faced god found among the Aztecs, which is evidently an imitation of the Indian image of Ganesha.-A Buddhist altar or table of stone found at Palenque.— Figures of Buddha sitting cross-legged with an aureola around his head, and placed in niches in the walls of the temples at Uxmal, Palenque, etc., being the exact counterparts of the images found in niches both inside and outside of Buddhist temples in China, Japan, and India.-A perfect elephant's head sculptured on the walls at Palenque, the elephant being the usual symbol of Buddha in Asia, and no elephants being found in America. An old Mexican image now in the Ethnographical Societies' museum at Paris, and depicting Buddha sitting in the usual cross-legged attitude, with an inscription on either side, one of the characters being evidently intended for the Chinese character for Buddha, but engraved by a sculptor who did not know the Chinese written language.-On the walls of the temple of Uxmal there are astronomical diagrams and images, representing among other things the dragon which causes eclipses by swallowing the sun-a thoroughly Chinese notion. The enormous temples at Palenque and Mitla are almost the counterparts of Buddhist temples that are found in Asia, particularly in Java, North China, and Mongolia, the large pyramidal base and the mode of construction all seeming to point to Buddhist origin. The ornaments in the walls of the temples in different parts of Mexico are similar in design to those of many buildings in China and India; particularly the pattern known as the "Greek fret" or "Greek key" pattern, which is found in an almost endless variety of diamond fret, labyrinth fret, meander fret, double frethaving the fillets interlacing at right anglesand others for which we have no names. These may be seen to advantage in pictures of the walls of the "Room of Mosaics," of Mitla, at Uxmal, and elsewhere.-There is a Buddhist cross, or symbol of Buddha, carved on a pillar at Palenque. Excavations in Crete.... Washington Evening Star On the wild and little visited island of Crete two of the most valuable and interesting archæological discoveries of modern times have recently been made. These are the finding of the birth-cave of Zeus, a spot described in both Greek and Roman classics; and the discovery of the famous palace of King Minos, with its mysterious labyrinth and chambers, on the ancient site of Cnossus. These two discoveries are the outcome of the work of the British archæologists, D. G. Hogarth, who found and explored the ancient cave, and Arthur J. Evans, director of the British School at Athens, to whose researches the world is indebted for the excavations that have brought to light the palace of Minos. Both discoveries were made in the interior of Crete, and from them it would appear that this island was the birthplace and cradle of Greek civilization and culture. In the ancient Greek mythology the god Zeus was the son of Kronos, King of Heaven, and was born in a cave on a high hill of the island of Crete. Because of a prophecy that the child should cast him from his throne, Kronos sought to kill his son, and it was because of this that the mother, Rhea, fled to Crete, and there reared the child, before whom Kronos was forced to bow. The cave came to be regarded as a holy place by the Greeks. Minos, the lawgiver of Greece, was the son of Zeus, and every nine years he repaired to the cave, there to receive the inspired laws for the guidance of the land. The recent discoveries would seem to prove that the legendary Zeus and Minos of the ancients rested on a basis of reality, and that there was a historic side to them. For many years Greek officials and wild hillmen, intolerant of strangers, have prevented any explorations of the inner part of Crete, and it is only recently, therefore, that there has been any archæological research there. Reports reached the outer world that shepherds tending their flocks. in the vicinity of the rocky hill known as Dicta had found strange objects of bronze and other metals near the mouth of a cavern. Some of these objects found their way in time to the hands of archæologists, and so manifestly were they votive offerings of very ancient design that they indicated plainly a locality rich in interest. When Crete was liberated the interior of the island was opened to visitors, and the British Government, securing a concession to explore this cave, put Mr. Hogarth in charge of the opera tions. At the opening of the year he established a camp of Cretan workmen at the foot of the hill and began the work. Soon a zigzag mule track was made up the 500-foot slope of rock which led to the entrance of the cave. It took four days to blast away the immense boulders that blocked the entrance to the cave, exposing the black mouth of the great orifice, which Mr. Hogarth describes as follows: "The great cave is double. There is a shallow hall to the right and an abyssmal chasm to the left, the last not unworthy of a place among the famous limestone grottoes of the world. The rock at first breaks down sheer, but as the light grows dim takes an outward slope and so falls steeply for 200 feet into an inky darkness. An icy pool spreads from your feet about the bases of fantastic stalactite columns on into the heart of the hill. Hall opens from hall with fretted roofs and black, unruffled floors. Fit scene enough for Minos' mysterious colloquy with his father Zeus." A way having been cleared into the interior, search for objects began in the damp mold which lay at the back of the chamber from five to seven feet deep. In the upper layers many unburned offerings were found which had been made in all periods from about the year 800 before our era back to the dim antiquity contemporary with the twelfth dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs, 3000 B. C. The objects were mainly in bronze. A knife of Mycenæan curve, whose handle ends in a human head of regular, sharp profile, was one of the noteworthy discoveries. Here were also found many ivory ornaments from disintegrated sword hilts and in the topmost strata swords, knives, axes, bracelets, etc., of iron, with remains of the earliest Hellenic pottery. These lay thickest about a rude block built of stones and three feet high, no doubt an altar for burnt offerings. Two weeks were consumed in clearing the upper chamber. The great cavern below was left to the last. This proved the most prolific in treasures, as it was likewise the most awe-inspiring from the size and depth. Of the work in this great subterranean grotto Mr. Hogarth says: "The men and women clambered down unwillingly to their final task in the damp abyss. Gradually, however, they descended lower and lower into darkness until they reached the margin of the underground pool, and began to grope in the mud for the objects. Here was found the first perfect battle-ax, in almost pure copper; the traditional weapon with which Zeus went out to war. Rings, pins, blades, needles, signet gems, engraved with animal figures, were found by the |