given rise to the proverbial phrase _das Maas verlieren_--"to lose one's measure" (462. III. 1163-5). Not upon adults alone, however, were these measurements carried out, but upon infants, children, and youths as well. Even in the New World, among the more conservative of the population of Aryan origin, these customs still nourish, as we learn from comparatively recent descriptions of trustworthy investigators. Professor J. Howard Gore, in the course of an interesting article on "The Go-Backs," belief in which is current among the dwellers in the mountain regions of the State of Virginia, tells us that when some one has suggested that "the baby has the 'go-backs,'" the following process is gone through: "The mother then must go alone with the babe to some old lady duly instructed in the art or science of curing this blighting disease. She, taking the infant, divests it of its clothing and places it on its back. Then, with a yarn string, she measures its length or height from the crown of the head to the sole of the heel, cutting off a piece which exactly represents this length. This she applies to the foot, measuring off length by length, to see if the piece of yarn contains the length of the foot an exact number of times. This operation is watched by the mother with the greatest anxiety, for on this coincidence of measure depends the child's weal or woe. If the length of the string is an exact multiple of the length of the foot, nothing is wrong, but if there is a remainder, however small, the baby has the go-backs, and the extent of the malady is proportional to this remainder. Of course in this measuring, the elasticity of the yarn is not regarded, nor repetitions tried as a test of accuracy" (244. 108). Moreover, "the string with which the determination was made must be hung on the hinge of a gate on the premises of the infant's parents, and as the string by gradual decay passes away, so passes away the 'go-backs.' But if the string should be lost, the ailment will linger until a new test is made and the string once more hung out to decay. Sometimes the cure is hastened by fixing the string so that wear will come upon it." Professor Gore aptly refers to the Latin proverb _ex pede Herculem_, which arose from the calculation of Pythagoras, who from the _stadium_ of 6000 feet laid out by Hercules for the Olympian games, by using his own foot as the unit, obtained the length of the foot of the mighty hero, whence he also deduced his height. We are not told, however, as the author remarks, whether or not Hercules had the "go-backs."