some, to him, new view of sanitary matters; this is very mischievous. A man may do more harm by giving the weight of his authority to erroneous views respecting the method to be employed for the prevention of diseases than he has done good during the whole of his life in any other way. None but those who have made a special study of this subject have a right to speak on it, or at any rate have a right to influence the public mind with regard to it. The amount of good which may be done by the exposition of correct views on sanitary matters is incalculable; the amount of evil done by the enunciation of erroneous views, backed by apparent authority, fearful.

But if sanitary science is a thing of yesterday, such is not the case with the observation of sanitary facts, nor with the practice of sanitary art; and, while it is true that sanitary science is essentially and entirely a medical study, and is necessarily so, it is equally true that the practice of the art of preserving the health is not only possible to all, but is a duty which devolves upon all. In all ages we have had writers on this subject. From all countries we may learn useful lessons about it. From the times of Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus, we have had records of the results of observations on the methods of preserving the health; from the time of Moses we have had lawgivers imposing salutary conditions of existence upon unwilling, because ignorant populations. We look upon the immense engineering works undertaken and carried out by the Romans to supply their towns with pure water with astonishment, when we turn round and see our own towns supplied from polluted rivers, or, worse still, from shallow wells dug in the soil upon which they themselves stand, wells supplied in most cases chiefly by the foul water which has percolated from the surface of the ground. We have found out in later times that one of the main conditions of the health of communities depends on the purity of the drinking water, and we see that the Roman engineers, by having to go to a considerable distance for water in order to get it to a sufficient height in their cities, accidentally, as it were, fulfilled one of the most important of sanitary requirements.

"Knowledge is power," and as we come to know more of the conditions which favour the spread of diseases, as we do daily, it is our own fault if we neglect to use the power which that knowledge gives us. There are two conditions of insalubrity which are pre-eminent. I hardly know which to place first. The one is overcrowding, and the other the accumulation of refuse matters in and about dwellings. These conditions were those which especially favoured the spread of the fearful plagues of the middle ages; as a result of over-crowding we have a deteriorated condition of the air, from the diminution of the amount of its most essential constituent, oxygen; and, worse still, we have it rendered foul by the exhalation of decomposing organic matters from the bodies of the persons breathing it. Such a state of air is especially favourable to the multiplication of the poisons of diseases; such a state of the air is also brought about by the non-removal of refuse matters from the vicinity of habitations. Dr. Laycock tells us that the plague in York in each of its visitations, and also the cholera, broke out in the same abominably filthy place; and in cholera epidemics it has been repeatedly noticed that those parts of towns which are most filthy and most over-crowded, always suffer worst.

But the danger is not only from special epidemic diseases. Such insanitary conditions induce a lowered vitality of the inhabitants, who become prone to attacks of diseases of all sorts; and then we have sickness, inability to work, and consequent inability to earn bread and to pay rents, and so the evil recoils from the tenants upon the landlords. One witness says, Rent is the best got from healthy houses." Another, "Sickness at all times forms an excuse for the poorer part not paying their rent, and a reasonable excuse."

I consider that one of the most important conclusions that the study of sanitary science has forced upon us lately is the conclusion that the immediate removal of refuse matters is one of the first necessities of the healthy existence of a community. There are those who would have you believe that refuse matters may be rendered innocuous in one way or another, so that they may be kept with safety in and near to houses. Don't listen to them; the principle is wrong-radically wrong. Depend upon it that the true method is to get rid of such matters at once, and in the simplest possible way, and that is the cheapest plan in the end. Show me a town where refuse matters are kept no matter how they are treated-and I will show you a town where the standard of vitality is low; I will show you a town with a high death-rate, especially among children.

