1897 THE MICROSCOPE. 63 
A Microbe-Proof House.--One of the oldest domiciles 
on earth is that recently erected at Yokohama by Dr. Van 
der Heyden, the noted bacteriologist of Japan. The New 
York Home Journal describes it as a dust proof, air-proof, 
microbe-proof building of glass, which stands on the open, 
unshaded grounds of the hospital of Yokohama. The 
house is 44 ft long, 23 ft. wide, and17 ft. high. Large 
panes of glass, % in. thick and about 4 in. apart, are set in 
iron frames, so as to form the sides of acellular building 
block. Of these blocks the walls are constructed. There 
are no window-sashes, the air escape being through sey- 
eral small openings around the upper part of the second 
story, but through which no air from the outside is ad- 
‘mitted. The air-supply is obtained froma considerable 
distance, forced through a pipe, and carefully filtered 
through cotton-wool to cleanse it of bacteria, To insure 
further sterilization, the air is driven against a glycerine- 
coated plate glass, which captures all the microbes the 
wool spares. The few microbes brought into the house 
in the clothes of the vistors soon die in the warm sunlight 
with which the place is flooded. The space between the 
glasses of the building-blocks is filled witha solution of 
salts which absorbs the heat of the sun, so that the rooms 
of this house are much cooler than those protected by the 
thickest shades. In the evening the interior is heated by 
the salts radiating the heat they absorbed during the day. 
So effective is the system of regulating the temperature 
that a few hours of sunlight, even in freezing weather, will 
render the house habitable. It is only “when several 
cloudy days follow in succession that artificial heat is 
needed. Then it is supplied by pumping in hot air. 
Education.—‘‘Does Modern College Education Educate, 
in the Broadest and Most Liberal Sense of the Term?” is 
one of the most important inquiries that could be set on 
foot. This discussion, which is to be taken part in by 
President Gilman of the Johns Hopkins, President Dwight 
of Yale, President Schurman of Cornell, President Morton 
of the Stevens Institute, Henry Thurston Peck of Col- 
umbia, Bishop Potter and others of the most distinguished 
men of both the United States and Europe is begun in the 
April Cosmopolitan by a radical inquiry into the educa- 
tional problem along the lines of Herbert Spencer. 
