PHYSIOLOGIC AND FUNCTIONAL ANOMALIES. 8 page

long time in his den. The tale of the Roman she-wolf is well known, and

may have been something more than a myth, as there have been several

apparently authentic cases reported in which a child has been rescued

from its associations with a wolf who had stolen it some time

previously. Most of the stories of wolf-children come from India.

According to Oswald in Ball's "Jungle Life in India," there is the

following curious account of two children in the Orphanage of Sekandra,

near Agra, who had been discovered among wolves: "A trooper sent by a

native Governor of Chandaur to demand payment of some revenue was

passing along the bank of the river about noon when he saw a large

female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little boy.

The boy went on all-fours, and when the trooper tried to catch him he

ran as fast as the whelps, and kept up with the old one. They all

entered the den, but were dug out by the people and the boy was

secured. He struggled hard to rush into every hole or gully they came

near. When he saw a grown-up person he became alarmed, but tried to fly

at children and bite them. He rejected cooked meat with disgust, but

delighted in raw flesh and bones, putting them under his paws like a

dog." The other case occurred at Chupra, in the Presidency of Bengal.

In March, 1843, a Hindoo mother went out to help her husband in the

field, and while she was cutting rice her little boy was carried off by

a wolf. About a year afterward a wolf, followed by several cubs and a

strange, ape-like creature, was seen about ten miles from Chupra. After

a lively chase the nondescript was caught and recognized (by the mark

of a burn on his knee) as the Hindoo boy that had disappeared in the

rice-field. This boy would not eat anything but raw flesh, and could

never be taught to speak, but expressed his emotions in an inarticulate

mutter. His elbows and the pans of his knees had become horny from

going on all-fours with his foster mother. In the winter of 1850 this

boy made several attempts to regain his freedom, and in the following

spring he escaped for good and disappeared in the jungle-forest of

Bhangapore.

The Zoologist for March, 1888, reproduced a remarkable pamphlet printed

at Plymouth in 1852, which had been epitomized in the Lancet. This

interesting paper gives an account of wolves nurturing small children

in their dens. Six cases are given of boys who have been rescued from

the maternal care of wolves. In one instance the lad was traced from

the moment of his being carried off by a lurking wolf while his parents

were working in the field, to the time when, after having been

recovered by his mother six years later, he escaped from her into the

jungle. In all these cases certain marked features reappear. In the

first, the boy was very inoffensive, except when teased, and then he

growled surlily. He would eat anything thrown to him, but preferred

meat, which he devoured with canine voracity. He drank a pitcher of

buttermilk at one gulp, and could not be induced to wear clothing even

in the coldest weather. He showed the greatest fondness for bones, and

gnawed them contentedly, after the manner of his adopted parents. This

child had coarse features, a repulsive countenance, was filthy in his

habits, and could not articulate a word.

In another case the child was kidnapped at three and recovered at nine.

He muttered, but could not articulate. As in the other case, he could

not be enticed to wear clothes. From constantly being on all-fours the

front of this child's knees and his elbows had become hardened. In the

third case the father identified a son who had been carried away at the

age of six, and was found four years afterward. The intellectual

deterioration was not so marked. The boy understood signs, and his

hearing was exceedingly acute; when directed by movements of the hands

to assist the cultivators in turning out cattle, he readily

comprehended what was asked of him; yet this lad, whose vulpine career

was so short, could neither talk nor utter any decidedly articulate

sound.

The author of the pamphlet expressed some surprise that there was no

case on record in which a grown man had been found in such association.

This curious collection of cases of wolf-children is attributed to

Colonel Sleeman, a well-known officer, who is known to have been

greatly interested in the subject, and who for a long time resided in

the forests of India. A copy, now a rarity, is in the South Kensington

Museum.

An interesting case of a wolf-child was reported many years ago in

Chambers' Journal. In the Etwah district, near the banks of the river

Jumna, a boy was captured from the wolves. After a time this child was

restored to his parents, who, however, "found him very difficult to

manage, for he was most fractious and troublesome--in fact, just a

caged wild beast. Often during the night for hours together he would

give vent to most unearthly yells and moans, destroying the rest and

irritating the tempers of his neighbors and generally making night

hideous. On one occasion his people chained him by the waist to a tree

on the outskirts of the village. Then a rather curious incident

occurred. It was a bright moonlight night, and two wolf cubs

(undoubtedly those in whose companionship he had been captured),

attracted by his cries while on the prowl, came to him, and were

distinctly seen to gambol around him with as much familiarity and

affection as if they considered him quite one of themselves. They only

left him on the approach of morning, when movement and stir again arose

in the village. This boy did not survive long. He never spoke, nor did

a single ray of human intelligence ever shed its refining light over

his debased features."

