Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/482

478 have some fame in distant lands, chiefly because of a wonderful, clear narrative of the bilious yellow fever of 1793 which he had written. To us, who see him through the vista of one hundred years, he stands, not, indeed, the most conspicuous figure of a time brilliant with heroic men and deeds, but great among the greatest, and certainly the most striking and impressive figure of the medical life of America at that period or any period since."

the recent report of the superintended of the Government Laboratories in the Philippine Islands, to which we have already called attention, a good deal of space is given to the question of the production of gutta-percha and rubber in the islands. Owing to the recent development of applied science, these substances have become very widely used, and there is danger lest the supply become exhausted. It is indeed certain that this will happen unless the production is artificially guarded and increased. Thus in the Philippines gutta-percha is collected by the savage tribes, who cut down the trees and collect perhaps one fortieth of the gutta-percha they contain. The native collectors sell it for about $5 per picul of 168 pounds; the middlemen sell it to the Chinese