Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/438

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
426
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fering pain when the brain is dead." In doing this "no pain whatever was inflicted, except, in some, the slight smarting due to hypodermic injection of morphine. Two experiments were performed under curare, a drug the power of which to destroy consciousness is still in doubt. . . . The reason for making these was that chloroform, ether, and morphine, act themselves on the heart; and, finally, to clinch the question as to the influence of hot blood on that organ, it was necessary to experiment on a heart which had not been exposed to possible alteration by the action of any one of them. In these cases pain was stopped as soon as possible by tying the carotid.-?, and this took three or four minutes. . . . If," Professor Martin adds, "the precise truth concerning every physiological experiment made in this country be brought before the public immediately after its misrepresentation in any anti-vivisection journal, our science is safe. Truth can not hurt it. Publicity will swell the ranks of its students. Legislation impeding our work need not be feared. Human and animal disease and suffering will be diminished, life prolonged, and the world made better as well as happier, through our researches. If we fail to use every effort to protect and promote those researches, arc we not guilty toward our fellow-men and the lower animals dependent on us?"

Who shall try the Dynamiters?—In an article on "Dynamiting and Extra-Territorial Crime," Mr. Francis Wharton, LL. D., has aimed to show that the prosecution of persons sending dynamite abroad for criminal purposes belongs to the states from whose soil the dynamite is sent. Authorities on the law of nations agree in maintaining that when, in one sovereignty, overt acts are taken toward the commission of a crime in a foreign land, jurisdiction exists both in the place of preparation and in the place of execution. A similar doctrine has been repeatedly held in England, as growing out of the common law; and British courts have enforced the obligation to punish persons, whether British subjects or foreigners sojourning in the country, who prepare in the United Kingdom attacks to be made in other countries. The same principle has been observed in the United States. The particular question Mr. Wharton discusses is, whether, in such crimes as dynamiting, the jurisdiction should lie in the Federal courts or in those of individual States, The foreign country sees only the nation; but, within the nation, what entity should answer the responsibility? The General Government has already taken cognizance of offenses of this class where sovereigns are concerned, as it might well do, by virtue of its functions in maintaining diplomatic intercourse with their courts. But to hold the same attitude with respect to common crimes against common persons, or the general public, would be to trespass upon the duties and prerogatives of the States. It would, moreover, tend to give those offenses and the measures taken against them a political aspect, and to call in all the complications of political feelings and prejudices. The question should be made to appear as a matter of social order, affecting the homes and lives of the whole community from which the jury to decide upon it is drawn. To make it a matter of national concern would at once divide the jury according to their national sympathies. "It would be otherwise, however, when the question is, whether the law permits dynamiting, or whether it will stop dynamiting at the place where it is started, which is the only place where it can be stopped."

Hindoo Cosmogony and Physics.—The Rev. Sumangala, chief-priest at Adam's Peak, in Ceylon, has recently published an account of the opinions of Hindoo astronomers on the form and attraction of the earth. Bhaskara, who flourished in the twelfth century, thought that the terrestrial globe, composed of land, air, water, space, and fire, had a spherical form, and, surrounded by the planets and the orbits of the stars, maintained itself in space by its own power. This, he says, is in fact demonstrated. Lands, mountains, gardens, and houses cover the earth as pollen covers the flower of Kadamba, and serve as the homes of men, Kaksasas, Devas, and Asuras. He rejected the idea that the earth rested on anything else, for the obvious reason that, if another support were needed, there would be no end to the supplementary supports. Therefore we shall have to admit a final