Recently a writer in the Badmington Magazine, in speaking of the

authenticity of wolf-children, says:--

"A jemidar told me that when he was a lad he remembered going, with

others, to see a wolf-child which had been netted. Some time after

this, while staying at an up-country place called Shaporeooundie, in

East Bengal, it was my fortune to meet an Anglo-Indian gentleman who

had been in the Indian civil service for upward of thirty years, and

had traveled about during most of that time; from him I learned all I

wanted to know of wolf-children, for he not only knew of several cases,

but had actually seen and examined, near Agra, a child which had been

recovered from the wolves. The story of Romulus and Remus, which all

schoolboys and the vast majority of grown people regard as a myth,

appears in a different light when one studies the question of

wolf-children, and ascertains how it comes to pass that boys are found

living on the very best terms with such treacherous and rapacious

animals as wolves, sleeping with them in their dens, sharing the raw

flesh of deer and kids which the she-wolf provides, and, in fact,

leading in all essentials the actual life of a wolf.

"A young she-wolf has a litter of cubs, and after a time her instinct

tells her that they will require fresh food. She steals out at night in

quest of prey. Soon she espies a weak place in the fence (generally

constructed of thatching grass and bamboos) which encloses the

compound, or 'unguah,' of a poor villager. She enters, doubtless, in

the hope of securing a kid; and while prowling about inside looks into

a hut where a woman and infant are soundly sleeping. In a moment she

has pounced on the child, and is out of reach before its cries can

attract the villagers. Arriving safely at her den under the rocks, she

drops the little one among her cubs. At this critical time the fate of

the child hangs in the balance. Either it will be immediately torn to

pieces and devoured, or in a most wonderful way remain in the cave

unharmed. In the event of escape, the fact may be accounted for in

several ways. Perhaps the cubs are already gorged when the child is

thrown before them, or are being supplied with solid food before their

carnivorous instinct is awakened, so they amuse themselves by simply

licking the sleek, oily body (Hindoo mothers daily rub their boy babies

with some native vegetable oil) of the infant, and thus it lies in the

nest, by degrees getting the odor of the wolf cubs, after which the

mother wolf will not molest it. In a little time the infant begins to

feel the pangs of hunger, and hearing the cubs sucking, soon follows

their example. Now the adoption is complete, all fear of harm to the

child from wolves has gone, and the foster-mother will guard and

protect it as though it were of her own flesh and blood.

"The mode of progression of these children is on all fours--not, as a

rule, on the hands and feet, but on the knees and elbows. The reason

the knees are used is to be accounted for by the fact that, owing to

the great length of the human leg and thigh in proportion to the length

of the arm, the knee would naturally be brought to the ground, and the

instep and top of the toes would be used instead of the sole and heel

of the almost inflexible foot. Why the elbow should be employed instead

of the hand is less easy to understand, but probably it is better

suited to give support to the head and fore-part of the body.

"Some of these poor waifs have been recovered after spending ten or

more years in the fellowship of wolves, and, though wild and savage at

first, have in time become tractable in some degree. They are rarely

seen to stand upright, unless to look around, and they gnaw bones in

the manner of a dog, holding one end between the forearms and hands,

while snarling and snapping at everybody who approaches too near. The

wolf-child has little except his outward form to show that it is a

human being with a soul. It is a fearful and terrible thing, and hard

to understand, that the mere fact of a child's complete isolation from

its own kind should bring it to such a state of absolute degradation.

Of course, they speak no language, though some, in time, have learned

to make known their wants by signs. When first taken they fear the

approach of adults, and, if possible, will slink out of sight; but

should a child of their own size, or smaller, come near, they will

growl, and even snap and bite at it. On the other hand, the close

proximity of "pariah" dogs or jackals is unresented, in some cases

welcomed; for I have heard of them sharing their food with these

animals, and even petting and fondling them. They have in time been

brought to a cooked-meat diet, but would always prefer raw flesh. Some

have been kept alive after being reclaimed for as long as two years,

but for some reason or other they all sicken and die, generally long

before that time. One would think, however, that, having undoubtedly

robust constitutions, they might be saved if treated in a scientific

manner and properly managed."

