Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/653

Rh the use of the various kinds of baths wards off disease, or that washing in cold water prevents catarrh, rheumatism, etc. As long as "water manipulation" is accompanied by an agreeable general sensation and no eruption on the surface of the skin occurs, it may be pursued as a pastime; but when it produces great itching or eruption on the skin, the bathing and washing must cease. The consequences of friction, douches, hot vapor, shampooing, etc., sooner or later show themselves in the shape of permanent redness, a sensation of burning or itching, and the production of nodules and furuncles, which precede the formation of pustules and abscesses. Prof. Hebra speaks as follows of the employment of water in the treatment of skin-diseases:

"Its employment is contraindicated in all sensitive, irritable persons whose skin is liable to prolonged redness, the production of rashes, and itching; in all cutaneous affections accompanied by acute swelling and serous infiltration; and in all chronic dermatoses in which the horny layer of the epidermis—either through the effects of disease or of remedies—has been removed, exposing the layer beneath. Thus it is not proper to employ water soon after using stimulating substances externally, as arsenic, iodic mercury, etc. By avoiding water and employing starch or other inert powder, the healthy state of the surface will be much sooner restored. Water, on the contrary, is indicated in those diseases where its macerating and irritating effects are useful, namely, in chronic dermatoses, such as psoriasis, lichen, ichthyosis, old eczema, prurigo, etc. Water also exerts the most beneficial effects when different secretions—the products of inflammation, and the remains of dead tissue—have to be removed, as in abundantly-suppurating wounds, ulcers, and gangrene. It is useful also in favoring the formation of new epidermis in pemphigus, and after extensive destruction of the skin by burns or caustic substances."

The Domestication of the Wild-Turkey.—following observations on the habits and domestication of the wild-turkey we take from a paper of similar title by J. D. Caton, published in the American Naturalist. Mr. Caton commenced domesticating the wild turkey about ten years ago, his original stock having been procured from the eggs of the wild hen; it has been twice replenished in the same way. The young birds from the wild-turkey's eggs, when brought up in close intimacy with the human family, become very tame, but they are afraid of strangers, and when anything excites their suspicion they take wing and are off like a flock of quails. The young turkeys breed freely when a year old. Mr. Caton is now raising the eleventh generation of the domesticated wild-turkey, and says that the breed has not deteriorated either in size or in reproductive powers. But they have changed in form and in the length of the legs; the body is shorter and more robust, and its position is more horizontal. As regards color but little change was observed in the first or second generation; after that, the tips of the tail-feathers and tail-coverts began to lose the soft chestnut-brown of the wild-turkey, and to become lighter; the changeable purple tints of neck and breast assumed a greenish shade; the bristles on the naked portions about the head became more sparse or altogether disappeared; the blue about the head and the purple of the wattles became bright-red; the pinkish red of the legs became dull or changed to brown. These changes of color were seen in the first year of the bird's growth, but in its second these marks of degeneration would in most individuals, especially the cocks, disappear, and the plumage would show the thorough-bred wild-turkey. Each succeeding generation shows these changes to be more pronounced, but each year as the bird grows older the shades of color of the wild parent become more distinct. But Mr. Caton has hens now three or four years old with brown legs and on whose feathers the white has very considerably superseded the cinnamon shade, and he is satisfied that without a fresh infusion of wild blood in the course of fifteen or twenty years more but few individuals would show the distinctive marks of the wild-turkey to any considerable extent.

The habits of the wild-turkey are not so rapidly changed as the form and coloring, still they too change. The wild-turkey cock by the time he is five months old seeks