movements and other changes in the body, being largely due to altered blood supply and the like.

Professor Strong's paper treated especially the classification of pains, reviewing the evidence in favor of special nerves for pain and the distinction between pain and distress (the German Schmertz and Unlust). Mr. Mead emphasized the importance of vaso-motor changes for pleasure and pain, attributing pleasure to increased blood supply and assimilation. Dr. Miller argued that desire is the essence of pleasure, and Mr. Marshall discussed the relations of pain, pleasure and emotion. It is interesting to note how even descriptive and analytic psychology is influenced by a psycho-physical point of view. Professor James aptly concluded the discussion by saying that such papers make us feel that we are in the place where psychology is being made.'

At the opening of the fifth and concluding session Professor Newbold read a paper entitled Notes on the Experimental Production of Illusions and Hallucinations. He reported that in twenty-two cases out of eighty-six tried, he had produced illusions by causing the patient to gaze into a transparent or reflecting medium, such as water, objects of glass and mirrors. The phantasm usually appeared within five minutes, was preceded by cloudiness, colors or illumination of the medium, and varied from a dim outline to a brilliantly colored picture. These were often drawn from the patient's recent visual experience, but were often unrecognized and sometimes fantastic. Successive images were usually related, if at all, by similarity, but often no relation was discoverable. The image was often destroyed by movements of the medium and by distracting sensory impressions and motor effort. The speaker was not inclined to regard the phantasms of the glass as demonstrating the existence of subconscious visual automa

The

tisms, but rather as illusions of the recognized types. But he was not prepared to deny that visual automatism might in some cases exist and be traced in such phantasms.

Mr. Griffing, of Columbia College, described Experiments on Dermal Pain. The pressure just causing pain (in kg) was for boys 4.8, for college students 5.1, for law students 7.8, for women 3.6. Experiments were also described giving the relations of area and duration and of velocity and mass for the pain threshold. These latter experiments are of special interest as determining the correlation of quantities followed by a given mental result.

The third paper of the session and last of the meeting was on Recent Advances in the Chemistry and Physiology of the Retina, by Mrs. Franklin, of Baltimore, who gave an account of the recent experiments by Professor König on the absorption spectrum of the visual purple of the retina, and of her own experiments which demonstrated that the fovea is color-blind for blue. The recent experiments on vision, largely carried out in the laboratories of Berlin, are of great importance, and make all the older theories of color-vision inadequate. The theory proposed by Mrs. Franklin is undoubtedly more satisfactory than any other, but even her theory meets difficulties in these new

At the business meeting of the Association Professor Cattell (Columbia) was elected President, and Professor Sanford (Clark), Secretary. Several new members were elected and a new constitution was adopted. Under this constitution a council of six members is prescribed, and Professors Ladd (Yale), Cattell (Columbia), James (Harvard), Baldwin (Princeton), Dewey (Chicago), and Fullerton (Pennsylvania) were elected. Probably the most important business before the meeting was the invitation of the American Society of Naturalists offering affiliation. It was de

decided to meet next year, if possible, at the same time and place as the Naturalists, and the Council was given power to decide the question of a closer affiliation. J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Secretary for 1894.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY, NEW SERIES-I.

THE MISSING LINK' FOUND AT LAST. No publication of late date is likely to excite more interest than a quarto of forty pages which has just been issued from the local press of Batavia, with the title, 'Pithecanthropus Erectus. Eine Menschenänliche Uebergangsform aus Java. Von Eug. Dubois,

Militärarzt der Niederland. Armee.'

This noteworthy essay contains the detailed description of three fragments of three skeletons which have been found in the early pleistocene strata of Java, and which introduce to us a new species, which is also a new genus and a new family, of the order of primates, placed between the Simiida and Hominida,-in other words, apparently supplying the missing link between man and the higher apes which has so long and so anxiously been awaited.

The material is sufficient for a close osteological comparison. The cubical capacity of the skull is about two-thirds that of the human average. It is distinctly dolichocepalic, about 70°-and its norma verticalis astonishingly like that of the famous Neanderthal skull. The dental apparatus is still of the simian type, but less markedly so than in other apes. The femora are singularly human. They prove beyond doubt that this creature walked constantly on two legs, and when erect was quite equal in height to the average human male. Of the various differences which separate it from the highest apes and the lowest men, it may be said that they bring it closer to the latter than to the former.

race.

One of the bearings of this discovery is upon the original birth-place of the human The author believes that the steps in the immediate genealogy of our species were these: Prothylobates: Anthropopithecus Sivalensis: Pithecanthropus erectus: and Homo sapiens. This series takes us to the Indian faunal province and to the southern aspects of the great Himalayan chain, as the region somewhere in which our specific division of the great organic chain first came into being.

THE ANALOGIES OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM.