Rudyard Kipling, possibly inspired by accounts of these wolf-children

in India, has ingeniously constructed an interesting series of fabulous

stories of a child who was brought up by the beasts of the jungles and

taught their habits and their mode of communication. The ingenious way

in which the author has woven the facts together and interspersed them

with his intimate knowledge of animal-life commends his "Jungle-Book"

as a legitimate source of recreation to the scientific observer.

Among observers mentioned in the "Index Catalogue" who have studied

this subject are Giglioli, Mitra, and Ornstein.

The artificial manufacture of "wild men" or "wild boys" in the Chinese

Empire is shown by recent reports. Macgowan says the traders kidnap a

boy and skin him alive bit by bit, transplanting on the denuded

surfaces the hide of a bear or dog. This process is most tedious and is

by no means complete when the hide is completely transplanted, as the

subject must be rendered mute by destruction of the vocal cords, made

to use all fours in walking, and submitted to such degradation as to

completely blight all reason. It is said that the process is so severe

that only one in five survive. A "wild boy" exhibited in Kiangse had

the entire skin of a dog substituted and walked on all fours. It was

found that he had been kidnapped. His proprietor was decapitated on the

spot. Macgowan says that parasitic monsters are manufactured in China

by a similar process of transplantation. He adds that the deprivation

of light for several years renders the child a great curiosity, if in

conjunction its growth is dwarfed by means of food and drugs, and its

vocal apparatus destroyed. A certain priest subjected a kidnapped boy

to this treatment and exhibited him as a sacred deity. Macgowan

mentions that the child looked like wax, as though continually fed on

lardaceous substances. He squatted with his palms together and was a

driveling idiot. The monk was discovered and escaped, but his temple

was razed.

Equilibrists.--Many individuals have cultivated their senses so acutely

that by the eye and particularly by touch they are able to perform

almost incredible feats of maintaining equilibrium under the most

difficult circumstances Professional rope-walkers have been known in

all times. The Greeks had a particular passion for equilibrists, and

called them "neurobates," "oribates," and "staenobates." Blondin would

have been one of the latter. Antique medals showing equilibrists making

the ascent of an inclined cord have been found. The Romans had walkers

both of the slack-rope and tight-rope Many of the Fathers of the Church

have pronounced against the dangers of these exercises. Among others,

St. John Chrysostom speaks of men who execute movements on inclined

ropes at unheard-of heights. In the ruins of Herculaneum there is still

visible a picture representing an equilibrist executing several

different exercises, especially one in which he dances on a rope to the

tune of a double flute, played by himself. The Romans particularly

liked to witness ascensions on inclined ropes, and sometimes these were

attached to the summits of high hills, and while mounting them the

acrobats performed different pantomimes. It is said that under Charles

VI a Genoese acrobat, on the occasion of the arrival of the Queen of

France, carried in each hand an illuminated torch while descending a

rope stretched from the summit of the towers of Notre Dame to a house

on the Pont au Change. According to Guyot-Daubes, a similar performance

was seen in London in 1547. In this instance the rope was attached to

the highest pinnacle of St. Paul's Cathedral. Under Louis XII an

acrobat named Georges Menustre, during a passage of the King through

Macon, executed several performances on a rope stretched from the grand

tower of the Chateau and the clock of the Jacobins, at a height of 156

feet. A similar performance was given at Milan before the French

Ambassadors, and at Venice under the Doges and the Senate on each St.

Mark's Day, rope-walkers performed at high altitudes. In 1649 a man

attempted to traverse the Seine on a rope placed between the Tour de

Nesles and the Tour du Grand-Prevost. The performance, however, was

interrupted by the fall of the mountebank into the Seine. At subsequent

fairs in France other acrobats have appeared. At the commencement of

this century there was a person named Madame Saqui who astonished the

public with her nimbleness and extraordinary skill in rope walking. Her

specialty was military maneuvers. On a cord 20 meters from the ground

she executed all sorts of military pantomimes without assistance,

shooting off pistols, rockets, and various colored fires. Napoleon

awarded her the title of the first acrobat of France. She gave a

performance as late as 1861 at the Hippodrome of Paris.

