Courtship and Marriage

1895

Some New Light on the Subject by an English Writer.

An English writer has recently been giving some what he calls "new light on love, courtship and marriage" that is worth considering. Anybody, he says, who has not yet fallen in love can readily raise the vision of the subsequent dear one by looking at himself in the glass. If he be stout, the girl will probably be thin; if he have a snub nose, his love will center about the Roman one; if he be dark, ten to one a blond ultimately captures him. Thus nature corrects defects and strives to realize her ideal. The same holds good in a measure of the mental qualities. A fool should make it his business to fall in love with a clever woman, and, conversely, a wise man should marry a fool if he has any respect for nature. Note, further, that girls with Roman noses are, as a rule, good house managers, but against this amiable quality must be set the fact that your Roman nose is essentially managing in every direction and is not content with domestic duties alone.

Your Roman nose, in fact, requires a complete surrender and is rarely happy till she gets it. Noses, he thinks, are a leading index to character. A void a sharp nose. If, besides being sharp, it is tinted with varying shades of red or blue or is blue pointed, there is an asperity of temper which it would not be well for you to encounter. Let your converse with "blue points" be confined to the oyster bar, then. Avoid the blue nosed maiden as you would the blue nosed orang outang — both are capable of infinite mischief. He also cautions us against red hair and bushy eyebrows. In selecting a husband "choose a sensible man, one of solid, mature judgment. A broad, perpendicular forehead, with the upper part somewhat projecting over horizontal eyebrows, and vivacious, deep set eyes are said to denote practical common sense and mature judgment." Excellent advice, only a bit too general, as is his infallible recipe for winning his love. To do so a woman must possess womanly graces, the power of setting out her qualities so as to inspire the tender passion and a gift of fascination. That is the whole secret.

Is Man a Lopsided Animal?

1895

The Subject Discussed From a Variety of Interesting Standpoints.

Man at best is an ungainly animal. His head is an irregular spheroid; his eyes are not alike or of equal efficiency; one shoulder is higher than its neighbor; one hand and one foot are larger than their corresponding organ. Despite the fact that the shape, size and color of the ear differ more widely in individuals than any other organ of the human body, they are probably more alike on the same head than any other of the twin organs. If one ear is delicate in shade, the other will be the same; if one looks like a dried fig or a conchshell, the other is likewise so. With the eyes, however, matters are different. One eye is nearly always more open than its friend over the bridge, while in many cases people, while apparently looking with both eyes, only use one, and makers of firearms, in making guns to order, carefully allow for the right or left sightedness of the sportsman for whom they cater. Broadly speaking, women are more often left sighted than men, and when they do happen to be right sighted they are so in less degree than the sterner sex.

The reason why the left shoulder is frequently farther from Mother Earth than the right lips in the fact that while writing most men rest the left elbow on the table, while in the case of porters loads are carried on the right shoulder. With an ablebodied man there is very little difference in the length of the limbs, but the hands and feet are usually widely different in the matter of size. The right hand is the bigger, while, curiously enough, the left foot covers the greater amount of ground.

Ladies have a certain unreasoning sense of satisfaction when they say that they wear fives in gloves, because, if this is a fact, then the human hand has grown smaller within the last 20 or 30 years, which state of affairs, however, may be questioned when the glovemakers tell their story. Gloves are all marked half a size smaller than they really ought to be, which is the fatal result of the habit in which ladies indulge of almost invariably asking for gloves a size smaller than they can comfortably wear.

The left leg is better developed than the other male carrier on account of the fact that we stand habitually on the left foot and mount a bicycle or horse and kick a man while balancing on the left leg. Most men jump chiefly off the left leg.

Lateral curvature of the spine occurs more frequently to the left than to the right, indicating that the body in sitting is thrown more to the left than to right. This leads to the remark that nothing is more injurious, for the young especially, than to sit for any length of time in one position. — Albany Times-Union.

Breathing Deeply

1895

An Exercise Easy to Perform and of Undoubted Value.

