Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/855

* MAMMITIS. 761 MAMMOTH. and the milk shows clots and streaks of blood. If these symptoms are not relieved, a general fever condition may be established with a cessa- tion of milk secretion and formation of abscesses in one or more quarters of the udder. In treating the disease, the milk should be fre- quently drawn and the udder should be thor- oughly rubbed with some ointment, such as a mixture of vaseline, gum camphor, belladonna, and henbane. Where the udder is very hard, an ointment made of one drachm each of iodine and iodide of potash in four ounces of vaseline may be used. Until recovery takes place the diet should be light, and laxatives, such as Epsom salts, should be administered. Another form of the disease is known as contagious mammitis and is due to infection by a streptococcus. The symptoms are similar to those of garget. Goats are affected by a similar disease known as gan- grenous mammitis, which is due to a micrococcus. Treatment of contagious farms of mammitis should consist in injections into the teats of antiseptic solutions. Some veterinarians main- tain that in such cases the milk should not be drawn, since the disease may thus be spread by the hands of attendants. Good results have been obtained by thoroughly blistering with biniodide of mercur3' and cantharides. Tuberculosis of the udder is frequently mistaken for simple garget. Suspected cases should be tested with tuberculin, since the milk of such cows is dangerous. MAM'MON. An Aramaic word meaning ■riches.' It is employed in two ways in the Xew Testament: (1) In Luke xvi. 9-11. where it signifies literally riches; and (2) in Matt. vi. 24 (Luke xvi. 13). where it is used for the god of riches. The phrase "mammon of unrighteous- ness' also occurs in the Book of Enoch (Ixiii. 10) in allusion to Luke xvi. 9. It is not to be con- cluded, however, that there was a Syrian god named JIammon. The derivation is uncertain, and none oi the explanations proffered is satis- factory. MAMMON, Sir Epicure. In Jonson's AI- fhonist, a wealthy and arrogant sensualist, whom Subtle drains of his money by arousing his cupidity. MAMMOTH (from Russ. mamantu, mam- moth, from Tatar mamma, earth: so called be- cause the Yakuts and Tungusians believed that the mammoth burrowed like a mole, since its remains were discovered under groimd). The woolly elephant {EJephas primifjenius) . the best-known and one of the most recently extinct of fossil elephants, closely related to the existing Asiatic elephant. ( See Elephant. ) It inhabited Central Europe during Glacial and post-Glacial times. .t that time the area of the present Korth Sea was forested land, and thousands of mammoth teeth and bones have been dredged from the sea by fishermen. It may have orig- inated thereabout and moved eastward, for re- mains have been found throughout Asia ; and it passed on by the then-existing land connection with Alaska into Korth America, where it spread over the continent as far south as the Central L'nited States. . second, rather doubtful, species (Elephas Columbianiis) has been named from some large bones found in the Southern States. The distinction between these elephants and the more familiar mastodon (q.v.) must be kept clear: the latter was a very different animal. Though the enormous bones of these and other fossil elephants, and their almost imperishable teeth, have frequently come to light, ever since the forgotten antiquity when they were hunted by primitive man, and have been the bases of strange tales, theories, and superstitions, little was known about them until the discovery at the close of the eighteenth century of remains en- tombed in the ice-cliffs of the Siberian coast, where complete animals have been kept in cold storage for unnumbered thousands of years. These and other remains enable us to reconstruct more exactly than in the case of any other fos- silized creature the proportions and aspect of this animal. Though the tradition of the marvel which the bones seemed to our forefathers has given to the word 'mammoth' a sense of some- thing huge, this elephant probably did not on the average much exceed in size African elephants of HEAD OF A MAM.MOTH. the present day. One of the largest kno^vn ex- amples — that preserved by the Chicago Academy of Sciences — did not exceed 13 feet in height at the shoulder, and has tusks 9 feet 8 inches long. African elephant tusks 10 feet 3% inches long were exhibited in Xew York in 1900. The largest mammoth tusks ever actually measured, according to Lucas, were two from .laska, one 12 feet 10 inches long, weighing 190 pounds, and the other 11 feet long, weighing 200 poimds. Modern African elephant tusks of the same siEe would weigh 20 per cent. more. In general form and osseous structure the mammoth resembles the Indian elephant, but the skull differs in the narrower summit, nar- rower temporal fossae, and more prolonged bony sheaths supporting the base of the tusks, which were long, comparatively slender, and described a curve both upward and outward. There are great variations in the amount of this curve, from almost straight to a nearly complete spiral, but it is characteristic of the species. Flower says that tusks were doubtless present in both sexes. The molar teeth are peculiar in the great relative breadth of the crown, and the narrowness, close approximation, and thinly enameled walls of their transverse ridges. Outwardly the mam- moth differed from any other known elephant in the fact that it was clothed with long hair, and a dense, woolly underfur, in adaptation to the cold climate of its habitat. Compare M.^stodon. From the earliest times fossil ivory was de- rived from the buried tusks of these elephants. The ancient Chinese worked in it, and even had such ideas about the edibility of the animal's flesh as makes it probable that they knew that carcasses were occasionally found on the -rctie coast. This ivory was known to the Greeks, and