In 1814 there was a woman called "La Malaga," who, in the presence of

the allied sovereigns at Versailles, made an ascension on a rope 200

feet above the Swiss Lake.

In the present generation probably the most famous of all the

equilibrists was Blondin. This person, whose real name was Emile

Gravelet, acquired a universal reputation; about 1860 he traversed the

Niagara Falls on a cable at an elevation of nearly 200 feet. Blondin

introduced many novelties in his performances. Sometimes he would

carry a man over on his shoulders; again he would eat a meal while on

his wire; cook and eat an omelet, using a table and ordinary cooking

utensils, all of which he kept balanced. In France Blondin was almost

the patron saint of the rope-walkers; and at the present day the

performers imitate his feats, but never with the same grace and

perfection.

In 1882 an acrobat bearing the natural name of Arsens Blondin traversed

one river after another in France on a wire stretched at high

altitudes. With the aid of a balancing-rod he walked the rope

blindfolded; with baskets on his feet; sometimes he wheeled persons

over in a wheelbarrow. He was a man of about thirty, short, but

wonderfully muscled and extremely supple.

It is said that a negro equilibrist named Malcom several times

traversed the Meuse at Sedan on a wire at about a height of 100 feet.

Once while attempting this feat, with his hands and feet shackled with

iron chains, allowing little movement, the support on one side fell,

after the cable had parted, and landed on the spectators, killing a

young girl and wounding many others. Malcom was precipitated into the

river, but with wonderful presence of mind and remarkable strength he

broke his bands and swam to the shore, none the worse for his high

fall; he immediately helped in attention to his wounded spectators. A

close inspection of all the exhibitionists of this class will show that

they are of superior physique and calm courage. They only acquire their

ability after long gymnastic exercise, as well as actual practice on

the rope. Most of these persons used means of balancing themselves,

generally a long and heavy pole; but some used nothing but their

outstretched arms. In 1895, at the Royal Aquarium in London, there was

an individual who slowly mounted a long wire reaching to the top of

this huge structure, and, after having made the ascent, without the aid

of any means of balancing but his arms, slid the whole length of the

wire, landing with enormous velocity into an outstretched net.

The equilibrists mentioned thus far have invariably used a tightly

stretched rope or wire; but there are a number of persons who perform

feats, of course not of such magnitude, on a slack wire, in which they

have to defy not only the force of gravity, but the to-and-fro motion

of the cable as well. It is particularly with the Oriental performers

that we see this exhibition. Some use open parasols, which, with their

Chinese or Japanese costumes, render the performance more picturesque;

while others seem to do equally well without such adjuncts. There have

been performers of this class who play with sharp daggers while

maintaining themselves on thin and swinging wires.

Another class of equilibrists are those who maintain the upright

position resting on their heads with their feet in the air. At the

Hippodrome in Paris some years since there was a man who remained in

this position seven minutes and ate a meal during the interval. There

were two clowns at the Cirque Franconi who duplicated this feat, and

the program called their dinner "Un dejouner en tete-a-tete." Some

other persons perform wonderful feats of a similar nature on an

oscillating trapeze, and many similar performances have been witnessed

by the spectators of our large circuses.

The "human pyramids" are interesting, combining, as they do, wonderful

power of maintaining equilibrium with agility and strength. The

rapidity with which they are formed and are tumbled to pieces is

marvelous they sometimes include as many as 16 persons men, women, and

children.

The exhibitions given by the class of persons commonly designated as

"jugglers" exemplify the perfect control that by continual practice one

may obtain over his various senses and muscles. The most wonderful

feats of dexterity are thus reduced into mere automatic movements.

Either standing, sitting, mounted on a horse, or even on a wire, they

are able to keep three four, five, and even six balls in continual

motion in the air. They use articles of the greatest difference in

specific gravity in the same manner. A juggler called "Kara," appearing

in London and Paris in the summer of 1895, juggled with an open

umbrella, an eye-glass, and a traveling satchel, and received each

after its course in the air with unerring precision. Another man called

"Paul Cinquevalli," well known in this country, does not hesitate to

juggle with lighted lamps or pointed knives. The tricks of the clowns

with their traditional pointed felt hats are well known. Recently

there appeared in Philadelphia a man who received six such hats on his

head, one on top of the other, thrown by his partner from the rear of

the first balcony of the theater. Others will place a number of rings

on their fingers, and with a swift and dexterous movement toss them all

in the air, catching them again all on one finger. Without resorting to

the fabulous method of Columbus, they balance eggs on a table, and in

extraordinary ways defy all the powers of gravity.

