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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (17425)	5/9/2004 10:01:58 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Charles Darwin, The formation of vegetable mould : through the action of worms, with observations on their habits. London: John Murray, 1881. Darwin's last book was a reworking of one of his earliest publications, a report to the Geological Society in 1838 following up a hint from a Wedgewood uncle about the way the layer of lime placed on farmland appears in later years as a distinct stratum inches below the soil surface. Often dismissed as a minor Darwin book, it was surprisingly popular with general readers. The chapter displayed here shows a sly sense of humour, in describing how the humble earthworm will over time appear to bury the ruins of Romano-British basicicas, the natural processes of the animal world conquering delapidated traditional religious structures. Darwin's last book also showed how quickly life can change it's environment and the speed of evolution. The first work on punctuated equilibrium can be traced to this work.

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (17425)	5/9/2004 12:12:47 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

"EATING MUMMY" In the tombs, not only have the faces of many wall images been altered or destroyed, but the crimes against African mummies are almost beyond description. There is a tradition dating back to at least 1000 A.D. in which Arabs and later Europeans engaged in the practice of "eating mummy." This practice was widespread in Egypt and Western Europe and it consisted of countless ancient African mummies being burned, ground up and made into a kind of powder in order to be eaten. This incredible act of cannibalism was considered an effective medical practice and folk remedy. The belief became widely prevalent that cures could be obtained by eating ground-up preserved bodies. "Eating mummy" was considered effective in treating contusions, coughs, epilepsy, migraines, ulcers, cases of poison, and as a general panacea. Mummies or fragments of mummies were taken from their tombs and sent to Cairo and Alexandria, where merchants sent the ground-up parts all over Western Europe. In the European Middle Ages and Renaissance mummy trafficking was widespread. Egyptian mummies were so sought after that the chaplain to Queen Catherine Medici of France made a special trip to Egypt in 1549 and, together with some physicians from Italy, broke into a number of tombs around Sakkara in a quest for mummies to use in various medicines. Catherine's father-in-law, King Francis I of France, also carried ground-up mummy in a pouch around his waist at all times in case of an emergency. The mummy madness was such that if a genuine ancient Egyptian mummy were not available, local Arabs would use the corpses of executed criminals or those who had died from disease. They used these modern substitutes to meet the high demand for mummy powder, despite the protest against this barbaric practice by some physicians, among them the French surgeon Ambroise Pare', who stated, "It causes great pain in their stomachs, gives them evil smelling breath and brings about serious vomiting." "Eating mummy" had a long and respectable tradition as a medicinal remedy. This uncivilized European and Arab tradition of eating mummified human flesh was part of a flourishing trade and thus did not die out until last century. It is impossible to calculate the many thousands of African mummies that ended up in the stomachs of Europeans and Arabs. melanet.com