Part 13

At my suggestion, Papanekis with his axe there arranged a sort of a nest or lookout spot. Orders were then given that he and another Indian man should, before daybreak on the next morning, make a long detour and cautiously reach that spot from the rear, and there carefully conceal themselves. This they succeeded in doing, and there, in perfect stillness, they waited for the morning. As soon as it was possible to see anything they were on the alert. For some time they watched in vain. They eagerly scanned every point of vision, and for a time could observe nothing unusual.

"Hush!" said one; "see that dog!"

It was Cæsar, cautiously skulking along the trail. He would frequently stop and sniff the air. Fortunately for the Indian watchers, the wind was blowing toward them, and so the dog did not catch their scent. On he came, in a quiet yet swift gait, until he reached the spot where Papanekis stood when he pulled in the net. He gave one searching glance in every direction, and then he set to work. Seizing the rope in his teeth, Cæsar strongly pulled upon it, while he rapidly backed up some distance on the trail. Then, walking on the rope to the water's edge as it lay on the ground, to keep the pressure of the current from dragging it in, he again took a fresh grip upon it and repeated the process. This he did until the sixty feet of rope were hauled in, and the end of the net was reached to which it was attached. The net he now hauled in little by little, keeping his feet firmly on it to securely hold it down. As he drew it up, several varieties of inferior fish, such as suckers or mullets, pike or jackfish, were at first observed. To them Cæsar paid no attention. He was after the delicious whitefish, which dogs as well as human beings prefer to those of other kinds. When he had perhaps hauled twenty feet of the net, his cleverness was rewarded by the sight of a fine whitefish. Still holding the net with its struggling captives securely down with his feet, he began to devour this whitefish, which was so much more dainty than the coarser fish generally thrown to him. Papanekis and his comrade had seen enough. The mysterious culprit was detected in the act, and so with a "Whoop!" they rushed down upon him. Caught in the very act, Cæsar had to submit to a thrashing that ever after deterred him from again trying that cunning trick.

Who can read this story, which I give exactly as it occurred, without having to admit that here Cæsar "combined means for the attainment of particular ends"? On the previous visits which he made to the net the rapid current of the stream, working against the greater part of it in the water, soon carried it back again into its place ere Papanekis arrived later in the morning. The result was that Cæsar's cleverness was undetected for some time, even by these most observant Indians.

Many other equally clever instances convince me, and those who with me witnessed them, of the possession, in of course a limited degree, of reasoning powers. Scores of my dogs never seemed to reveal them, perhaps because no special opportunities were presented for their exhibition. They were just ordinary dogs, trained to the work of hauling their loads. When night came, if their feet were sore they had dog sense enough to come to their master and, throwing themselves on their backs, would stick up their feet and whine and howl until the warm duffle shoes were put on. Some of the skulking ones had wit enough, when they did not want to be caught, in the gloom of the early morning, while the stars were still shining, if they were white, to cuddle down, still and quiet, in the beautiful snow; while the darker ones would slink away into the gloom of the dense balsams, where they seemed to know that it would be difficult for them to be seen. Some of them had wit enough when traveling up steep places with heavy loads, where their progress was slow, to seize hold of small firm bushes in their teeth to help them up or to keep them from slipping back. Some of them knew how to shirk their work. Cæsar, of whom we have already spoken, at times was one of this class. They could pretend, by their panting and tugging at their collars, that they were dragging more than any other dogs in the train, while at the same time they were not pulling a pound!

Of cats I do not write. I am no lover of them, and therefore am incompetent to write about them. This lack of love for them is, I presume, from the fact that when a boy I was the proud owner of some very beautiful rabbits, upon which the cats of the neighborhood used to make disastrous raids. So great was my boyish indignation then that the dislike to them created has in a measure continued to this day, and I have not as yet begun to cultivate their intimate acquaintance.

But of dogs I have ever been a lover and a friend. I never saw one, not mad, of which I was afraid, and I never saw one with which I could not speedily make friends. Love was the constraining motive principally used in breaking my dogs in to their work in the trains. No whip was ever used upon Jack or Cuffy while they were learning their tasks. Some dogs had to be punished more or less. Some stubborn dogs at once surrendered and gave no more trouble when a favorite female dog was harnessed up in a train and sent on ahead. This affection in the dog for his mate was a powerful lever in the hands of his master, and, using it as an incentive, we have seen things performed as remarkable as any we have here recorded.

