DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17886, 5 December 1929, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

The Egyptian habit of embalming the dead has produced The Hardening results that are of very different from Pharaoh’s Heart, those contemplated by the inventors of the process (says the Manchester Guardian). The mummy - makers thought they were preparing for a world beyond the one that still surrounds us, whereas they were merely accumulating vast reserves of material for later historians. And now the surgeons draw npon the results of the same pious labours and the., mummy becomes a medical specimen as well as an historical exhibit- Lord Moynihan, who was lecturing in Leeds recently, had a wealth of modern instances to draw from ancient remains; one of the most interesting was the physiological certainty that the Pharaoh who oppressed the children of Israel suffered from an excess of calcium salts that quite literally “hardened his heart,” or, rather, the vessels and arteries around it. The result was that •familiar modern condition of “high blood pressure,” and one which, according to the lecturer, could be expected to produce mental changes that would result in “a narrowmess and rigidity of outlook, loss of enthusiasm, a dread of adventure and restriction in all enterprise." It sounds a frame of mind that might easily lead to all those stubborn refusals to permit the departure of the Israelites; If Moses had been in a position to carry out a post-mortem on ids former antagonist he might have included high blood pressure among the celebrated plagues of Egypt instead of leaving its existence to be diagnosed right and left by the present generation of more secular prophets. As it is, Lord Moynihan’s remarks seem to supply unexpected ammunition for the Fundamentalists and those who believe in a Bible that is inspired in its most literal detail. Deans may throw over that tradition, but surgeons rally to its support—though their testimony is, perhaps, more of an embarrassment than a help when if is closely considered. For if Pharaoh’s hard heart was due to an excess of calcium salts he is scarcely to be blamed for his behaviour to the Israelites; it he had been sent away for a little suitable spa treatment he might have come back an entirely different and more amiable man.