the more his doctors bled him, and he finally succumbed under the treatment, in the flower of his age and in the midst of his usefulness. It is, therefore, not unfair to conclude that the final cessation of a practise so barbarous, so opposed to common sense, has been due to the increase of physiological knowledge and to that increased reliance on nature and careful nursing, and diminished reliance on "physic," which is the result of this knowledge, and that its continuance in any country is simply a sign of a low condition of medical research. The advance in conservative surgery has been simply enormous. The great operations have been robbed of their terrors, and with their terrors of much of their danger, and nothing has made more progress than contrivances for preventing the loss of blood. In fact, in the practise of to-day there is nothing of which so much care is taken as of the patient's blood. Not only is he left in possession of all he has already got, but every pains is taken to increase his supply of it. Nobody "lets blood" now but assassins, and "toughs" and suicides—a curious sign of progress, but a sign of
progress it is.—New York Evening Post.
(3130)
SURGERY IN KOREA Medical science in Korea is wofully deficient. Native doctors have but two instruments—a little flat knife-blade and a long, sharp knitting-needle-like instrument. The former is used for bleeding or scraping, and the latter for plunging into the body to make an exit for the disease devil. It is always surgically dirty and a joint is a favorite place for its insertion. Septic conditions arise which render the joints permanently immovable. Medical missionaries are continually called upon to give aid to children of from eight to twelve years of age with stiffened knees or elbows.
(3131)
SURPRIZES IN BOOKS There are the "pleasant surprizes" of publishing—books undertaken with the expectation of about paying expenses that have soared away to the hundred-thousand mark. Others are "undertaken because they are known to be works of great merit, and while the publisher may not have much hope of a satisfactory result, there is a chance that the merit of the book may in time make an impression on the public." Then there are those undertaken because "they strike a new note in literature, which may receive the appreciation of the public." "David Harum" is called "the greatest surprize." Seven or eight publishers had declined the book, and only two persons in the house accepting it had much hope that it would pay expenses. For six months after publication a few thousand copies were disposed of; its ultimate sale was nearly a million.—Appleton's Magazine.
(3132)
Surrender, Total—See Reservation.
Survey, The Larger—See Point of View.
SURVIVAL
Mr. Vernon L. Kellogg gives the imaginary feelings of a minute scale that infests oranges during their growth, on finding out that he and his kind were the common prey of the orange beetle:
He soon learned that of all the orange-dwellers
who are born, only a very, very few
escape the beetles and other devouring beasts
who pursue them. And he was highly indignant
when one shrewd orange-dweller
told him that it really was a good thing for
the race of orange-dwellers that so many of
them were killed. "For," the shrewd orange-dweller
said, "if all of us who are born
should live and have families, and not die
until old age came on, there would soon be
so many of us that we should eat all the
orange-trees in the world, and then we
should all starve to death." And this is quite
true.—"Insect Stories."
(3133)
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
"Among every hundred men who become
firemen only seventeen are ever made engineers,"
says Warren S. Stone, chief of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, one
of the most powerful labor organizations in
the world. "Out of every one hundred engineers
only six ever get passenger runs. The
next time you see a white-haired man on the
cab of a big passenger locomotive don't wonder
at all at his white hair, but make up
your mind that he has the goods or he
wouldn't be there. It is a case of the selection
and the survival of the fittest. It takes
nerve to run the fast trains these days, for
you sit at your throttle, tearing across the
country at the rate of more than a mile a
minute, and if any one of a dozen people,
down to the man who spiked the rails, has
made a mistake you ride to certain death."
(3134)
See Nature's Aggressiveness.
