A CURIOUS EXHIBITION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7377, 1 February 1902, Page 2

A CURIOUS EXHIBITION.

The very curious exhibition of the man in the " crystal urn," which is now going on at tha Royal Aquarium, is (says Hospital) on a somewhat different footing from those of the various fasting men and fasting women that we have become so accustomed to of lato. Papuss is a South American, aged 34, who, after being wrapped up in 400 yards of flannel bandage, has been placed in a glass box or " crystal urn," which has then been sealed up watertight, and sunk under water, where we suppose it now lies. The man, meanwhile, is supplied with air by means of a tube through which it is driven by an electric fan, but with nothing else, neither food nor water, and there he is to lie for the whole week. That this is a performance demanding very considerable endurance and fortitude no one will deny, even ' though the man in the urn be assisted, as he claims to be, by his power of sending himself into a oataleptio trance, and by auto-sugges-tion as to the unreality of hunger and the non-necessity of food. What is of Borne scientific interest, however, is the statement that by aid of the careful and rather tight bandaging the circulation can be so limited as to exercise a considerable influence upon the tissue waste, and presumably, therefore, on the necessity for water for excretory purposes. We know, of course, that in hibernating animals tne circulation goes on in a very modified way, being reduced almost to zero, probably in consequence of an influence exerted through the vasomotor nerves, and if it could be shown that a somewhat similar though only local limitation of vital changes can be effected by external pressure, the matter would be of considerable interest.