A LEARNED Hungarian lady, Madame Sofie von Torma, has lately published an interesting little work, a prologue to a large

one, in which she points out a number of close analogies or even identities between the symbols and myths of primitive peoples. Its title Ethnographische Analogieen; ein Beitrag zur Gestaltungs und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Religionen' (Jena, 1894).

Beginning with the study of local archæology, she soon found that the analysis of her home relics took her back to ancient Arcadian and Egyptian prototypes, and the question arose, In what way were they related? To this it is her intention to devote an extended research; and in the volume before us, she states with force and brevity the many remarkable similarities she has noted, and presents the inquiries to which they give rise. The text is accompanied with 127 illustrations.

ETHNIC AFFILIATIONS OF THE JAPANESE.

AFTER a great deal of rambling discussion as to the ethnic relationship of the Japanese, it is gratifying to find a writer who has touched bottom at last, and brings a satisfactory theory with plenty of good evidence to support it. The writer is Dr. Heinrich Winkler, who, in his little pamphlet, Japaner und Altaier (Berlin, 1894), offers a solution of the problem which is certainly bound to stand.

He has studied the Japanese both from the anthropometric and the linguistic side. He points out that they present many and positive physical differences from the Chinese type, and can not be classed as a Sinitic people. On the other hand, the measurements bring them into close parallellism with the northern Ural-Altaic peoples, to that group which includes the Samoyeds, the Finns, the Magyars and, in a less degree, the Tungoose. This affiliation is strikingly supported by a careful comparison of languages. There is not a marked morphological trait of the Japanese tongue which is not also found in this Sibiric group. Dr. Winkler rehearses them with brevity and force. What is more, in the opinion of some, the material portion of the language, its vocabulary and radicals, present so many identities with this UralAltaic group that their primitive oneness must be conceded.

This, however, is not to be understood as if the Japanese was the Altaic Ursprache; but only as one of the children of a common mother, each of which has pursued independent lines of development, though always retaining the family characteristics. D. G. BRINTON.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

HYGIENE.

THE NEW SERUM TREATMENT FOR DIPHTHERIA.

By cultivating the specific bacillus of diphtheria in broth, there is developed in the liquid a peculiar product, which is known as the toxine of this bacillus. When an extensive growth of the bacillus has occurred, so that a considerable quantity of this toxine is developed, the fluid is filtered through a porcelain filter, which permits the soluble toxine to pass through, but retains the bacilli.

If this filtered fluid is sufficiently strong, of a cubic centimeter of it will kill a

guinea pig weighing 500 grammes, in from 48 to 60 hours. The effect produced is in proportion to the quantity injected, just as for any chemical poison, differing in this respect from the action of a fluid containing the bacilli themselves, which might multiply in the body. The bacilli in the fluid might be killed by heating, but this would also decompose the toxine; hence the separation is effected by simple filtration, or by the addition of some substance like tricresol which will kill the bacilli without affecting the toxine.

If small quantities of this toxine be injected under the skin of an animal, commencing with a dose which is not fatal and gradually increasing it, the animal gradually becomes immune to the effects of the poison and after several successive injections can receive a very strong dose without injury. The blood serum of an animal thus rendered immune against diphtheria has the power to confer a similar immunity on other animals if given in sufficient quantity in one dose, thus doing away with the need for the repeated and carefully graduated injections required to produce immunity in the first animal.

To obtain such an anti-diphtheritic serum to be used on man, a horse is injected with the solution of toxine, commencing with from 2 to 5 cubic centimeters and increasing the dose at intervals until within three months as much as 250 cubic centimeters may be injected without producing any serious effect. The horse is more resistant than many other animals to the action of the diphtheritic poison, being naturally somewhat immune. The blood serum of the horse produces no harmful effects on man, if injected in small doses, and it can readily be obtained in considerable quantities without killing the animal.

This serum, taken from a horse which has thus been rendered immune, will not only produce a temporary immunity in man

against the diphtheritic poison, but will antagonize the effects of the diphtheritic poison after this has been already introduced into the system, in other words, it may be employed as a curative agent in cases of diphtheria. The immunity which it produces is a temporary one only, lasting from ten days to three weeks. Its curative effect in cases of the disease depends, to a considerable extent, upon its use in the early stages before the system has been saturated with the poison.

We have not yet sufficient data to speak positively of the value of this anti-diphtheritic serum as a means of treatment of the disease as compared with certain other methods of treatment, especially in the early stages, but the evidence thus far collected seems to indicate that such serum obtained in the proper manner, and used with proper precautions in the hands of experts, is a valuable addition to our means of combatting this terrible malady. The serum can only be properly prepared and tested by a skilled bacteriologist. It must be sufficiently strong in its immunizing power, and at the same time must contain no living pathogenetic germs of any kind. It must also have been comparatively recently obtained from the living animal, for it gradually loses its specific anti-diphtheritic powers. Special antiseptic precautions are also necessary in injecting the serum under the skin in the human subject to prevent the entrance of noxious germs.