With the preliminary but important matter of clothing satisfactorily settled we are ready to breathe. If very weak, lie down on an easy couch — lie flat on the back. See that the air is fresh, but avoid a draft. Draw in a long, slow breath, letting the diaphragm and abdomen expand as fully as possible. Then by a contraction of the diaphragm, a quick drawing in of the muscles of the stomach, force the air into the upper part of the lungs and hold it there a moment or two before allowing it to pass up into the throat. This is done by a contraction of the vocal cords and is not usually difficult. But if the cords will not close and the air is not readily controlled close the lips and hold the nose for a moment, which will prevent the air from all leaving the apex of the lungs. With practice the vocal cords will come under perfect control.

Some have difficulty in establishing the abdominal breathing, especially those who have been in the habit of breathing entirely from the throat. But when the clothing no longer forms an obstruction this will gradually right itself. The natural mode of breathing asserts itself most readily when one is lying down; therefore that position is recommended for the daily practice, which should be persistent, but also very gentle. Do not allow yourself to become really fatigued and be careful not to make the lungs ache. If one deep breath brings weariness or dizziness, stop with the one breath, but try again when fully rested. The upper part of the chest will gradually expand and in time will round out beautifully.

The careful practice of deep breathing will bring new vitality to any organ not incurably diseased. It will enrich the blood more than any preparation of iron or cod liver oil. It has greater power than any anodyne to soothe and restore exhausted nerves. It will round the throat, straighten the shoulders, fill the chest, give a sparkle to the eyes, a color to the cheeks. Those who like to sing will rejoice to find their voice gaining marvelously in strength and purity of tone. — Demorest Magazine.

"What Is Man?"

1919

Interesting Answer Dealing With Physical Makeup

A man weighing 150 pounds will contain approximately 3,500 cubic feet of gas — oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen — in his constitution, which at 80 cents a thousand cubic feet would be worth $2.80 for illuminating purposes, asserts a writer in the Electrical Experimenter.

He also contains all the necessary fats to make a 15-pound candle, and thus, together with his 3,500 cubic feet of gases, he possesses considerable illuminating possibilities. His system contains twenty-two pounds and ten ounces of carbon, or enough to make 780 dozen, or 9,360 lead pencils. There are about fifty grains of iron in his blood and the rest of the body would supply enough of this metal to make one spike large enough to hold his weight.

A healthy man contains fifty-four ounces of phosphorus. This deadly poison would make 800,000 matches or enough poison to kill 500 persons. This, with two ounces of lime, make the stiff bones and brains. No difference how sour a man looks, he contains about sixty lumps of sugar of the ordinary cubical dimensions, and to make the seasoning complete, there are twenty spoonfuls of salt.

If a man were distilled into water, he would make about thirty-eight quarts, or more than half his entire weight. He also contains a great deal of starch, chloride of potash, magnesium, sulphur and hydrochloric acid in his wonderful human system. Break the shells of 1,000 eggs into a huge pan or basin, and you have the contents of a man from his toenails to the most delicate tissues of his brain.

And this is the scientific answer to the question, "What is man?"

Genuine Wild Horses Discovered

1908

Beasts Prove to Be Distinct Species

New York. — There was little prospect 30 years ago of the discovery of a genuine wild horse. There are, to be sure, the so-called wild horses of the Americas, but they are the descendants of horses that the Spaniards brought to the western world some centuries ago. While evidence existed that wild horses were probably as abundant in prehistoric times in the south of Europe as zebras are today in British East Africa, most naturalists believed that true wild horses with an unbroken line of wild ancestry were extinct.

Then, in 1879, the Russian explorer Prjevalsky reported that he had discovered a new and quite distinct horse in the Gobi desert to the west of Mongolia. Two years later Poliakof published a description of the horse to which he gave the name Equus prjevalskii. Then the brothers Grum-Grjimailo saw the horses in the desert and learned many new facts about them.