From what I have written it will be seen that I have had unusual facilities for studying the habits and possibilities of dogs. I was not under the necessity of gathering up a lot of mongrels at random in the streets, and then, in order to see instances of their sagacity and the exercise of their highest reasoning powers, to keep them until they were "practically utterly hungry," and then imprison them in a box a good deal less than four feet square, and then say to them, "Now, you poor, frightened, half-starved creatures, show us what reasoning powers you possess." About as well throw some benighted Africans into a slave ship and order them to make a telephone or a phonograph! My comparison is not too strong, considering the immense distance there is between the human race and the brute creation. And so it must be, in the bringing to light of the powers of memory and the clear exhibition of the reasoning powers, few though they be, that the tests are not conclusive unless made under the most favorable environment, upon dogs of the highest intelligence, and in the most congenial and sympathetic manner.

Testing this most interesting question in this manner, my decided convictions are that animals do reason.

SKETCH OF GEORGE M. STERNBERG.

No man among Americans has studied the micro-organisms with more profit or has contributed more to our knowledge of the nature of infection, particularly of that of yellow fever, than Dr. GEORGE M. STERNBERG, of the United States Army. His merits are freely recognized abroad, and he ranks there, as well as at home, among the leading bacteriologists of the age. He was born at Hartwick Seminary, an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (General Synod), Otsego, N. Y., June 8, 1838. His father, the Rev. Levi Sternberg, D. D., a graduate of Union College, a Lutheran minister, and for many years principal of the seminary and a director of it, was descended from German ancestors who came to this country in 1703 and settled in Schoharie County, New York. The younger Sternberg received his academical training at the seminary, after which, intending to study medicine, he undertook a school at New Germantown, N. J., as a means of earning a part of the money required to defray the cost of his instruction in that science. The record of his school was one of quiet sessions, thoroughness, and popularity of the teacher, and his departure was an occasion of regret among his patrons.

When nineteen years old, young Sternberg began his medical studies with Dr. Horace Lathrop, in Cooperstown, N. Y. Afterward he attended the courses of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, and was graduated thence in the class of 1860. Before he had fairly settled in practice the civil war began, and the attention of all young Americans was directed toward the military service. Among these was young Dr. Sternberg, who, having passed the examination, was appointed assistant surgeon May 28, 1861, and was attached to the command of General Sykes, Army of the Potomac. He was engaged in the battle of Bull Run, where, voluntarily remaining on the field with the wounded, he was taken prisoner, but was paroled to continue his humane work. On the expiration of his parole he made his way through the lines and reported at Washington for duty July 30, 1861--"weary, footsore, and worn." Of his conduct in later campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, General Sykes, in his official reports of the battles of Gaines Mill, Turkey Ridge, and Malvern Hill, said that "Dr. Sternberg added largely to the reputation already acquired on the disastrous field of Bull Run." He remained with General Sykes's command till August, 1862; was then assigned to hospital duty at Portsmouth Grove, R. I., till November, 1862; was afterward attached to General Banks's expedition as assistant to the medical director in the Department of the Gulf till January, 1864; was in the office of the medical director, Columbus, Ohio, and in charge of the United States General Hospital at Cleveland, Ohio, till July, 1865. Since the civil war he has been assigned successively to Jefferson Barracks, Mo.; Fort Harker and Fort Riley, Kansas; in the field in the Indian campaign, 1868 to 1870; Forts Columbus and Hamilton, New York Harbor; Fort Warren, Boston Harbor; Department of the Gulf and New Orleans; Fort Barrancas, Fla.; Department of the Columbia; Department Headquarters; Fort Walla Walla, Washington Territory; California; and Eastern stations. He was promoted to be captain and assistant surgeon in 1866, major and surgeon in 1875, lieutenant colonel and deputy surgeon general in 1891, and brigadier general and surgeon general in 1893. He has also received the brevets of captain and major in the United States Army "for faithful and meritorious services during the war," and of lieutenant colonel "for gallant service in performance of his professional duty under fire in action against Indians at Clearwater, Idaho, July 12, 1877." In the discharge of his duties at his various posts Dr. Sternberg had to deal with a cholera epidemic in Kansas in 1867, with a "yellow-fever epidemic" in New York Harbor in 1871, and with epidemics of yellow fever at Fort Barrancas, Fla., in 1873 and 1875. He served under special detail as member and secretary of the Havana Yellow-Fever Commission of the National Board of Health, 1879 to 1881; as a delegate from the United States under special instructions of the Secretary of State to the International Sanitary Conference at Rome in 1885; as a commissioner, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1887, to make investigations in Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba relating to the etiology and prevention of yellow fever; by special request of the health officer of the port of New York and the advisory committee of the New York Chamber of Commerce as consulting bacteriologist to the health officer of the port of New York in 1892; and he was a delegate to the International Medical Congress in Moscow in 1897.

