ITEMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume X, Issue 4095, 27 December 1887, Page 4

ITEMS.

A very striking cue is m°ntioned by Dr Carpenter in his "Mental Pnysiology" in the chapter on seos3>ion. A ba'cher, while hanging np a heavy pieci of meat, slipped; the hok penetrated i:i3 arm, and he remained suspended. Ue was taken dona and carried across to a druggist's shop, pale and almost pulseless, and suffering great agony. He cried out whenever bts arm was touched, to that the coat aleeve bad to be cut away. When the arm was laid bare there was neither mark nor scratch; the aleeve alone had been penetrated by the book 1 Yet the man's suffering was not the less real, as bis pain and fainting condition showed. This is a striking case, bnt it shows the close union between mind and body. The following c-se from the tame authority is equally remarkable : A lady who was watching her little child at play aaw a heavy sash fall upon its band, catting off three of its fingers. The mother was so paralysed with horror that ■be was nnable to go to her child's assistance. A surgeon wss called at once and dressed the wounds of the child. On turning to the mother he f >und her moaning with the pain of three of her fingers corresponding to those injured in the child. On examination, the lady's fingers were found to be swollen and inflimed, and in 24 hoars the mother's fingers bad to be lanced, and a quantity of matter was discharged. Hern the powerful influence of the mind upon the body is strikingly made manifest. The imagination was sufficient in this cise to induce disease in the fingers: What mast its effects than be upon the more delicite organisation of the body, and upon the nervous system with which it is closely related. There is nothing more remarkable in the history of railway enterprise than the development of the traffic that has occurred within the last 10 years, to go no farther back. In 1876 (says " Bradstreet's Journal") the total quantity of goods traffic carried on all the railways of India wai 5,750 000. In 1886 the quantity was abont 19,000,000 tons. In the year 1876 the mileage opened was 6833 miles, so that the volume 'I goods traffic carried per mile was about 800 'ins. In 1836 the mileage open was 12.376, so that the average volant* of traffic ctrried per mile was over 1500 tons. The aggregate volume of traffic in the interval had fully trebled, and the average traffic carried per mile open had almost doubled. Notwithstanding these remarkable results, the traffio which has been developed on the railways in India is less in proportion to the population than that c f any country in the world. This is espec : ally the c*S2 in regard to eoods traffic, which only represents 005 of a ton per head of the population, as compared with three tons per head in Canada and over seven tons per head In the United Kingdon. Bat the goods traffic of ladia is likely to develope very rapidly in the future, and especially io agricultural pmdace, of which only about 4,000,000 tons are now annually transported, a* compared with 75,000,000 tons in the United States for less than a fourth of the population.

Dr Chapman, ia the Medical and Surgical Reporter, says that nine-tenths of wild animals in confinement are subject to heart disease, although all animals have theT peculiarities. The elephants are heirs to many diseases, bat the most common and fatal is rheumatism. Monkeys and baboons generally die from broochtal affections and heart diiease ; felines,inch as lions, tigers, leopards, etc., from dysentery and heart disease ; deer, antelopes, etc., snffdr moat from dysentery and heart disease ; while the ctoine tribp, anch as wolves, dingoes, and foxes, don't seem subject to any disease except " pnre cussedneaa." The only thins; to be feared in the wolf tribe is too much sociability. It is unsafe to keep more than a pair together; otherwise they would eat each other.

At Willenball, near 'Wolverhampton, a woman named Scans, who staled that she was afflicted with paralysis and chronic rheumatism, from which a hospital doctor said she would never recover, ia said to have been the subject of faith healing. Recently, Major Pearson, of the Salvation Army, visited Willenhall, and ia the evening held a faith-healing service. A great crowd, including many cripple*, attended. Upon an invitation being given to those who were suffering from disease to approach the rostrum, Mrs Evans was assisted forward, and described her infirmities. The Major then placed his hands upon her head, and prayed for her recovery. Directly afterwards she stood erect and, without the aid of ber crunches walked round the building amid great excitement, and afterwards walked home. For nearly three years she has been unable to walk, and has had to be wheeled about. Now, it ia said, she walks about unassisted.—Pali Mall Gazette.