The Russians were greatly interested, and it was decided to capture a number of the animals and bring them to Europe. These efforts were successful, and five years ago a herd of about 30 of the Prjevalsky horses, after no end of trouble, were landed in Europe. Most of them are still in Russia, but a few were taken to England, where they are kept on the estate of the duke of Bedford.

The English naturalists did not make a scientific study of the animals in that country because the Russians have had a most thorough investigation in progress, with the advantage that nearly all the captive horses and a number of skeletons are in their hands. Very few of the English naturalists believed that they were true wild horses, but looked upon them either as a kiang, hybrid, the kiang being a species of the ass, or as the offspring of escaped Mongol ponies.

The Russians, however, have settled the question. They have proved by the methods of comparative anatomy and in other ways that the Prjevalsky horse has no relationship with Mongol ponies or the kiang but is a valid and distinct species of the genus horse, without relationship to the ass, though it has some features that remind one of the Asiatic ass; but even in these features, as the tail, for example, the resemblance is closer to the horse than to the ass.

The results of the investigation were, prepared for publication by Dr. W. Salensky, director of the Zoological museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. The book has just been translated into English and published in London under the title "Prjevalsky's Horse."

It contains a number of pictures of the captives, one of which is reproduced here. The frontispiece shows a three-year-old stallion and a two-year-old mare which are the property of the czar.

The animals were mere colts when they arrived in Europe and were not prepossessing, for they did not take kindly to the novel conditions, were out of condition and had ragged coats and awkward gaits. They have now reached maturity, have been well cared for and are good looking animals.

Many naturalists have held the opinion that the domestic horse of today was mainly derived from three wild species, which have been named the steppe, forest and plateau varieties. The Prjevalsky horse is a representative of the steppe variety.

The Mongolians have made many attempts to tame the wild horse, but in vain. All efforts to tame the animals that have been brought to Europe have also failed. Thus far the horse will not submit to man, is afraid of him, and cannot be rendered serviceable. Though now accustomed to the sight of human beings, the captives are very badly frightened if a person approaches nearer than within two or three rods of them.

Still some facts are known which indicate that there is hope that those horses may eventually be tamed. The explorer Koslov about 40 years ago saw a colt of six months belonging to a chief in the Gobi that had been so far tamed as to walk peaceably in a bridle. It would permit itself to be led up a stairway to the floor above, and even allowed the seven-year-old son of the chief to sit on its back.

It is practically impossible to capture adult animals on their native plains. The Russians followed the comparatively simple Mongolian method of getting possession of some of the horses.

From time to time they could see from afar that young colts had been added to the herd within a day or two. They thereupon pursued the herd of horses until the colts became so exhausted that they could travel no further and then it was easy to capture them.

The Arrangement of Cut Flowers

1874

The London Gardener says that of all the various mistakes made by persons in arranging flowers, the commonest is that of putting too many in a vase; and next to that, is the mistake of putting too great a variety of colors in one bouquet. Every flower in a group should be clearly distinguishable and determinable without pulling the nosegay to pieces; the calyx of a cove pink should never be hid by being plunged into the head of a white phlox, however well the colors may look.

Sweet peas never look so well in the hands as they do on the boughs over which they climb, because they cannot be carried without crowding them; but put them lightly in a vase with an equal number of mignonette, or rather, ornament a vase half full of mignonette, with a few blossoms of sweet peas, and you get a charming effect, because you follow the natural arrangement by avoiding crowding of the blossoms, and putting them with the green foliage which they want to set them off.

Few people are aware, until they try it, how easy it is to spoil such a pleasing combination as this; a piece of calceolaria, scarlet geranium, or blue salvia, would ruin it effectually. Such decided colors as these require to be grouped in another vase, and should not even be placed on the table with sweet peas.


Laugh and Be Healthy

The physiological benefit of laughter is explained in the Archiv fur Psychiatrie: The comic-like tickling causes a reflex action of the sympathetic nerve, by which the caliber of the vascular portions of the system is diminished, and their nervous power increased. The average pressure of the cerebral vessels on the brain substance is thus decreased, and this is compensated for by the forced expiration of laughter, and the larger amount of blood thus called to the lungs. We always feel good when we laugh, but until now we never knew the scientific reason why.