To take the other side of the question, look at Lo There you have a population of 3 millions, with the death-rate of any very large collected population in the w with one of the lowest death-rates among the large tows de our own country. Why is this? I say unhesitatingly, aris out fear of contradiction, that with all allowances made fo excellent position of London, it is mainly due to the fact t principle there, however incompletely it may be carried o the immediate removal of all refuse matters; in London water-carriage system, by which the foul water containing a large proportion of the refuse matters of the population, i moved by gravitation in sewers, is carried out far more perfe than in any other large town, and this system is daily being dered more perfect there; it is the right system based true principle, and its results are most salutary. When you got rid of refuse matters, then see what you can do with the and here arises a very curious consideration. Sewers, in instances, were not originally built as sewers, but as dras sewer is a conduit for the removal of fouled water; a drain channel for the removal of mere superfluous water, the che being to dry the soil. The pattern of all our old sewers, Cloaca Maxima at Rome, was originally a drain; it was structed by Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth King of Rome, years B. C., to drain the marshy ground between the Pa and Capitoline hills, and it was so well constructed that it that ground at this moment. Pliny wondered that it had e dured 700 years unaffected by earthquakes, by inundations ch Tiber, by masses which had rolled into its channel, and weight of the ruins which had fallen over it. What we say could he see it now, as any of you may who choose to g Rome, still discharging, after more than 2,400 years, its water into the Tiber? But the convenience of the great d for the disposal of refuse matters soon became apparent, and it was turned into a sewer, and has been one ever since.

Well, what are we to do with the refuse sewer water, when w have got it out of our towns? This is one of the greatest que tions of the day. Drains, of course, were naturally mate discharge into rivers, their proper place, so long as they only drains; but when they come to be used as sewers, tis not do; in the first place the rivers are fouled, and in the the manure is lost. I shall be able to show you in the course the lecture that the only way known by which sewer water can either purified or utilised, is by turning it, with suitable pre tions, on to land, that this may be done, not only we injury to the health of the neighburhood, but with great hai in many ways.

We have spoken of drains to dry the soil; what is the necess of this? Every farmer knows that crops will not flourish on 2 drained land; neither can human beings; a damp house synonym for an unhealthy house, you all know that; but t only within the last few years, as the result of a most impo sanitary research, made by Dr. Buchanan, that we have com know as a scientific fact, beyond all dispute, that the drying the soil of a town reduces the number of deaths from const tion in a most extraordinary manner; in some towns the nu of deaths under this head has been reduced by one-third or ev by one-half, in this way.

To mention some other special diseases which have been s cessfully combatted of late years, look at scurvy, that te malady which formerly decimated our navies! We know that that disease may be prevented by the use of limejuice part of the daily food, and we are no longer afraid of it. ( illustrations of the ravages of this disease were given.)

Look at small-pox, beyond all exception the most fet epidemic disease with which the world was ever afflicted! W: know how to prevent it, and we have recently had a very seve lesson from not applying that knowledge. It is to the imm credit of England that Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, *an Englishman; there are certain people, and they have actu formed a society, who are trying to get compulsory vaccinat done away with in this country. Let me tell you that if there one fact established in preventive medicine it is that vaccinati affords a protection from small-pox; let me tell you that statement is founded upon an induction such as has been brough bear upon no other subject in medical science; and, let me a that those persons who bring isolated facts as arguments agai a statement so supported, show that they have no idea of nature of an inductive argument at all. An unvaccinated per son is a danger to the community, and ought not to be allore o go at large, and so far from persons being merely fined to

ot allowing their children to be vaccinated, and then permitted o keep them unvaccinated, the children ought to be vaccinated y the public vaccinator, even in spite of their parents, who hould not be allowed to risk their children's lives through their wn obstinacy and ignorance; and not only their children's ives, but those of the persons around them. The recent epidemic of small-pox showed us several important things-it showed us what we knew before, that small-pox is far more fatal to unvaccinated than to vaccinated persons; it showed us that while small-pox is especially fatal to unvaccinated children, it is less atal to vaccinated children than to other persons; thus demonstrating the necessity of re-vaccination, and it showed us that e-vaccination once performed is actually a better protection against small-pox than a previous attack of small-pox is. You know that it is not common for a person to have small-pox twice. Well, it is much less common for a person to have small-pox after he has been successfully re-vaccinated, and if he

has it is almost certain to be a very mild attack. Out of nearly 15,000 cases of small-pox admitted into various London hospitals luring the late epidemic, only four presented proof of having

been re-vaccinated.

