No Lunatic Asylums in Antiquity

1912

Insane Asylums

The great Greek physicians had devoted much attention to insanity, and some of their precepts anticipated modern discoveries, but no lunatic asylum appears to have existed in antiquity. In the first period of the monastic life a refuge is said to have been opened for the insane at Jerusalem, but this appears to have been a solitary instance, arising from exigencies of a single class, and it may be said that no lunatic asylum existed in Christian Europe until about the time of the fifteenth century.


Birds Worthy of Gratitude

It has been estimated that the birds in the United States save $200,000,000 worth of crops each year. The tree sparrows in Iowa eat 4,666 pounds of weed seed daily. One full-fledged robin will eat 16 feet of caterpillar daily, or about 4,569 individuals a month.


Happiness

Those who have the most of happiness think the least about it. But in thinking about and in doing their duty happiness comes — because the heart and mind are occupied with earnest thought that touches at a thousand points the beautiful and sublime realities of the universe. — Thackeray.


Mechanical Typesetting

Seventy years ago type was set by machine. December 17. 1842, James Young of London set type for his paper, The Family Herald, with a type composing-machine. It was a crude affair and was scoffed at by the type-setters of that day. In spite of ridicule, Young kept on and others took up the idea. The present method of rapid machine type-setting tell the story of success. — From an ad for a bank.

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 17, 1912, page 5.