The Heart of Jumbo the Elephant

1904

It's the Biggest Heart in the World

ITHACA, N. Y., Jan. 30. — The biggest heart in the world, that of the elephant Jumbo, is preserved in the museum of the department of neurology, vertebrate zoology and physiology of Cornell University. If the heart were not so large it would stand in a glass jar on the shelves of the museum with hundreds of those of other animals and men.

But Jumbo's heart is so big that it lies in a barrel stowed away in the cellar of the museum, glass jars not being made large enough to hold the great mass of muscle. Some time it will be dissected by a class of students and then thrown away.

Jumbo had a heart ninety-eight times as large as the average human organ. It now weighs 36½ pounds, after having soaked several years in alcohol. A human heart, which weighs a little more than a pound, soaked in alcohol for the same length of time, weighs 10 ounces. The human heart is less than six inches long. Jumbo's is 28 inches, and 24 inches wide. The ordinary heart could be contained in the main artery of Jumbo's heart. The walls of the artery are five-eighths of an inch thick, while the walls of the ventricle are three inches thick.

When Jumbo met his heroic death at St. Thomas, Ont., trying to save the baby elephant and being himself killed by a locomotive, his carcass was sent to the Ward Natural Science establishment at Rochester. The skeleton was presented and put on exhibition and the hide mounted.

Dr. Burt G. Wilder of Cornell purchased the heart of the animal to add it to his colossal collection. The brains of Jumbo were also desired, but these had been shattered in the collision. When the heart reached Ithaca it was found impractical to preserve it by the process which retains its original shape, and so the organ was put in a barrel of alcohol. It had not been removed for years until Dr. Hugh D. Reed lifted it from the barrel to show to The Herald correspondent.

—The Sunday Herald, Syracuse, New York, Jan. 31, 1904, p. 23.

Working and Worrying — Men and Women

1916

In spite of the floods of warning from doctors and others thousands of persons keep on working and worrying themselves into early graves, or what is worse for their companions, nervous prostration that makes them unfit companions for themselves or others.

The world is full of trouble, but we are not at all backward about saying that a considerable proportion of the fusses that occur in families and between families has its origin in petulant phrases and complaints that are no sooner uttered than they are regretted. Forced from lips by a peevishness that comes from over taut and overworked nerves, they rip and tear, and we are prevented by the same physical condition from making the instant reparation that we would under other circumstances.

Men as a class have better control of their nerves than have women. This is physiological as well as psychological. They stew and fret less and their work is better fitted to preserve their nerves. If women would understand that they are under as deep an obligation to their husbands to conserve and preserve their physical health as their husbands are to them to keep up for work and thus furnish support things might be better.

—Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE, Aug. 5, 1916, p. 4.

The Body Perfectly Obeys Your Rapid Brain

1922

YOUR POWERS

Lulu M. Cargill, clerk in the New York post office, takes from Nina E. Holmes of Detroit the title of "champion letter sorter of the world."

Miss Holmes attracted attention by sorting 20,610 letters in eight hours, or nearly 43 a minute. Miss Cargill sorts 30,215 letters in eight hours, which is better than one a second. And she sorted the first 23,500 letters without pause. Then she stopped for a cup of tea. Sorting a letter means picking it up, reading the address, recalling the postal route to reach the address, then tossing the letter into the proper bag.

Miss Cargill is 26 years old. She has been a postal clerk only three years.

Miss Cargill, you reflect, must have wonderful co-ordination of body and mind. A brain that works with lightning swiftness has automatically perfect teamwork with a body that perfectly obeys her rapid brain.

The body is a collection of machines, each trying to work cooperatively for the good of all. It is a more perfect system of government than man has been able to devise.

Miss Cargill, judging from her work, has what scientists would call "an extraordinary well-balanced system of endocrine glands."

In the so-called "efficient" person, the body glands speed up when needed and slow down when the energy of the body is required by the other glands.