One of the most useful points in applying the anti-diphtheritic serum to practical use is to have the cases diagnosed at the earliest possible date, and this can only be done by a skilled bacteriologist. In New York, Boston, and some other cities, means are now provided by which practicing physicians can have such diagnoses promptly made; and if the case of diphtheria can be seen by a physician in its earlier stages, it is possible

to treat it with great hope of success by means of local applications to the throat of certain substances which will quickly destroy the bacillus, and prevent the further production of its peculiar toxine; for example, a solution of tri-cresol of the strength of one per cent. will usually effect this without producing undue irritation or causing any injury to the patient. Those who advocate the use of the immunizing serum say little about the local treatment, but this last is if anything the more important of the two, for the serum does not kill the bacilli which are on the surface of the mucous membrane of the throat, and therefore does not prevent a person rendered immune by it from being the means of spreading contagion.

OYSTERS AS A MEANS OF TRANSMITTING

TYPHOID FEVER.

THE Medical Record of December 15, 1894, contains a paper by Professor H. W. Conn upon an outbreak of typhoid at Wesleyan University in October and November last, which included about twenty-six cases. When the serious character of the outbreak was recognized, an investigation as to causes was begun. The water supply was tested, and the house plumbing was examined without result. It was found that the disease was almost entirely limited to the members of three fraternities. The period of incubation of typhoid—that is, the time which elapses between the taking of typhoid bacillus into the body and the definite manifestation of the disease-is usually from ten to fourteen days, but may range from seven to twenty-eight days. The first cases of the fever among the students appeared October 20th, and suspicion soon fell upon the fraternity suppers of October 12th. Careful examination of the food supplied at these suppers showed that raw oysters, obtained by each of the three fraternities from the same oyster dealer, were the only things

which were peculiar to their suppers, and inquiry was at once directed to these oysters. It was found that they had been obtained from the deep water of Long Island Sound and had been deposited in the mouth of a fresh water creek to freshen, or to 'fatten,' as it is termed, since under such circumstances the oyster absorbs the fresh water by osmosis and therefore swells and becomes plump. Further inquiry showed that, within about three hundred feet of the place where the oysters had been deposited, was the outlet of a private sewer coming from a house in which were two cases of typhoid fever at the time when the oysters were taken up and sent to the University.

The typhoid bacillus will live for a time in salt or brackish water, and it was proved by trial that if such bacilli are forced in between the two valves of the shell they remained alive long enough to enable the oysters to be carried and used at the fraternity suppers. Whether the bacillus will grow and multiply in living or dead oysters has not yet been determined, but experiments on this point are in progress.

It will be seen that the evidence that the outbreak of typhoid was produced by these oysters is purely circumstantial, but the links in the chain are well connected and strong.

It is by no means certain that there were any typhoid germs within the oysters or the oyster shells when they were sent to Middletown. If the shells were smeared on the outside with typhoid excreta some particles of this might easily have gotten among the oysters during the process of opening them. But it is evident that oysters grown or fattened in positions where sewage may come in contact with them are dangerous if eaten raw.

THE EVOLUTION OF INVENTION.

IN a recent study that I have made on the evolution of invention I have divided

the changings which underlie all examples of the process into those

1. Of the thing or process, commonly called inventions.

2. Of the apparatus and methods used. 3. Of the rewards to the inventor.

4. Of the intellectual activities involved. 5. Of society.

Each one of these has undergone an evolution or elaboration, from monorganism to polyorganism, from simplicity to complexity, from individualism to coöperation, from use to comfort, and so on. This statement needs no extended proof; the roller mill is the descendant of the metals, machinery springs from tools, the device beneficial only to its originator becomes the world-embracing and world-blessing invention; the happy thought of one person at last comes to be the beneficent result of an endowed and perennial coöperation, a perpetual repository of invention renewed constantly by the removal of the senescent and the introduction of new and trained minds as in a university.

Now it requires great patience to get together the material evidence of this unfolding or evolution. The mental processes are no longer in sight. The nearest approach to them are the makeshifts of savages, and their minds are almost a sealed book. It has therefore occurred to the writer that among the questions proposed to those who are collating information relating to the psychic growth of children there should be a short series respecting the unfolding of the inventive faculty or process, the finding out originally how to overcome new difficulties or surmounting old ones in new ways. O. T. MASON.

SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

Popular Lectures and Addresses.- Vol. II., Geology and General Physics.-LORD KELVIN.-Macmillan & Co., New York and London. Pp. 599. Price $2.00.