avoided.

*

Such fixtures, even of the best materials and design, need frequent washing, and even scalding, to keep them sweet, and the more light and air can be admitted to them the more likely will the occupant be to enforce such cleanliness. The best authorities in England recommend the location of water-closets outside the house walls, in towers or outside appendages. But, however good the apparatus, and however well located, nothing will compensate for neglect by the occupants of the house. Frequent applications of hot-water and soap are just as needful to the surface of such fixtures as to the bodies of the persons who use them." The several classes of water-closets may readily be reduced to three: the valve or pan, the plunger, and the hopper or washout. As the three primary colors of light admit of an infinite variety and blending of tints, so these three classes illustrate in their diversified modifications, the astonishing resources of man's ingenuity and invention. The simple hopper seems to be as effective as any-the principal objection to it being on the part of ladies, who like to see a quantity of clean water standing in the bowl, which this does not show, and who estimate the merits of a closet principally upon this evidence. A plumber gave me recently the following instance of the facility with which the hopper is cleansed, the kind experimented with being the "short hopper," that has its trap above the floor of the room. He took half of a Baltimore American, and crumpling it loosely in his hands, threw the ball into the chamber. On pulling the cord of the reservoir, the flush at once carried the mass through the trap and out of sight. He then took a whole paper of the same kind, and crushing it together as before, tossed it into the closet, when on opening the water tank the bulky mass was carried instantly beyond the trap, as in the former case. The pan and plunger closets are subject to fouling in a very similar way. Negligence and the absence of sufficient flushing capacity often. give rise to the accumulation of excrement behind the pan and in the trap. Where the plunger is used, a similar accumulation occasionally gets above the plunger, on account of its not being sufficiently raised in consequence of its weight, or through ignorance of its construction and purpose, to let the contents of the closet escape below it. Such accidents are sure to be followed by offensive odors, which may likewise prove injurious to health. In the case of all closets, what is called a trap should intervene

between the hopper and the soil-pipe. This consists of a bend in the tube, constituting an inverted syphon, the convexity looking downward. This depression is designed to hold water, thus constituting the seal of the pipe, for the purpose of intercepting the return of gases into the dwelling from beyond the trap. As this seal is generally not more than or of an inch deep, and for practical uses need not be more, it is easy to see how slight a pressure on either side is required to displace the seal, or to force gases beyond it. The latter is rendered more feasible on account of the absorbent property of water, and where thorough ventilation is not insured, must be of very frequent occurrence. The seal is likewise subject to evaporation and syphonage, thus removing all obstacles to the return of offensive and pernicious gases into the house. Syphonage can hardly be frequent, since its occurrence presupposes a vacuum, which is difficult to establish in so large a pipe as the ordinary soil-pipe, unless under the condition of an abundant supply from an ample reservoir. Mr. Bayles, before quoted, has employed an ingenious contrivance for observing these changes in the water seal-that of introducinga watch glass into the side of the trap. But Mr. McConnell, member of the Master Plumbers' Association of this city, described to me what I regard as a more ingenious and far better device, that of having the entire closet, trap and section of soil-pipe of glass, through which, by the use of colored water, a great variety of conclusive experiments may be seen and tested.

I have endeavored thus far to present clearly and intelligibly a few elementary points of a comprehensive and intricate subject. I have presented very imperfectly the picture of the subsoil of this. city soaking in filth, of its sewers reeking with rottenness and stench, of its dwellings too often sheltering the excess of uncleanness, with their plumbing arranged in defiance of decency and health a state of things so disgusting, so repulsive, so loathsome, that one despairs of giving an adequate idea of it without resorting to hyperbole. To find its fitting parallel we must go back to a time when authentic history is lost in the "twilight of fable." One there encounters a similar instance with a similar origin, that of manure. A giant was called on to deal with this problem as one of his herculean labors, and he solved it by changing the course of two rivers, and thus earned the high distinction of being the father of sanitarians. This city is so situated as to