In a boy who is growing too rapidly, as a result of abnormal activity by the pituitary gland in the brain, the other glands slow down and surrender part of their share of the body's energy. With most of his energy devoted to growing, the lad is apt to be otherwise languid.

Or, for example, you suddenly are in danger, which requires a quick use of reserve energy. The word is telegraphed through the blood. The message is sent out by the adrenal glands, which stand guard as a mobilizer of reserve energy. Other glands slow down, as if saying, "If the adrenals fail in this emergency, we all perish."

The heart responds to the adrenals and rushes blood to the arms or other parts of the body that have to meet the danger. This rush of blood is why "the face goes white" in a time of peril.

The crisis met and conquered, the blood rushes back to normal distribution through the body. The other glands "come to life." The sudden change makes the person, calm in or, half-collapse "after it's all over."

—The Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Sept. 26, 1922, p. 3.

Decatur Doctor Caught Digging Up Negro Cadaver

Illinois, 1879

BODY SNATCHING.

A Decatur Doctor After a Negro Cadaver

His Operations Brought to a Sudden Conclusion.

The Decaturites are all worked up over a body snatching affair that occurred last Friday night. A prominent Decatur physician is implicated in the affair, and if he shows up the Decatur folks promise him an anti-cordial reception.

It seems that the above mentioned physician wanted to increase his knowledge of the human frame, and with this end in view he climbed the fence of a Decatur graveyard, having in his possession those necessary grave-robbing instruments, a pick and shovel. Strange to say this son of Esculapius seems to have a horror for the Caucasians. The reason of this is not known, but it is thought that Caucasian "stiffs" do not "pan out" as well as those of other races, therefore he concluded to get a "subject" of the African persuasion.

Having arrived at this conclusion he wended his way toward the "last resting place" of a recently "planted" negro. As soon as the grave was reached he unslung his pick and immediately began to delve into the newly made grave. He worked away with a will, and he was just stooping to raise the lid of the coffin when the deep stillness of the night was broken by the loud report of what seemed to him about seventeen cannons. The bullets flew past his cranium and buried themselves in the earth a few feet beyond him. The perspiration started in great beads to his forehead, and dropping his pick and shovel he precipitately fled. Scaling the graveyard fence, he took a short cut for his stable. Arriving there he immediately hitched his horse to a buggy, and in less time than it takes to "blow up a safe" he was driving across the country at a "Sleepy Tom" gait, and no tidings of his whereabouts have been received up to this writing.

The names of all parties are reserved, as it is thought that there will be further developments made.

—Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, IN, Aug. 19, 1879, p. 4.

Women Becoming Manly, Men Effeminate, Foppish

1910

Woman Developing Strong Arm

While Men Are Changing to Effeminate, Foppish Persons

Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 28 — Dr. Dudley A. Sargent, a celebrated authority on physical development, declares that woman is fast assuming the physical proportions and mental characteristics of man. Dr. Sargent is director of the Harvard and Sargent gymnasiums in this city. He cites from a model of a composite woman, molded from measurements made from 10,000 women, all taken prior to the year 1890. On the other hand, he avers that man is inclining toward effeminacy.

"Although I've no actual figures to verify the statement," Dr. Sargent says, "I know for a fact that the women of today are more mannish than the women of that time. Women, in the savage state, are so like men in form that it is well nigh impossible to tell them apart. Then, as civilization progressed, their especially feminine characteristics became accentuated, until the exaggeration was almost painful to look at.

"Then the pendulum began to swing the other way. Women are again beginning to look and be more like men. Great changes in this direction have been made since the molding of that statue. The women from whom the measurements for it were taken were different in conformation compared with those of today. The composite was the extreme type of femininity. She was woman overwomanized. Her hips and all the pelvic portion were overlarge. Her waist was oversmall. Her feet were undeveloped. So were her back and neck.