Dr. Sternberg has contributed largely to the literature of scientific medicine from the results of his observations and experiments which he has made in these various spheres of duty.

His most fruitful researches have been made in the field of bacteriology and infectious diseases. He has enjoyed the rare advantage in pursuing these studies of having the material for his experiments close at hand in the course of his regular work, and of watching, we might say habitually, the progress of such diseases as yellow fever as it normally went on in the course of Nature. Of the quality of his bacteriological work, the writer of a biography in Red Cross Notes, reprinted in the North American Medical Review, goes so far as to say that "when the overzeal of enthusiasts shall have passed away, and the story of bacteriology in the nineteenth century is written up, it will probably be found that the chief who brought light out of darkness was George M. Sternberg. He was noted not so much for his brilliant discoveries, but rather for his exact methods of investigation, for his clear statements of the results of experimental data, for his enormous labors toward the perfection and simplification of technique, and finally for his services in the practical application of the truths taught by the science. His early labors in bacteriology were made with apparatus and under conditions that were crude enough." His work in this department is certainly among the most important that has been done. Its value has been freely acknowledged everywhere, it has given him a world-wide fame, and it has added to the credit of American science. The reviewer in Nature (June 22, 1893) of his Manual of Bacteriology, which was published in 1892, while a little disposed to criticise the fullness and large size of the book, describes it as "the latest, the largest, and, let us add, the most complete manual of bacteriology which has yet appeared in the English language. The volume combines in itself not only an account of such facts as are already established in the science from a morphological, chemical, and pathological point of view, discussions on such abstruse subjects as susceptibility and immunity, and also full details of the means by which these results have been obtained, and practical directions for the carrying on of laboratory work." This was not the first of Dr. Sternberg's works in bacteriological research. It was preceded by a work on Bacteria, of 498 pages, including 152 pages translated from the work of Dr. Antoine Magnin (1884); Malaria and Malarial Diseases, and Photomicrographs and How to make Them. The manual is at once a book for reference, a text-book for students, and a handbook for the laboratory. Its four parts include brief notices of the history of the subject, classification, morphology, and an account of methods and practical laboratory work--"all clear and concise"; the biology and chemistry of bacteria, disinfection, and antiseptics; a detailed account of pathogenic bacteria, their modes of action, the way they may gain access to the system, susceptibility and immunity, to which Dr. Sternberg's own contributions have been not the least important; and saprophytic bacteria in water, in the soil, in or on the human body, and in food, the whole number of saprophytes described being three hundred and thirty-one. "The merit of a work of this kind," Nature says, "depends not less on the number of species described than on the clearness and accuracy of the descriptions, and Dr. Sternberg has spared no pains to make these as complete as possible." The bibliography in this work fills more than a hundred pages, and contains 2,582 references. A later book on a kindred subject is Immunity, Protective Inoculations, and Serum Therapy (1895). Dr. Sternberg has also published a Text-Book of Bacteriology.

Bearing upon yellow fever are the Report upon the Prevention of Yellow Fever by Inoculation, submitted in March, 1888; Report upon the Prevention of Yellow Fever, illustrated by photomicrographs and cuts, 1890; and Examination of the Blood in Yellow Fever (experiments upon animals, etc.), in the Preliminary Report of the Havana Yellow-Fever Commission, 1879. Other publications in the list of one hundred and thirty-one titles of Dr. Sternberg's works, and mostly consisting of shorter articles, relate to Disinfectants and their Value, the Etiology of Malarial Fevers, Septicæmia, the Germicide Value of Therapeutic Agents, the Etiology of Croupous Pneumonia, the Bacillus of Typhoid Fever, the Thermal Death Point of Pathogenic Organisms, the Practical Results of Bacteriological Researches, the Cholera Spirillum, Disinfection at Quarantine Stations, the Infectious Agent of Smallpox, official reports as Surgeon General of the United States Army, addresses and reports at the meetings of the American Public Health Association, and an address to the members of the Pan-American Congress. One paper is recorded quite outside of the domain of microbes and fevers, to show what the author might have done if he had allowed his attention to be diverted from his special absorbing field of work. It is upon the Indian Burial Mounds and Shell Heaps near Pensacola, Fla.