Let us pass on to typhoid fever. Here is a disease of the very existence of which, as distinct from certain other diseases, we have only known in recent times, but yet a disease about which, thanks to the researches of men now among us, one of whom it especially becomes me, as his pupil to mention, Sir William Jenner, we really seem to know more than about almost any other disease; a disease which we deliberately hunt down to its source, and stop just as we could stop the supply of stone from a quarry or of rifles from an armoury; a disease, the haunts and habits of house and say, "Alter this, and alter that, or you will very likely get typhoid fever here," a disease the ways of which we know so well, that, when there has been a case of it caused by local defects in a house, we can almost predict what alterations are required without going to the place. Surely the results obtained from the study of this disease are some of the most striking results of sanitary progress in our day. I find that the idea has become widely spread that the recent epidemic of typhoid fever in London was due to the distribution of milk from a sewage farm; this was not so, and I regard it most in the light of a special providence that none of the milk sent out from that establishment came from a sewage farm: had it been so, such a fact, combined with the prejudice and ignorance which exists upon the matter, would have dealt a severe blow to the progress of one of the greatest sanitary improvements of the day. The cause of that epidemic is known with absolute certainty, the very channel by which the poison got into the dairy well having been recently unearthed.

which we know with such accuracy that we are able to go into a

I must allude, for an instant, to the recent sanitary legislation; it has been found fault with by many on account of matters of detail; but consider the fact that the result of it is that the country has spent a large sum of money in the employment of medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors, and that such men now exist, and you will see that in it we may find great cause for rejoicing when looking to the future of sanitary progress. In a lecture on the "History of Hygiene," which I delivered some three or four years ago at University College, London, said, "From its very nature, hygiene interests all classes of society; but it is to those who are worst off-the poorest and most wretched-that it must direct its first attention. Civilisation has its evils as well as its advantages, as Bouchardat has well remarked; and one of the greatest of them is the over-crowding of people in the great centres of population, with the misery and disease which are the results of it. It is to better constructed houses for the working classes, to a free supply of good water, and to satisfactory sewerage arrangements, that we must look for an amelioration in these respects; and I would hasten to add, to a wider spread among those classes of such an education as shall lead them to appreciate the means used for the improvement of their condition, and to lend a helping hand for the furtherance of those means."

I feel that I cannot do better in conclusion than congratulate this town on having, through the munificence of one of its citizens, been the first to appreciate the importance of the education of the people in these subjects, and on having such an institution as this in which so much useful knowledge is imparted to the people, and congratulate myself on having the privilege of such an opportunity of spreading broadcast the great truths of sanitary science. The time is fast coming which was looked

forward to by Dr. Parkes when he wrote:-"Let us hope that matters of such great moment may not always be considered as of less importance than the languages of extinct nations, or the unimportant facts of a dead history."

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS

THE current Ibis commences with the latter part of Mr. Brooke's notes on the ornithology of Sardinia, special attention being drawn to Otis tetrax, which is moderately common; Fhanicopterus roseus, which occurs in large flocks during the winter and Fulica nigrosa was not seen, though included in both Cara's and even up to June; the presence of P. erithacus is doubtful. Salvadori's lists. Fhalacrocorax desmaresti, and P. carbo is extremely common. In the museum there are several specimens o Larus andouini is found, though very rarely.-Captain F. W. Hutton, in a note on Rallus modestus of New Zealand, gives R. modestus to be R. dieffenbachii, in an immature state of plumage, as the proportions of the chicks are different, and the

evidence to show that Dr. Buller is in error when he considers

bill of the latter more slender.-Messrs. Salvin and Elliot in continuation of their notes on the Trochilida, discuss the genus Thalurania, which is exclusively tropical, and consists of eleven species and five sections.-In notes on Chinese ornithology, Mr. R. Swinhoe draws special attention to Ceryle rudis at Ningpo, Gallinago solitaria, Endrominas veredus, and other land as well as water-birds found at Shanghai.-Mr. Sclater supplements Mr. Salvin's list of the birds of Nicaragua, with additions from a recent small collection made by Mr. Belt, adding seventeen species, mostly well known through Central in Para; and Mr. Sclater describes and figures two new species America. Mr. E. L. Layard gives notes of the birds observed named by him Picolattes layardi, and Thamnophilus simplex.Captain J. H. Lloyd on the birds in the province of Kattiawar in West India, commences the detailed account with an inte

resting comment on the general ornithological description of the region.

