The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-05-28
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

! Chronicle, when men wore their mats
! in church, and Pepys evidently con-
/ sidered it an unnecessary piece OF
| strictness to insist on the bare mead
/ in church. In his diary for Nov. IL,
| 1861. he has the entry: TO church
| and heard a simple fellow upon the
/ praise of church musique, and eX-
| claiming against mems wearing their
| hats on in church. On Sept. % fol-
| lowing, he went to the French church
| at the Savoy, where the minister do
| preach with his hat off, L suppose IN
| further conformity with our church.
! Probably it was about this date that
the custom of. removing hats in the
| church began"
"A lump of native uranium contin-
uously gives off rays which will take
photographs of bones through the flesh.
Nine. Currie, in experimenting with
these rays, was led to suspect that the
radioactive properties of uranium Ia
| long known element) were really due
to some foreign substance in the metal.
She actually discovered two new ele-
ments of greater Importance and rarity
than argon and having properties
which are almost magical. The hrst
has been named ''radium" and the Sec
ond, in honor of Mime. Currie, who is
Pole, "polonium." These metals give
out several kinds of wonderful rays,
among which are those having X-ray
properties of great intensity.
DIR. Jonathan Hutchinson, who re-
Gently returned to England after
studying the causes of leprosy in
South Africa, concludes that the pri-
mary cause of leprosy is the eating Of
badly cured salt fish which is sent in
| land from the west and south coasts
| to the farmers and industrial centers.
| He does not believe that leprosy is
| infectious or contagious in the &C
cepted sense of these words, but holds
that it can be communicated by food
contaminated by lepers' hands. He
suggests as prophylaxis legislative
| control of the fish-curing establish
ments,| the diffusion of information in
regard to the danger of communica-
| ton and the establishment of isolation
homes for lepers during the stage of
the disease involving risk of contract
ing it.
Prof. Pearson, a biologist, has re-
newed the investigation into the ques-
ton of the relation between size of
head and intellectual preponderance If
the working man has a smaller head
on the average than the professional
man, Prof. Pearson points out that the
difference is due to better nutrition.
But apart from such a wide compari-
son he arrived at stricter conclusions
by the investigation of measurements
made on Cambridge undergraduates
whose careers were known. The re-
suits given show that there is no
marked correlation between ability as
judged by entry for an honors exaIni-
| NJ nd he 9 10 cbana of the
head When schools were selected for
testing the question essentially similar
results were obtained. A third series
of researches of wider extent resulted
in the conclusion that very brilliant
men may have a head slightly larger
than the average, but Prof Pearson
adds that the increase is so small that
it cannot form any element in our judg-
ment Of ability.
"A New Orleans surgeon, writing in
medical publication upon the negro,
as surgical subject says that al
though the environments of the negro
are anything but inviting, surgically
speaking, and while septic conditions
abound on every hand, no more bril-
liant recoVeries are ever seen than
those which are found in negro cabins
| and novels. Sepsis really appears to
be an unknown quality with the negro
In the first place, his ignorance regard
| ing his own condition, helps the course
of recovery. Then, again. he is gener-
ally obedient; and further, he is by ma
ture an optimist. Grease, dirt, and
| filth do not assert their septic influ
ences in the colored patient as they do
in the white, though the negro is de-
cidedly more susceptible to contagion
| Than white and COnt1Tni ted
blood is the rule rather than the excep-
ton in the negro. Being, as a rule,
very phlegmatiC. missions and wounds
of whatever description generally close
rapidly by primary union. The geuer-
Gus blood supply and heavy pigment,
no doubt, help nature in the process of
repair Rarely does a stitch abscess
present itself. Wounds of the cranial,
thoracic or abdominal cavities do not
produce in the negro the amount of
shock noticed in white subjects.
Otto Herr, the leader of an expe-
dition to Siberia to secure the body of
mammoth discovered there some time
since has lately returned to St Peters,
burg. a cable report to the New York
Sun says:s 1t was evident that bears
wolves and foxes had for some time
| been Geasting on the mammoths flesh.
which may have been some thousands
of years old. They had stripped the
meat off from large parts of the body.
| Fortunately the skeleton was not in
| jured in any way and so much of the
hide, hair and portions of the flesh re-
manned as to give an excellent idea of
the size and shape of the animal It's
remarkably thick fur coat undOubted-
| ly enabled it to withstand the sever
est climate. Between the teeth and
upon the tongue were bits of food, un-
| digested food being also found in the
stomach. 1t is conjectured, from the
position of the body when found that
its preservation was due to the nature
of the accident that caused it's death
| The mammoth was probably feeding
near creVice in the ice when it slipped
in and could not eXtricate itself. The
body was probably covered with snow
and thus lay in a perfect refrigerator
with ice on the bottom and sides and
snow above. The rift in the ice was
gradually filled with sand and then
the whole mass enclosing the carcass
was permanently frozen in, the body
remaining in practically as perfect a
condition us at the time of the ami
mails death.
Besides the Charleston earthquake
of 1886. in which forty-one lives we're
lost and about 100000 worth of
property was destroyed, says the New
York Sun, there have been two other
notable earthquakes in the United
| States within historic times-one near
the head of the Mississippi delta in