Fragments of Science.
Religious Suicides.—Suicides from religious fanaticism, which are still prescribed by some sects, are compared, as having a common origin, with propitiatory or expiatory human sacrifices, by Herr Lasch, in an article of which we find a review in the Rivista Italiana di Sociologica. Voluntary sacrifices, which abound in the history of ancient peoples, had nearly always in view the removal of perils or the cessation of public calamities by appeasing the anger of the divinity through the offering of a human victim. Thus Macaria, the daughter of Hercules, at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, and Codrus and the Athenian youth Cratinus voluntarily offered their lives to aid their country by the sacrifice. The consul Decius gave himself up to assure victory to his legions, and Adrian’s favorite Antinous to save his imperial protector. Spontaneous offerings of human victims to appease offended divinities are mentioned in the traditions of the ancient Germans, and it was usually their chief or king who suffered for the good of the people. Offerings of this sort are far from infrequent among barbarous and half-civilized peoples. Among some tribes in China a man is sacrificed every year for the public welfare. Such voluntary renunciations of life to acquire merit with the divinity, to gain favors, to atone for sins, and fulfill vows are very common in India, particularly where Brahmanism is most influential. Special methods were pointed out in the Hindu laws for performing such sacrifices as would be sinful for a Brahman, but not for a Sutra, who, before abandoning life, should make gifts to the Brahmans. A favorite method was to drown one’s self in the Ganges, and particular spots in the river were designated for this act. The sacred books mention five methods of performing sacrifice to assure a better fortune in the next life: Starving to death, being burned alive, burial in snow, being eaten by a crocodile, and cutting the throat or being drowned at a particular spot in the Ganges. In fulfillment of vows, sons would sacrifice themselves for their mothers by jumping from a rock. To keep up the courage of the victim, the Sivaitic rituals promised many beatitudes to him who courageously met death for his sins, and threatened eternal punishment to one who performed the sacrifice in a base manner. And when the suicide had been decided upon they allowed no retreat or repentance, but forced its consummation. A special apparatus for suicide formerly existed in some of the villages in central India, consisting of a guillotine which the victim himself set in action. Casting one’s self under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut was another method of religious suicide. Some philosophical schools prescribed subjection of the body to various pains for the purification of the soul; and the books of Manu, which also impose the destruction of human sensibility, have contributed much to preserve this idea in India and spread abroad, especially in the Malay Archipelago, the usage of voluntary sacrifice to the divinity. The aborigines of the Canary Islands have employed voluntary sacrifices on the coming of an epidemic, and the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians observed them in honor of the divinity.
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“Manuring with Brains.”—“New Soil Science” is the name Mr. D. Young gives, in the Nineteenth Century, to the results of the studies of soil bacteriology prosecuted by Mr. John Hunter and Professor McAlpine on Lord Roseberry’s estate of Dalmeny, and “manuring with brains” to the application of them. Attention has been called to the value of the bacteria in the soil as nitrifying and fertilizing elements by the experiments of Sir John Bennet Lawes and Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert at Rothamsted, and more forcibly by experiments coming after them but suggested by them. It had also been found that caustic lime used upon the soil is liable to destroy the nitrifying and other advantageous organisms, while carbonate of lime is surely useful, and a due proportion of lime compounds is essential to the best discharge of their functions. The discovery that the bacteria of the root nodules of leguminous plants possess the power of absorbing the free nitrogen of the atmosphere and rendering it available for the use of the plant was made by Messrs. Hunter and McAlpine, according to Mr. Young, and was taught by them to their students several years before Hellriegel, to whom it is usually ascribed, fell upon it. They found that several well-defined sets of bacteria were concerned in the work of nitrification, and isolated and cultivated the nitrous germ, but could accomplish nothing with the nitric germ till they used old mortar or some lime dressing with it. They also found that lime compounds in the surface soil served a further important use by preventing the soluble silicates from being taken up by the roots of the plant, the lime taking up those salts and forming insoluble silicates which were retained in the soil and did not diffuse into the plant. So a non-silicated stem, or a cellulose stem, was formed, which would bend before the wind without breaking, while the non-silicated straw was much superior in value to the silicated straw. Messrs. Hunter and McAlpine denied that silica in the plant gave strength and solidity to the stem, and pointed out that it rather, like glass, made the straw brittle. They found out, further, that large quantities of carbonic acid were produced in the soil through the operation of the ferments, and found an outlet through the subsoil drains. They made other discoveries which threatened to render it necessary to revise the whole fabric of agricultural science, and were called to account by the institutions in which they were teachers for their heresies. They maintained their position till the opportunity came to them to make tests of their theories on Lord Rosebery’s Dalmeny farm. Among the results of the Dalmeny experiments are proof of the value of a dressing of ground lime in proportions not large enough to kill the bacteria, emphasis of the value of potash for every crop, and the discovery of a remedial treatment for the finger-and-toe pest in turnips. “When these experiments were commenced, ground lime for agricultural purposes had never been heard of, whereas now there are at least six lime works where extensive grinding plants are kept hard at work to supply the ever-increasing demand for that substance. Since the principles for the new soil science have been put in successful practice at Dalmeny the scientific authorities, who at first had branded these principles as absurd heresies, have changed their tune,” and now the chemical adviser of the Highland Society has declared that he accepts the new doctrines.
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Plague Antitoxin.—In justifying his belief in the efficacy of the inoculation treatment against the plague, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, said, in a recent address at Poonah: “If I find, as I do find, out of one hundred plague seizures among uninoculated persons, the average number who die is somewhere about seventy to eighty per cent, while, in a corresponding number of seizures among inoculated persons, the proportions are entirely reversed and seventy to eighty per cent, if not more, are saved—and these calculations have been furnished from more than one responsible quarter—I say figures of that kind can not fail to carry conviction; and I altogether fail to see how, in the face of them, it is possible for any one to argue that inoculation is not a wise and necessary precaution.” He had been personally visiting the plague hospitals and camps about the city, and had already supported his advocacy of this treatment by having himself and his party inoculated at Simla with the plague antitoxin.
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Cultivation of India Rubber.—An article in the Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics represents that there are lands in Mexico and Central America equally adapted to the cultivation of the India-rubber tree with the Brazilian plantations, and having, in addition, a salubrious climate. Formerly dependence for the supply of India rubber was placed in the product of wild trees, but with the increase in the uses for it, and the consequent rise in prices, capital is being invested in this industry, and its profitable cultivation is being largely engaged in. The trees do not flourish at an elevation exceeding five hundred feet above sea level, and low land, moist but not swampy, is the best. Land suitable for planting could be bought for twenty-five cents an acre in large tracts, but it now brings from two dollars to five dollars Mexican. These lands can be used for other crops while the trees are growing up, and thus made partly to repay the cost of starting the plantation. So the expense of clearing the land preparatory to planting it is largely met, if facilities for transplantation are at hand, by the sale of the dyewoods, sandalwood, satinwood, ebony, and mahogany that are cut off. The land should be chosen along the banks of streams, where the soil is rich, deep, and loamy, and the presence of wild rubber trees is a sure indication of its suitability. These wild trees should be left standing, and young seedlings should be kept and transplanted into their proper places. The densest plantation compatible with good results is fifteen feet apart, giving about one hundred and ninety-three trees to the acre. Once in the ground, the tree needs no attention or cultivation beyond keeping down the undergrowth, which can be effected by the aid of a side crop. The tree propagates itself by the seeds or nuts, which drop in May and June. By the sixth or seventh year the grove will be in bearing, and thereafter should yield from three to five pounds of India rubber per tree.