THE Monthly Microscopical Journal for October, commences with a description, by Mr. F. H. Welch, of the thread-worm Filaria immitis, occasionally infesting the vascular system of the dog, with remarks on the same, relative to Haematozoa in general, and the Filaria in the human blood. The specimens described were obtained from the right ventricle and pulmonary artery of a dog, from Shanghai, the male, female, and young being described. The left ventricle also contained some of the young. -Dr. Royston-Pigott fully illustrates a paper entitled "Researches in Solar Spectra, applied to test residuary aberration in microscopes and telescopes; and the construction of a compensating eye-piece, being a sequel to the paper on a searcher for aplanatic images."-Dr. Rutherford describes a new freezing microtome in which the freezing box and escape tube are much larger than in his older instrument, and the indicator is improved.-Mr. Ch. Stodder, in a letter, points out that it is inaccurate to suppose that the nominal price of American objectives is directly comparable with that of English makers, as the value of money in the two countries is so different, and duty has to be paid on entering the former.

Annali di Chimica applicata alla Medicina, July number, 1873. -We notice in this journal, besides a number of formulæ for pharmaceutical preparations and other details interesting to the druggist, a paper by A. Gubler, on experiments with new and old opium alkaloids, which deals, amongst others, with apomorphia.-There is also a translation of Mr. Simon's memorandum on the diffusion of cholera, and other papers from native and foreign sources. In the Rendiconto delle sessioni dell' Academia delle scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, 1872-1873," are given briefly (in about 189 pages) abstracts of the papers read before the Society, together with other matter of the usual nature.

on

Reale Istituto Lombardo di scienze e Lettre Rendiconti, Fascicolo xiii.," July 1873.-This number contains several critical literary, historical, and philosophical papers, including one Kant's philosophy, by C. Cantoni.-In the scientific section there is a paper by Prof. Cavalleri on improvements in the helioscope, and a portion of a paper by P. Cantoni on electrical adherence, which is illustrated with several tables of data.

Fascicolo xiv. contains a paper on the capacity of the nasal fossa, by P Mantegazza, and one on cholera by G. Strambio.C. Lombroso details some experiments on the tonic action of

maize (guasto) affected with the Pencillum glaucum. The author maintains that the maize in this state acts injuriously. G. Sangalli, who replies to the paper, maintains that the effects are due to another cause.-New comet discovered at the Royal Observatory of Milan, by G. Tempel; communicated by G. V. Schiaparelli. The continuation of P. Cantoni's paper on electrical adherence is given.-The other papers are on the propagation of the corpuscle cornalia, by C. Gibell, and a letter on a purulent disease of one hemisphere of the brain, by L. Porta.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES
PHILADELPHIA

Academy of Natural Sciences, June 3.-Dr. Ruschenberger in the chair.—“ Fertilisation of Pedicularis canadensis.” Mr. Thomas Meehan drew attention to the structure

of the flower of Pedicularis canadensis, in which it was evident self-impregnation was impossible, and there seemed to be no special arrangements for fertilisation by distinct agency, as there were in so many allied plants. In this case the stamens were included in the closely compressed arch of the corolla, and, with the anthers, were directed retrorsely to the pisti', which at an early stage, and long before the maturity of the pollen, was protruded beyond the corolla, rendering self-fertilisation almost impossible in this flower. But the flowers were always abundantly fertile, and though the arrangements were such as seemingly to afford no chance even for insects to aid in the fertilisation, it was also probable that in some way it was accomplished by them. Both last season and this he had devoted some time to watching the plant, but failed to find any clue to the process. A species of Bombus seemed to have the plant especially under its charge, visiting the flowers in great numbers; but they bored through the corolla on the outside of the tube for the saccharine matter, and the anthers or pollen did not seem to be in the least disturbed by this. Still it was so highly probable that in some way some insect aided in the crossfertilisation of these flowers, that it might serve a useful purpose to direct attention to it, as others with time and opportunity might discover what he had failed to find.

RIGA

Society of Naturalists, April 16-M. Tank communicated some observations on honeydew, which he thinks is an immediate excretion of the leaves due to cooling.-M. Behrmann gave reasons for doubting the supposition that certain fires which occurred almost daily from October to December last year, in a village of the Orel Government, arose from phosphuretted hydrogen out of the marshy ground.

April 23.-M. Petzholdt read a paper on the composition and formation of Imatra stones. Various hypotheses of formation have been given the gyratory, the stalactitic, the geological, the vegetable, the animal, &c. Parrot supposed the stones to be petrified, shell-less molluscs. M. Petzholdt formulates his view thus :-In a slimy layer of fine sand, mud, and carbonate of lime, are formed, through mutual attraction of particles of the latter, several ball-heaps of lime. Next, dry deposition of the whole at a later epoch. Disturbance of the stratum by water, setting free the hard spherical masses (Imatra stones).

