Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/880

860 pain, or blood is drawn, a poultice is applied, and recovery is regarded as almost certain. If the blood does not flow, or the patient does not suffer, the case is given up. A case is quoted in which a young Chinese was instantly relieved of the cramp of cholera by this process. The Chinese explanation of their treatment is that, when the blood is in the poisoned condition which induces the choleraic symptoms, it becomes thick and accumulates in certain parts of the body, from which it must be withdrawn.

Development of Zuñi Civilization.—Mr. F. H. Cushing explained before the British Association his theory of the manner in which the present civilization of the Zuñis rose by a genuine process of self-development from a low condition of barbarism, in which he finds every reason to believe those Indians originally existed. The brush covered wigwam in which they first dwelt gave way to a small building of lava-stone, or a cliff-dwelling, and that to the pueblo house, which is both cliff and dwelling in one. Their earliest vessels were gourds. They incased them in wicker-work for safer transportation; then took the wicker-work alone, and had a basket; then plastered the basket with clay to make it tight, and got the idea of a pottery-vessel. The first ornamentation of their pottery was derived from the imitation of this wicker-work frame. And all this took only a few centuries—nothing near the numerous cycles of ages which some anthropologists imagine it must have taken man to reach a civilized state.

Family Relations of the Mnata Yanvo.—Dr. Pogge and Max Buchner have described the people of the Muata Yanvo, or Matianvo of Livingstone, as, although fetich worshipers, practicing circumcision, a "fine warlike race, unhappily addicted to slave hunting, though far in advance of some neighboring tribes, and living under feudal institutions." "Among many peculiar customs," says General Lefroy, "is one which invests one of the king's half-sisters, under the designation of the Lukokescha, with the second authority in the kingdom. She is forbidden to marry, but permitted a sort of morganatic alliance with a slave, any off-spring being ruthlessly destroyed, and, on the death of the king, she has the principal voice in determining his successor, who, however, must be selected from among the sons of the late king. . . . The extraordinary custom prevails here that a man's children do not belong to him, but to the eldest brother of their mother; and, should a child die, the father must make compensation."

Treatment for the Opium-Habit.—In his little pamphlet on this subject. Dr. Asa P. Meylert says that in all cases where unrestrained the opium habitue takes a larger quantity than would suffice him. The method of cure by gradual reduction alone he has tried in one case at the patient's request, but does not propose to repeat the experiment. Every reduction was attended with severe suffering. In another case, he tried to reduce gradually, using tonics to sustain the patient, but no narcotics, nor a substitute of any kind. The case was that of a woman, whose general health was good, whose will-power was unusually strong, who had not taken opium long, and was not taking a very large quantity—thirty grains of crude opium daily. It was a most favorable opportunity to try this method. The result proved that, notwithstanding the tonic treatment, she found a daily reduction of four per cent intolerable. We must therefore—if we adopt this method—consider something less than four per cent as adapted to the average patient. Suppose that the average consumption be estimated at ten grains of morphia daily—and this is a low estimate. Suppose, again, that the patient continues the drug to the one tenth grain before leaving it off altogether—and this would be a minimum limit without special treatment: to reduce from ten grains to one tenth grain, at three and one half per cent daily, would require one hundred and thirty days, or nearly four and a half months; at one per cent, four hundred and fifty-nine days, or over fifteen months. Those who know how easily the opium patient is alarmed by any sudden shock, and how naturally relief is sought from the bottle for every ill or mischance in life, need no assurance that a cure which must extend over so long a time is utterly impracticable for the average patient, outside an institution. There