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.