invite the application of the same means to the accomplishment of the same end. The Gunpowder River and the Falls of Jones answer to the rivers of Peneus and Alpheus, and are already in communication with this city by appropriate conduits. By the happiest of coincidences, this planet subservient to the sun to which it owes obeisance, is actually at this moment approaching the Constellation Hercules, as astronomers tell us, at an incredible rate of speed. Our hopes brighten at this assurance, but are immediately dashed by the additional announcement that although our translatory velocity amounts to not less than 2,500,000 miles daily, it is not yet set down on the astronomical timetable when we shall reach Hercules. The sun's orbit, unfortunately for this source of relief, is believed to embrace not less than 18,000,000 years, and it is not certain in which part of this orbit is our present situation. Yet we are not altogether without hope. If we can find among the sons of men, one upon whom nature has conferred the gift of genius and scientific knowledge as a substitute for brute force; one whose name is familiar in two hemispheres as no less courageous in encountering problems in sanitation than successful in solving them; one who has dragged the three-headed Cerberus of miasm from the jaws of Tartarus and throttled him under the blue vault of Heaven; one who has raised in his powerful arms the giant of organic wastes, thus separating him from his mother-earth from which he derived his dangerous strength, and crushed him in the bright sun and the pure air; one who advances exultingly to engage the hydra-monster of zymotic disease, and sets his foot in triumph on the vanquished foe-to such a hero shall we confidently look, and pledge to him immortal renown as the reward of our rescue. To him we appeal in the name of a great city, weltering in its own nastiness. We appeal to him in the name of youth stricken in the glory and pride of its. strength. We appeal to him in the name of defenseless age, looking for protection to the healthy and the strong. In the name of weeping mothers, bereaved and comfortless; in the name of young men, sapped of their vigor and hastening to premature decay; in the name of maidenhood, robbed of its bloom and beauty, and withering under the blight of a hidden destroyer; in the name of the consumptive, flushed with hectic and consumed with fever; in the name of the parturient woman and her new-born babe, flashing like a meteor of life for an instant upon our vision, and then

consigned to a common grave; in the name of the husband snatched from the arms of the loving wife, and of the wife torn from the protecting side of her husband; in the name of helpless infants sacrificed yearly by hecatombs to the remorseless Moloch of filth, we plead for this great benefaction.

Poets shall vie with generous warmth to sing his praise in stately epic, or in polished ode. Orators shall proclaim his great achievement to attentive and applauding multitudes. Rhetoricians shall portray his work in nervous and melodious prose. Art and science shall join hands in pledge of harmonious concert. The painter and the sculptor shall perpetuate his memory on the speaking canvas and in symbolic marble. The lightning shall be let slip to flash with eager haste to remotest lands, the completion ⚫ of the grand endeavor. The press shall catch the refrain, and in all civilized tongues scatter the glad news that this fair city has at last been redeemed from physical pollution and filth. Scientists shall come from afar to study, to understand and to imitate the details of the great undertaking. The winds, wearied with bearing on their wings poisonous vapors and the seeds of death, and glad to be the heralds of joy and hope, shall woo back to faded cheeks life's warm current and the glow of health. To this hero, shall be given the proud satisfaction to show that "Peace hath her victories not less renowned than war.'

To him shall rise no column like that of Trajan, scarred with the mementoes of rapine and conquest, of ravaged fields and blighted harvests, of smoking cities and garments rolled in blood —no arch like that of Vespasian, to record the mournful tale of desolated homes, of violated temples, of plundered treasuries, of prisoners dragged captive at his chariot wheels, to win the plaudits of the populace, and to lend renown to his triumph-no statue like that of Memnon, which in the early hours of the day emitted the sound of a breaking harp-string, mingled with moanings and complaints of rapacious tyranny and cruel wrong! But instead of these let there be reared a monument of lasting gratitude in the hearts of our fellow-citizens, and yet another of enduring bronze, whose top the morning sun in his coming glory shall kiss at his rising, and turn to burnished gold with the brightness of his setting rays, unadorned by laurel wreath or civic crown, but bearing aloft on its high capital, beneath the legend of PURITY, CLEANNESS and HEALTH, in letters of lustrous light the fame and name of WARING.

REPORT OF SECTION ON PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDICAL

JURISPRUDENCE.

REMARKS ON THE NASCENT STATE OF THE MIND.

BY L. F. MORAWETZ, M. D.,

Of Baltimore.

It seems probable that as soon as man began to direct his attention to something more than mere satisfaction of his animaľ desires, he commenced to observe the effects of cosmic forces. He found too, that he was moved by love and hate, and to be able to preserve and destroy at his own option. The cosmic forces he learned to fear or to venerate as superior powers; and theology, thus formed, construed the mental emotions as emanating from good or bad powers. This laid the first foundation for some kind of psychology. We may presume that from the first perception of the existence of mental forces there arose three different theories for the explanation of "mind.”

Probably the oldest theory was, that mind inhabits the body as a spirit or soul, for such purposes and under such conditions as were designated differently in accordance with the changing systems of theology. Another theory divested the soul of its individuality and assumed a cosmic force, acting upon the body through a variably organized brain; matter was thus promoted to a greater dignity.

Lastly the spiritual part was dropped entirely and matter alone was thought a sufficient source for all mental processes. The speculations and deductions made from arbitrary assumptions were not apt to promote the knowledge of the relation of mind and matter, and with the development of physical science the empty speculation of scholastic psychology became unsatisfactory to scientists who endeavored to find out the nature of mind. From a passive body, which a divine spirit used as an instrument, and