The medical and scientific societies of which Dr. Sternberg is a member include the American Public Health Association, of which he is also an ex-president (1886); the American Association of Physicians; the American Physiological Society; the American Microscopical Society, of which he is a vice-president; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he is a Fellow; the New York Academy of Medicine (a Fellow); and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (president in 1896). He is a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of London; an honorary member of the Epidemiological Society of London, of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Rome, of the Academy of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, of the American Academy of Medicine, of the French Society of Hygiene, etc.; was President of the Section on Military Medicine and Surgery of the Pan-American Congress; was a Fellow by courtesy in Johns Hopkins University, 1885 to 1890; was President of the Biological Society of Washington in 1896, and of the American Medical Association in 1897; and has been designated Honorary President of the Thirteenth International Medical Congress, which is to meet in Paris in 1900. He received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Michigan in 1894, and from Brown University in 1897.

Dr. Sternberg's view of the right professional standard of the physician is well expressed in the sentiment, "To maintain our standing in the estimation of the educated classes we must not rely upon our diplomas or upon our membership in medical societies. Work and worth are what count." He does not appear to be attached to any particular school, but, as his Red Cross Notes biographer says, "has placed himself in the crowd 'who have been moving forward upon the substantial basis of scientific research, and who, if characterized by any distinctive name, should be called _the New School of Scientific Medicine_.' He holds that if our practice was in accordance with our knowledge many diseases would disappear; he sees no room for creeds or patents in medicine. He is willing to acknowledge the right to prescribe either a bread pill or a leaden bullet. But if a patient dies from diphtheria because of a failure to administer a proper remedy, or if infection follows from dirty fingers or instruments, if a practitioner carelessly or ignorantly transfers infection, he believes he is not fit to practice medicine.... He rejects every theory or dictum that has not been clearly demonstrated to him as an absolute truth."

While he is described as without assumption, Dr. Sternberg is represented as being evidently in his headquarters as surgeon general in every sense the head of the service, the chief whose will governs all. Modest and unassuming, he is described as being most exacting, a man of command, of thorough execution, a general whose eyes comprehend every detail, and who has studied the personality of every member of his corps. He is always busy, but seemingly never in a hurry; systematic, accepting no man's dictum, and taking nothing as an established fact till he has personal experimental evidence of its truth. He looks into every detail, and takes equal care of the health of the general in chief and of the private.

His addresses are carefully prepared, based on facts he has himself determined, made in language so plain that they will not be misunderstood, free from sentiment, and delivered in an easy conversational style, and his writings are "pen pictures of his results in the laboratory and clinic room."

* * * * *

The thirty-first year of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology was signalized by the transfer of its property to the corporation of Harvard College, whereby simplicity and greater permanence have been given to its management. The four courses of instruction in the museum were attended by sixteen students, and these, with others, make twenty-one persons, besides the curator, who are engaged in study or special research in subjects included under the term anthropology. Special attention is given by explorers in the service of the museum to the investigation of the antiquities of Yucatan and Central America, of which its publications on Copan, the caves of Loltun, and Labná, have been noticed in the Monthly. These explorations have been continued when and where circumstances made it feasible. Among the gifts acknowledged in the report of the museum are two hundred facsimile copies of the Aztec Codex Vaticanus, from the Duke of Loubat, an original Mexican manuscript of 1531, on agave paper, from the Mary Hemenway estate; the extensive private archæological collection of Mr. George W. Hammond; articles from Georgia mounds, from Clarence B. Moore, and other gifts of perhaps less magnitude but equal interest. Mr. Andrew Gibb, of Edinburgh, has given five pieces of rudely made pottery from the Hebrides, which were made several years ago by a woman who is thought to have been the last one to make pottery according to the ancient method of shaping the clay with the hands, and without the use of any form of potter's wheel. Miss Maria Whitney, sister of the late Prof. J. D. Whitney, has presented the "Calaveras skull" and the articles found with it, and all the original documents relating to its discovery and history. Miss Phebe Ferris, of Madisonville, Ohio, has bequeathed to the museum about twenty-five acres of land, on which is situated the ancient mound where Dr. Metz and Curator Putnam have investigated for several years, and whence a considerable collection has been obtained. Miss Ferris expressed the desire that the museum continue the explorations, and after completing convert the tract into a public park. Mr. W. B. Nicker has explored some virgin mounds near Galena, Ill., and a rock shelter and stone grave near Portage, Ill. The library of the museum now contains 1,838 volumes and 2,479 pamphlets on anthropology.

Correspondence.

DO ANIMALS REASON?

_Editor Popular Science Monthly:_

DEAR SIR: In connection with the discussion of the interesting subject Do Animals Reason? permit me to relate the following incident in support of the affirmative side of the question: