TRIUMPHS OF THE LAST CENTURY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

TRIUMPHS OF THE LAST CENTURY

Great Inventions Of The World

When the U.S.A. Constitution was adopted in 1789, there were only two self-governing nations in the world — the United States and England. The effects of these Constitutions on civilisation are mainly visible during the last two hundred years, says S. S. McClure, in “Rural Progress."

Let us trace the steps by which man finally attained the enlightenment of the twentieth century.

In 1757, the Archbishop of Cologne published a list of 51 tortures, and indicated the amount paid for each form. The following are but a few of the tortures which were inflicted until 1816: Tearing asunder with four horses, quartering. burning alive, breaking a man on the wheel, cutting off a hand or sundry fingers, tearing apart with redhot pincers, and nailing a tongue or hand the gallows. Aside from these cruelties, the most tragic thing was the slavery of the child, which lasted everywhere until well into the nineteenth century.

From the earliest times, particularly in Egypt, Greece and Rome, children were employed in the mines. By the time they were twelve years old many were incapable of work. In the magnesium mines of Spain, children six to eight years old were kept at work; and, due to the poisonous odours, manyfell victims to severe diseases. In England, children six to nine years old were employed in the coal mines. The sufferings of the child in _ the .mines were duplicated in the textile mills of all lands.

In 1828, Lieutenant-General Von Horn of Germany pointed out that it was no longer possible to get the usual contingent of recruits for the army from the working population because of the shocking abuse of children in factories and the harmful consequences on the young workers. It was almost as impossible to establish universal education as it was to abolish slavery. Universal education is wholly a product of the nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, the average amount of schooling of' the American child was four months —not four months a year, but four months during his entire life. Freedom had little part in human history through all time until the last two centuries. The dawn of freedom has no exact date. Its history can be measured, in part, by the development of the humanitarian age, and by inventions and discoveries, which are as noteworthv in their way as the abolition of torture and slavery,. the establishment of justice, and the sentiments of mercy and pity. Freedom came first to the peoples of Great Britain and the United States; these two nations led the world in inventions and discoveries. The inventions listed below were made after the nineteenth century. Steamboat, steamship, gas lighting, railroad, mowing machine, dynamo, vulcanised rubber, telegraph, sewing machine, anaesthetics, antiseptics, Bessemer steel, coal tar dyes, sleeping cars, photography, internal combustion engine, dynamite, automobile, atlantic cable, typewriter, steel plough, air brake electric motor, electric light, phonograph, telephone, typesetting machine, aluminium, motion pictures, steam turbine, airplane, kerosene, bicycle, X-ray. radio, radium. The invention of the steam engine <'1769) made a greater change in civilization than any other invention in history. The development of the princi-

pal industries and the growth from tiny accomplishment into an era of vast achievement are both due to steam. Steam gave new value to raw materials, especially coal. When the telephone was invented in 1876, electricity had served man onlyin the mariner’s compass and the telegraph. The huge electrical industries have been created since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The automobile, radio, X-ray, and tne airplane came within the last 50 years. None of the agricultural machinery now in use existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1831, Cyrus Hall McCormick invented his first mowing machine. And the French Academy of Science made him a corresponding member as having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man.

Diseases and plagues had always swept the world unhindered. Smallpox, hydrophobia, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and yellow fever were all unchecked. In performing surgical operations, a man would be strapped to the operating bench; there were no anaesthetics, no antiseptic treatments. Sanitary science was unknown—all up to a century or more ago.

Until almost the close of the eighteenth century, smallpox was one of the most dreaded scourges. It frequently swept the civilised world. Tn 1796, Jenner inoculated his first patient. Seldom has a discovery been given a more enthusiastic welcome, and within six years it had penetrated to the remotest parts of the earth.

On October 16, 18-16, in the ‘Massachusetts General Hospital, a young man, having undergone what would have been a very painful .surgical operation, said, “I have felt no pain.” Dr. Morton had administered ether, which he had developed. It was tbe greatest triumph in the history of surgery. In 1885, Pasteur treated his first patient for hydrophobia. Out of 10,992 patients treated during the first six years, only 32 died. More than this, the pioneer work of Pasteur inspired the more recent achievements of a host of others in combating tetanus, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, yellow fever, malaria, and other ills. It founded the new branch of medicine known as serum-therapy by which antitoxins are developed in the blood of animals with which to inoculate against diseases. In .1895, Professor Roentgen discovered the X-ray, which soon became the chief object of interest, in every capital in the world. The last year of the nineteenth century is noted for Dr. Reed’s discovery of the source of the infection that causes yellow fever. He is known throughout the world for his work in rendering possible the construction of the Panama Canal by stamping out yellow fever and malaria. Eighteen centuries elapsed before the teachings of Jesus Christ influenced the conduct of men toward each other. The development of the humanitarian spirit was due, in large part, to the introduction into civilisation of the two great principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ —the Doctrine of Love and of Equality.

The achievements of freedom as shown in the development of the humanitarian age, and in the inventions and discoveries since tbe invention of tbe steam engine, explain the remarkable recovery from Ihe depression of Great Britain, Australia, ami more than -10 other nations, who maintain the free institutions and economic system of the nineteenth century.