The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-03-12

expedition, under direction of Prof.
Raphael Pumpelly for the Carnegie in
stitute Ideally there is something to
be said in that view since knowledge
of the sort they will acquire and give
certainly widens the horizon of the
past and enlarges the scope of human
thought But it is likely that in COM
parison the preference would be given
to the mission of health against di-
sease, which is now approaching the
point which Robert c.. Ingersoll posted
as one of the things he would have
done better If he had the management
of the Creation-to make health catch
ing instead of disease.
The two young men who have gone
out from the Harvard medical school
to study conditions in the Philippines
are DR.. w. r. Brinckerhoff and DR.. e.
E. Tyzzer, who have been associated
with DR.. w. r. Councilman in the
pathological department of the school,
and especially in his discovery and iso-
lation of the smallpox parasite. Why
it is expected they will find more about
this matter IN the Philippines than
they could here is said to result from
the greater freedom they will have in
vivisection, that is, the experimentation
on animals. There are monkeys there
and monkeys have so close and often
identical physiological correspondence
with the higher anthropoids that an
experiment on them has much to teach.
This is not pleasant feature of the
investigation What is said about the
mysterious diseases of the East which
we must guard against may be true.
There is the bubonic plague-but it
did not come this way through the
Philippines, but by the gates of Asia
Minor and Egypt just as the grip came
from Russia. We could have had all
the plaques we wanted without med
ding with the Philippines. But since
we have meddled it is well that those
young men volunteer to expose them
selves to UNREASONABLE risks for the
purpose of safeguarding the stay-at-
home people who are guiltless of the
error These young doctors are not
without their stake in our home life:
DR.. Brinckerhoff has a mother and
brother of whom he is the mainstay
since his father died, only recently:
Or. Iyzzer has a wife and two little
boys in Wakefield. 1t is a sacrifice
they make in the interest of the most
compelling of motives-the advance Of
science at all possible expense to its
devotees. A Harvard professor OBJ
served on their departures. This is
the first instance where the Philip-
pines promise to be of any earthly use
to u.s."
AS to DR.. Pumpelly's expedition it is
expected to discover proofs of the earl
lest civilization Of mankind. There is
nothing new in the notion that the
center of divergence of the Aryan races
is somewhere in central Asia, The
Hlmalayas We're called so a century or
TWO ago, not to mention the Bible and
Babylonian traditions. In Turkestan
there are remains of very ancient cities
OF civilizations which can be traced in
history for 5000 years or so. The
great waste of that region, which in
the Biographies of less than a century
ago was called Independent Tartary''
abounds in mounds and tombs and
ruins in heaps, and scarcely anything
has been done toward their examination
scientifically and systematically. alb
solutely nothing. Russian governors
have picked into some of those mounds
and found bones, both animal and HUI
man, and pottery of various descrip-
tons. But no scientific excavations
have been made. Prof. Pumpelly's
special object of research is in ancient
Samarcand-name and place known to
Marco Polo, and located definitely in
the campaigns Of Alexander of Mace
don; and also in Merry which is an oasis
of 80 square miles, containing now sew
eral cities of great antiquity, and re-
mains of many others. The region Is
all decadent and empty in comparison
to what it was once, when it was the
center of racial power and conquest.
1t seems quite too much to expect that
with all possible research the earliest
origins of civilization and the distri-
button of the human race can me much
more illumined than they have been.
China itself has a historic record far
older than 5000 years, and yet nothing
is known there of origins, except le-
gends similar to those of Babylonia
and Egypt. But what these excava-
tors may discover will be of interest,
II only by telling us that there is no
backward search into those days when
mad had not arrived at a history, any
more than the mammoths found in the
siberian ice.-Sprfngfield Republican.
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