In India and China we see the most marvelous of the knife-jugglers.

With unerring skill they keep in motion many pointed knives, always

receiving them at their fall by the handles. They throw their

implements with such precision that one often sees men, who, placing

their partner against a soft board, will stand at some distance and so

pen him in with daggers that he cannot move until some are withdrawn,

marking a silhouette of his form on the board,--yet never once does one

as much as graze the skin. With these same people the foot-jugglers are

most common. These persons, both made and female, will with their feet

juggle substances and articles that it requires several assistants to

raise.

A curious trick is given by Rousselet in his magnificent work entitled

"L'Inde des Rajahs," and quoted by Guyot-Daubes. It is called in India

the "dance of the eggs." The dancer, dressed in a rather short skirt,

places on her head a large wheel made of light wood, and at regular

intervals having hanging from it pieces of thread, at the ends of which

are running knots kept open by beads of glass. She then brings forth a

basket of eggs, and passes them around for inspection to assure her

spectators of their genuineness. The monotonous music commences and the

dancer sets the wheel on her head in rapid motion; then, taking an egg,

with a quick movement she puts it on one of the running knots and

increases the velocity of the revolution of the wheel by gyrations

until the centrifugal force makes each cord stand out in an almost

horizontal line with the circumference of the wheel. Then one after

another she places the eggs on the knots of the cord, until all are

flying about her head in an almost horizontal position. At this moment

the dance begins, and it is almost impossible to distinguish the

features of the dancer. She continues her dance, apparently indifferent

to the revolving eggs. At the velocity with which they revolve the

slightest false movement would cause them to knock against one another

and surely break. Finally, with the same lightning-like movements, she

removes them one by one, certainly the most delicate part of the trick,

until they are all safely laid away in the basket from which they came,

and then she suddenly brings the wheel to a stop; after this wonderful

performance, lasting possibly thirty minutes, she bows herself out.

A unique Japanese feat is to tear pieces of paper into the form of

butterflies and launch them into the air about a vase full of flowers;

then with a fan to keep them in motion, making them light on the

flowers, fly away, and return, after the manner of several living

butterflies, without allowing one to fall to the ground.

Marksmen.--It would be an incomplete paper on the acute development of

the senses that did not pay tribute to the men who exhibit marvelous

skill with firearms. In the old frontier days in the Territories, the

woodsmen far eclipsed Tell with his bow or Robin Hood's famed band by

their unerring aim with their rifles. It is only lately that there

disappeared in this country the last of many woodsmen, who, though

standing many paces away and without the aid of the improved sights of

modern guns, could by means of a rifle-ball, with marvelous precision,

drive a nail "home" that had been placed partly in a board. The experts

who shoot at glass balls rarely miss, and when we consider the number

used each year, the proportion of inaccurate shots is surprisingly

small. Ira Paine, Doctor Carver, and others have been seen in their

marvelous performances by many people of the present generation. The

records made by many of the competitors of the modern army-shooting

matches are none the less wonderful, exemplifying as they do the degree

of precision that the eye may attain and the control which may be

developed over the nerves and muscles. The authors know of a countryman

who successfully hunted squirrels and small game by means of pebbles

thrown with his hand.

Physiologic wonders are to be found in all our modern sports and games.

In billiards, base-ball, cricket, tennis, etc., there are experts who

are really physiologic curiosities. In the trades and arts we see

development of the special senses that is little less than marvelous.

It is said that there are workmen in Krupp's gun factory in Germany who

have such control over the enormous trip hammers that they can place a

watch under one and let the hammer fall, stopping it with unerring

precision just on the crystal. An expert tool juggler in one of the

great English needle factories, in a recent test of skill, performed

one of the most delicate mechanical feats imaginable. He took a common

sewing needle of medium size (length 1 5/8 inches) and drilled a hole

through its entire length from eye to point--the opening being just

large enough to admit the passage of a very fine hair. Another workman

in a watch-factory of the United States drilled a hole through a hair

of his beard and ran a fiber of silk through it.

Ventriloquists, or "two-voiced men," are interesting anomalies of the

present day; it is common to see a person who possesses the power of

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 753