The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-10
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS AND WARNING.

ldlS Vi LLS Oldte.
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS AND WARNING.
Modern scientists are making rapid strides
in solving all the occult mysteries of nature.
By analytical experiments they have struck
down through the epidermis, the c%uticle,
through muscle and fat, until they have all
but laid bare that impaIpable essence called
the human soul The liver is as familiar to
the modern medical man as is the soft-shell
turtle to the embryo Sir John Lubbock play
ing 'hookey" from school at the f~avorite
swimming-hole. The human heart has be-
come so familiar to the masses that even a
ence between that organ and the spleen, and
there are few preachers in these latter days
who would stultify themselves by mistaking
the pericardium for the occiput. Surgery
has received an immense impetus, and now it
is the easiest thing in the world for the
manipulation of the scaipel to remove
any internal organs that refuse or are inca
pable of performing their respective func-
tons. From the rudimentary tin ear and
wax nose of Chicago chirurgists, competent
men have advanced to nickel-plated %livers,
In cases where livers are not wholly used
up, the old organ has been trimmed down,
scolloped and futed, until it would be diff
cult to see in what if any respect it was not
as good as a brand new one of the original
pattern. Automatic cork legs were once
regarded as the climax of ingenious mechan-
ism, and Louisville physicians still make
considerable reputation on great toes. But
these are now relegated to the unscientifc
past, and a Lafayette surgeon has succeeded
in putting a plate-glass window in
to q boys stomach, so that
the pane is apparent to all with
out the necessity of being informed that the
patient has been recklessly INDUCING in in
digestible aliment. But while at the present
time physicians see through a glass darkly, as
it were, the day is not far distant when med
ical science will have so far advanced that the
SuLcIGT may ledfC HIS NlSCeId WILL HIS ldu.ily
doctor while he hurries off to business. OF
course, accidents may occur occasionally,
and the wrong man will get hold of the liver
or lights of some other man. but all these
can be obviated by a system of checks, the
deposited baggage being numbered the same
as the respective human trunks to which
they belong. Naturally this will lead to the
voluntary exchange of organs. A man with
a heart that is a trile shop-worn
will worm it off on some other fellow
who has one a little wind-shaken and with
the season-cracks carefully puttied up and
vanished over. Commerce will thus be ex-
tended, and it may be no unusual thing for
a man to put up his liver for a small loan at
$50 per cent. This is no ~fanciful sketch.
The steamboat, the locomotive, the telegraph
and telephone were all laughed at as impos-
sibilities, yet to-day they are dreadful reali-
ties and own about all there is worth having
in this world.
And comes now Prof. G. Stanley Hall, of
Harvard University, with new revelations.
Americans are hurrying to the grave pell
NELL. We work too hard, we eat too much,
we eat too fast, we do not take enough exer-
else, we drink too much, we worry too much,
and we grow bald-headed long before there
is any need of it. OF course, it is not
denied that life in America is worth living
while it lasts, but we live too fast, and we
are hustled off to the b-urying-ground just at
the time we ought to settle down to senile
imbecility. At the dawn of life the ball
drops, we bounce out of the cradle and make
a neck-and-neck race for the grave. But the
supply Of graves seems adequate to the de-
mand, and the galIop is likely to be kept up.
Many haze vainly investigated this phenome-
non. 1t is difficult to understand why the
people of this continent should be so reckless
of life. But Professor G.. Stanley Hall, of
Harvard, has solved the mystery in a man