322 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



retting in the river Lys in Belgium, furnishes the text for a discussion of the use of 

 microbes in the arts and industries. The eighth and last illustrates the effect of soil- 

 inoculation with nitrogen-fixing bacteria by two samples of pea plants grown in poor 

 soil, with and without microbic aid. 



This album is accompanied by a case of bacterial cultures showing how the 

 bacteria appear in mass growths and how we detect them in water, milk and air. 

 The cultures are mounted on flat wooden backs about twelve inches by fourteen inches 

 with braces so that they can be stood up on the teacher's desk. Each case holds three 

 of these stands which fit neatly into a box easily carried by hand. The first stand 

 bears a series of streak cultures showing the form and color of the surface growth of 

 half a dozen striking species and illustrating the production of gas and acid in sugar 

 media by bacteria, the coagulation of milk, and the destruction of a piece of meat by 

 putrefactive forms. The second stand bears two plates showing colonies developed 

 from a comparable portion of a good and a bad water and two plates showing colonies 

 developed from a raw and a pasteurized milk and one showing colonies developed from 

 germs deposited by the feet of a fly in walking across the plate. The third stand 

 bears five sterile agar plates which may be opened and infected in the classroom with 

 dust, saliva, finger prints or the like in order to show the children the resulting growth. 



The third of our traveling exhibits deals with insect-borne disease. In the album 

 the various life stages of the mosquito- — egg, larva, pupa and adult — are shown 

 with photographs making clear, for the larva and adult, the differences between Culex 

 and Anopheles. The control of these pests is illustrated by photographs of a swamp 

 in New Jersey before and after drainage, by a picture of a mosquito squad oiling catch 

 basins and by one of Mr. W. L. Underwood's remarkable photographs of a goldfish 

 eating larvae. A diagram of the elimination of yellow fever in Havana, shows what 

 may be accomplished by mosquito control in tropical sanitation. In a similar way 

 are shown the life stages of the house-fly and its breeding places (a dirty stable and a 

 back-yard dump). An efficient fly trap is illustrated and briefly explained and the 

 importance of cleanliness in doing away with fly breeding is indicated by a series of 

 photographs of the way in which garbage is cared for in the city of Minneapolis. The 

 sanitary importance of fly-fighting in the South is emphasized by a diagram of 

 the recent reduction of the typhoid death rate in Jacksonville. The album closes 

 with large photographs of the louse and the flea as carriers of typhus and bubonic 

 plague. 



This album is accompanied by a series of vials in which actual specimens of the 

 four life stages of the fly and of the Culex and Anopheles mosquitoes are mounted in 

 glycerine-agar so that the pupil may study them for himself and learn to recognize 

 them in the back yards and pools near his own home. 



All this is of course only a beginning of what we may hope to do, even for the 

 high schools. We have as yet scarcely touched the great underlying problem of the 

 elementary schools where it is most vital that a sound basis should be laid for healthy 

 living and where at present (in New York City) fifteen minutes a week is the maxi- 

 mum time that can be spared for theoretical instruction in hygiene. We do feel 

 however that we have done enough to show that museum methods of instruction 

 may be made of use in the teaching of school hygiene and sanitation. President 

 Osborn of the American Museum, in speaking of its general educational work has 

 said, "Already the child can see here what Aristotle dreamt of but never saw, and 

 what Darwin and Huxley put into prophecy but did not live to see." So in our 

 special field we may teach the child the causes of diseases which were mysteries to 

 Pasteur and Koch. We have the opportunity to spread through the great school 

 population of New York a knowledge of the laws of health such as Hygeia never 

 vouchsafed to any of her devotees in any other age than ours. 