"Since that time her physique has been thoroughly made over. It is approaching that of man. The sloping shoulders of her grandmother's time have disappeared. They are no longer in fashion. In their place we find well-knit, athletic shoulders, broad ones. Her back, likewise, is better developed. Her hips are not so large as they once were. The entire pelvic region has decreased in size and the result has been an enlargement of the waist. The small waist is a thing of the past. Her neck is thicker and more muscular; her limbs more smoothly developed; her hands and feet are larger in every respect. Her chest has been said to be flatter. I should hardly wish to endorse that last opinion. It is true, however, that her chest may appear flatter, because I am glad to say the corset, which formerly forced it upward, has of late, been somewhat modified.

"Another reason for the change in woman's physique is that within the past 10 years women have done a great deal more in the way of athletics than they did formerly. Golf, tennis, running and swimming have done much to improve woman's physical development.

"It is a rule that one may take few exceptions to, that if a woman devotes herself to the activities of a man, there is bound to be a loss of sex. This approximation of man's physique is, from an anthropological point of view, a bad thing. It is to be hoped that men and women do not grow to be more alike than they are today. The same may be said of men. From the overdeveloped Sandow, man has changed to the effeminate and the foppish being. The assimilating of the sexes by each other is a possibility to be decried."

—Olean Evening Times, Olean, NY, Nov. 29, 1910, p. 2.

Yale Physiologist Talks on Medicine

New York, 1936

Scientists can no longer expect to make progress only behind the closed doors of the laboratory, stated Dr. Howard W. Haggard, of the Yale Medical Faculty, in a talk at McMillin Theatre last Tuesday evening. Speaking on "Medicine in the Headlines," Dr. Haggard talked briefly of the changing problems of science, and of contemporary newspaper comments on medical discoveries in the last few centuries.

"The prolongation of life by stamping out infectious diseases has brought about a new problem entirely," the Yale physiologist said. Medical attention today is centered chiefly on diseases of old-age, the so-called degenerate diseases, since the average life span at present is over 60 years, as against the 20 years of two centuries ago, he said.

Dr. Haggard pictured health conditions prevalent in the time of Louis XIV — epidemics of typhoid, small-pox, and diphtheria, of dysentery and tuberculosis. "Only one infectious disease was that time under control — leprosy — and that by the Biblical method of segregation," he stated. One-half of all deaths were those of children under two years of age; the mortality rate in some foundling homes and shelters being as high as 99%. Dr. Haggard commented that a possible relationship between cleanliness and health was never considered. "The discovery of the bacterial causes of disease is probably one of the few medical findings which can be compared with the discovery of fire and the invention of wheels as a primary factor in man's lasting supremacy," he continued.

Until recent years, newspapers were exceedingly haphazard and nonchalant about their reporting of scientific events, he stated. "The discovery of anaesthesia, which was not only a great but spectacular step forward, received no favorable newspaper comment until 1846," Dr. Haggard said. Previous to that time, only three items on the subject appeared in the papers: an advertisement and two protests. The former concerned itself with a demonstration of "the actions of persons under the influence of nitrous oxide; volunteers from the audience will be requested," and twelve brawny men provided to keep the situation under control. The demonstration, moreover, was guaranteed to be entertaining.

There were many advertisements for patent medicines — in 1850, for example, sarsaparilla, "the now lowly flavoring for pop," was proclaimed a panacea for all ills. Macassar oil was widely advertised and used as a hair tonic, and it was to combat the ravages of this upon upholstery that antimacassars were invented. Following the press announcements in 1895 of Roentgen's X-ray findings, bills were introduced into the legislature to forbid the manufacture of X-ray glasses for the theatre, and X-ray proof garments for women were immediately advertised.

Science as quoted in the press is frequently misinterpreted, Dr. Haggard stated, but the importance of medical items in the papers to educate the layman and to create an aroused public opinion cannot be overestimated.

Dr. Haggard is Associate Professor of Applied Physiology at Yale University, and is an eminent author and popular lecturer. His book, "Devils, Drugs and Doctors," was a national best-seller, and his talks over the radio and from the lecture platform have received wide acclaim.

—Bayard Bulletin, New York, NY, Jan. 1, 1936, page 3.