April 30.-M. Pfeiffer showed a small headless chick with large legs, found dead with another, which was alive in the same egg. The two were connected by a fibre. After separation the living chick throve normally.

May 21.-M. Glasenapp gave a note on blackened wood in certain trees blown down in a storm. The blackening is attributed to a kind of fungus which formed on the north side of the trees while yet standing.-M. Gottfriedt read a paper on enclosure of diamonds in xanthophyllite; the supposed diamonds he finds to be merely hollow spaces, erosion figures. -M. Teich gave an account of an excursion to North-West of Kurland. The Correspondenz Blatt, No. 9, contains a description of the snakes of the Baltic Provinces, of which there are three species-Vipera verus, Tropidonotus natrix, and Coronella la vis.

GOTTINGEN

Royal Academy of Sciences, Aug. 6.—Dr. Paul du Bois. Reymond communicated a paper on the representation of functions by Fourier's series.

Aug. 13.-M. Waitz compared some points in the Annales Sithiensis, relative to Pippin and Charlemagne, with other

annals of the time.-M. Ewald gave a paper on the passa Ezek. xlv. 12: "Twenty shekels, five-and-twenty shekels, and-five shekels shall be your maneh." The maneh, it is know originally contained 60 shekels (which these numbers make and this enumeration, he thinks, was in order to exactness certainty, not because there were coins of these several val The Septuagint version (rightly read) makes the maneho shekels, and it is known there was such a maneh. The auth advances a theory, on which the passage affords evidence of bot manehs having been known in the first half of the sixth cent B.C.-Dr. Voss communicated a note on the geometry of fo surfaces of congruences.

Aug. 20.-M. Minnigerode gave a long paper on a new method of solving Pell's Equation 12 Dμ= I.

PARIS

Academy of Sciences, October 6.-M. Bertrand in the chair. The following papers were read :-Note on the meas used to obtain a constant temperature in rooms and on the methods of moderating it during the heat of summer, by Gener Morin. On new propyl compounds, by M. A. Cahours. Th author described several ethers of the propyl series.-Certa considerations on the yellow elastic tissue and its immedia organic analysis, by M. Chevreul. -Treatment of carbuncle and malignant pustule by carbolic acid and ammonic carbolate, by M. Déclat.-Statistical tables of the losses of German armies France during the war of 1870-1, by Capt. D. H. Leclerc.-The subcutaneous infarctus of cholera, by M. Bouchut.-On the in provement in healthfulness caused by the growth of Eucalyp globulus in marshes, by M. Gimbert.-Studies on the Phylloxera, by M. Max Cornu.-On the action on the vine of the carbon disulphide used to destroy the Fhylloxera, by M. Lecocq de Boisbaudran.-On the size and variations of the sun's diameter, by S. Respighi. The author in his letter criticised Secchi's statements as to the difference between the nautical almane diameter and his own observations by monochromatic light. He regarded Secchi's observations as erroneous.-On the theory of the thrust of earthworks, by M. J. Curie.-On the condensation of gases and liquids by carbon, by M. Melsens. The author noticed the thermal phenomena produced by the contact of the liquids with carbon, &c.-On the production of certain borates in the dry way, by M. Ditte.-Researches on tribromacetic acid, by M. H. Gal.--On the development of Batrachians. This was a note on the embryos of Hylodes martinensis, by M. Bavay.

PAMPHLETS RECEIVED

ENGLISH-Synopsis of all the Mosses known to inhabit Ireland: David Moore, Ph.D.-Lobley's Geologist's Excursion to the Malvern District.Proceedings of the Belfast Natural History Society for 1871-2-Leyton Astr nomical Observations. -Report, Chester Society of Natural Science-Lav of Elliptic Motion deduced from the Laws of Gravitation and Compo Rotation: G. Hamilton. -Milk, Typhoid Fever and Sewage: Alfred Se -Contributions to the Knowledge of the Meteorology of the Antara Regions. A new Method of obtaining the Differentials of Functions; Pras Rice and Johnson.-Count Rumford, How he Banished Beggary tron Bavaria: T. L. Nichols, M.D.-A Scamper across Europe: T. L. Nicho

M.D.