658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



penetrable to their probosces a further protection from these, as well 

 as from the bites of creeping insects, especially during epidemics and 

 endemics in jails, ships, etc., by a daily inunction of the whole body 

 with some terebinthinate, camphorated, or eucalyptalized ointment or 

 liniment. 



2. Domiciliary protection, exteriorly, by screens of trees, walls, 

 fences, etc., interposed at some distance between dwellings and the 

 sources of malaria or mosquito nurseries, together with fires, lamps, 

 or electric lights, to act as traps for the attraction and destruction of 

 such winged insects as may approach nearer ; a further protection in 

 the interior of dwellings being secured by the use of smoke (such as 

 that of tobacco or pyrethrum), or of some volatile aromatic oil, as of 

 camphor, etc., which may be offensive to proboscidian intruders. 



3. Municipal protection, by the destruction or draining of swamps 

 and pools which produce mosquitoes ; and by the planting of forests 

 to obstruct the latter in their flight, or cordons of electric lights for 

 the same purpose, as well as for the destruction of insects that may 

 be attracted by the flame or incandescence. 



THE GROWTH OF HYGIENIC SCIENCE* 



By Professor DE CHAUMONT, M. D., F. K. S. 



IT is a little difficult in a necessarily restricted lecture to convey any 

 exact idea of the way in which modern hygiene became formu- 

 lated into so much of a science as it can at present lay claim to ; but 

 I will attempt to make a brief sketch of its more salient points. In 

 the eighteenth century there were several important questions in- 

 quired into, and to a large extent solved, of which the chief were 

 1. The influence of air as a factor in the spread of disease ; 2. The true 

 cause and prevention of scurvy ; and, 3. The prophylaxis of small- 

 pox. Taking the last first, we may say that the introduction of inocu- 

 lation was a most important step, even although we must admit that 

 it introduced a greater danger to the community at large than could 

 be compensated for by the protection to individuals. But it was the 

 first step on the road which led at the close of the century to vaccina- 

 tion, one of the most signal triumphs of preventive medicine, and in 

 our own time to the magnificent results obtained by the renowned 

 Pasteur, results which seem pregnant with so much hope for the future 

 of our race. 



The inquiry into the causes of scurvy was another step in advance, 

 of the most signal importance. No one in the present day can form 



* From the inaugural lecture of the Parkes Museum, delivered June 1, 1883. 



