198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the foramen magnum, the approximation of the temporal ridges, the 

 lateral flattening of the tibia, the perforation of the humerus, the ten- 

 dency of the pelvis to depart from its usual proportions, and, associ- 

 ated with all these, a rudeness of culture and the evidence of the 

 manifestation of the coarsest instincts. He must be blind indeed 

 who cannot recognize the bearing of such grave and suggestive modi- 

 fications. But what application are we to make of such revelatious 

 if we vividly receive them as such ? We are no longer to rest with 

 the blind fatalism of the Turks, or listless resignation of the masses, 

 but are to. make a living use of them. We are to trace evil and cor- 

 rupt passions to their source. The dreadful outrages which shock 

 us from time to time in the public prints are not instigated by an 

 evil spirit, but are outbursts of the same savage nature which found 

 more frequent expression years ago, and which are still present with 

 the lower races of to-day. When the study of heredity reveals the 

 fact that even the nature of vagabondage is perpetuated ; when the 

 surprising revelations of Margaret, mother of criminals, from whose 

 loins nearly a thousand criminals have thus far been traced, are con- 

 sidered, common-sense will ultimately recognize that the imprison- 

 ment of a criminal for ten or twenty years is not simply to punish 

 him or relieve the public of his lawless acts, but to restrain him from 

 perpetuating his kind. No sudden revulsion of feelings and amended 

 ways is to purify the criminal taint, but he is to be quarantined in 

 just the same way that a case of the plague might be, that his kind 

 may not increase. With these plain facts thoroughly understood, 

 men high in authority must find some other excuse for the exercise 

 of their pardoning power, and other reasons be given for allowing so 

 large a proportion of criminals to go free. With the monstrous blot 

 of Mormonism and free-love in our country, the statute-books are 

 to be again revised from the standpoint of science, with its rigid moral 

 and physical laws, and not from the basis of established usage or 

 long-continued recognition. 



THE LAWS OF HEALTH. 



By THOMAS BOND, F. E. C. S. 



ON an average, one-half of the number of out-patients treated by a 

 hospital-surgeon suffer from diseases due primarily to a want of 

 knowledge of the laws of health and cleanliness. 1. The ignorance of 

 hygienic laws, which affects so disastrously the health of the rich as 

 well as the poor, exists chiefly in regard to dress, ablution, and venti- 

 lation. This statement may, at first, appear startling, but an enu- 

 meration of the diseases that, can be constantly traced to the above 

 causes will show upon how sound a basis the statement rests. The 



