Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/589

Rh victims of rheumatism, another of epilepsy, while the others maintain a healthy equilibrium." The clinical subjects which have been selected so far by the British society are acute pneumonia, chorea, acute rheumatism, diphtheria, and inherited syphilis, and information is invited by means of memorandum-cards of inquiry. Several reports have been already gathered on these subjects. The German physicians have selected, for the single subject of their similar investigations, pulmonary phthisis, on which they solicit facts concerning the heredity of the disease, its communicability, its cure, and the transition of pneumonia into phthisis, with many minute particulars respecting family relations. The advantages expected to be derived from making the investigations international are, that it will give them more extent, and will enlist in them minds of varied capacity and habits, and diversified training. Snail-Culture.—The taste for snails as food is growing in France. The mollusks are regularly cultivated in some of the vine growing districts of the country, but the greater part of those with which the markets are supplied are raised in the department of Aude. Toward the end of the summer the snails are picked up and collected in small parks which are made in a corner of the garden or field, and are surrounded with an inclosure of sawdust and dry briers, which is stocked with aromatic plants. The park must be regularly visited, particularly in rainy weather, to drive in estrays. Toward the end of the fall, bunches of moss and dry leaves are scattered around, in which the snails may hide themselves after they have closed their shells. The animals are then captured, packed, and sent to market. The ancient Romans cultivated these gasteropods on a quite extensive scale. Their parks were large and surrounded by water, so that the snails could not escape, and an abundant supply of moisture should always be at hand. At fattening-time the animals were put in earthen pots pierced with holes, and rubbed on the inside with flour mixed with wine. Some of them grew to be very large. The Romans liked snails because they provoked thirst, and gave an excuse for drinking wine. Insect-eating Men.—The insect-eaters here referred to are not occasional persons of depraved tastes, but whole nations, who consume insects on so large a scale as to raise them to a regular article of trade. Locusts arc an article of food in parts of Africa, Arabia, and Persia, of such importance that the price of provisions is influenced by the quantity of the dried insects in hand. The Tuaregs of Africa esteem them highly, and a single individual will eat as many as three hundred of them—raw, roasted or stewed—at a meal. Cakes of crushed locusts are a delicacy. Boiled locusts are appreciated in Burmah. Termites and ants are the next most important food-insects. The egg-laden bodies of the females of Alta cephalotes are industriously collected by Indians in South America, and the taste of their roasted and salted bodies has been appreciated even by Europeans. The African negroes can hardly get enough of termites, which are eaten fried at the Cape, and in other regions are made into cakes. Roasted termites taste somewhat like marrow or sweet cream. The seventeen-year locust has been eaten in North America, and is said to have been used in soap-making. Cakes are made in Mexico with the eggs of two kinds of water-bugs. A cake made in Fezzan of insect-eggs is described as having the taste of caviare. The Romans were fond of a larva which they called cossus. A favorite dish is prepared in Jamaica from the larva of a beetle that lives in the trunks of palm-trees. Another wood-insect is preserved in sugar by the Chinese and Malays, and a liquor is made, with the addition of some water, from a beetle in Mexico. Caterpillars are eaten in Australia and at the Cape, at the risk of wofulwoeful [sic] pains in the stomach, and even spiders, abhorred by every other race, are eaten by the Hottentots and New Caledonians, with the same liability. Worms are accepted as food by very few people. A kind of grub is collected and eaten in Brazil, a nereid worm in Samoa, and a reed-worm by the Ainos of Japan. The Australians around Port Adelaide are said to have lived exclusively on worms and mollusks, while they abhorred beef. Some persons in Naples eat a tape-worm, a parasite of the carp, fried in oil, and call it macaroni piatti. Sea-urchins form a quite