266 



NA TURE 



[July 20, 1893 



RURAL HYGIENE. 



Essays on Rural Hygiene. By George Vivian Poore, 

 M.D., F.R.C.P. (London: Longmans, Green, and 

 Co, 1893.) 



EIGHT ofthechaptersof this work have been, in whole 

 or part, previously published ; to these the author has 

 added five others, and the result is a welcome voUime, 

 which appeals to all those who take an interest in 

 problems of health. 



To the lay reader the book will probably carry con- 

 viction upon every one of the many sanitary points which 

 are raised and dealt with, for the writer has a style which 

 is at once clear, incisive, and convincing ; and he builds 

 up his conclusions upon good, sound, scientific, and logical 

 bases. Many professed sanitarians will, however, cull 

 here and there from among much which they are un- 

 hesitatingly prepared to accept, a little which is not in 

 entire accordance with their own tenets and experience, 

 but which is none the less acceptable as affording much 

 food for thought and speculation. 



The keynote struck throughout the work has a genuine 

 ring, for the dominant principles of rus in urbe and 

 urbs in ritre resound through every chapter. 



The first chapter deals with the concentration of popu- 

 lation in cities, and the author very justly finds great 

 fault with the overcrowding on space that now obtains, 

 and he indicates, upon sound sanitary lines, the conditions 

 which should be imposed to obviate this evil. The 

 advice, however, comes too late for many of our large 

 towns, in which, alas, at the present day, hygiene must 

 needs make way for measures of expediency. Later on, 

 in a capital chapter on "Air," the author resumes his 

 diatribe against overcrowdmg, and even goes to the 

 extent of facing it in our conventional " at homes." He 

 writes : " Perhaps the day will dawn when it will be con- 

 sidered ' bad form ' to give your guests far less than one- 

 twentieth of the fresh air which is allowed to criminals." 

 One is not prepared to unreservedly accept the view that 

 water under pressure and the laying down of sewers have 

 been mainly instrumental in causing overcrowding on 

 space. There can be no gainsaying that our towns, long 

 before the era of the introduction of these two systems, 

 were miserably overcrowded ; and there is no reason to 

 doubt that, apart from either of these innovations, the 

 towns would have continued to spread with little or no 

 i nprovement in this respect, and that, despite the ab- 

 sence of water under pressure, the value of land over 

 certain favoured areas would have insured the appearance 

 of the modern high buildings. 



The following principles are powerfully advocated 

 throughout the book : The shallow-earth burial of dead 

 bodies ; the payment of water by meter on a sliding scale 

 of charges, giving the " water of necessity " at a low 

 rate, and charging more for the " water of luxury " ; 

 that each individual should have at least two-thirds of an 

 acreof land, soas to secure an adequate supply of fresh air, 

 and to provide that all refuse of every kind might be 

 returned to this land in order to maintain and increase 

 its fertility. 



The two chapters that deal with personal experiences 

 in a country town are extremely interesting and instruc- 

 tive, as giving the author's experience of a small estate 

 • NO. 1238, VOL. 48] 



of his own, upon which about a hundred people are 

 housed, and in which he endeavoured — with no smalt 

 measure of success — to realise his Utopia, i.e. a place 

 where there are no sewer pipes ; where every cottage has 

 around it an allotment sufficient to be fertilised by, and 

 to purify, all the waste products furnished by the inmates ; 

 and in which the waste waters should run " clear as 

 crysal in open channels without needing so-called 

 ventilation." 



Throughout the book many interesting agricultural 

 points are raised and treated ably by one who is 

 evidently able to bring considerable practical experience 

 in harmony with theory. 



To sum up : — The book is eminently interesting ; it is 

 instructive and furnishes much food for the reflective 

 min-1, and as such its perusal may be confidently 

 recommended to one and all. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Die Klimate der Geologischen Vergangenheil una ihre 

 Beziehung zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Sonne. 

 Von Eug. Dubois. (Nijmegen : H. C. A. Theme. 

 Leipzig : Max Spohrr, 1893.) 



This pamphlet is a translation, with additions, of a paper 

 originally published in the Journal of the Dutch East 

 India Company. It consists of two portions of somewhat 

 unequal value and interest. In the first section of the book, 

 extending to thirty-six pages, a short but clear summary is 

 given of the evidence bearing on the question of the climate 

 of former geological periods. The references and notes 

 display complete familiarity with the very large literature 

 which is now in existence in connection with this subject 

 The second and larger half of the p.imphlet, extending 

 to nearly fifty pages, is a well-reasoned development of 

 the theme that the variations in the temperature of the 

 earth's surface during successive geological periods were 

 the result of changes in the heat of the sun, and that the 

 sun is in fact a variable star. Anyone wishing to become 

 acquainted with all the recent facts and arguments 

 bearing on the question of the climate of former geo- 

 logical periods, and to find them carefully summarised, 

 with abundant references to original sources of informa- 

 tion, will in this little pamphlet recognise a work admir- 

 ably adapted to his needs. 



Polarization Rotaloire, Reflexion et Refraction vitreuses, 

 Reflexion nietallique. Par G Foussereau. (Paris : 

 Georges Carrd, 1893.) 



This volume consists of a series of lessons given at 

 Sorbonne in 1891-92 to candidats a I'agregation. 



Under natural rotatory polarisation the author deals 

 with the fundamental phenomena presented by quartz 

 when traversed by polarised light parallel to the optic 

 axes, and discusses the theories of Fresnel and others 

 relative to rotatory polarisation. The relations between 

 activity and crystalline form, the rotatory power of 

 liquids, and the behaviour of quartz when traversed by 

 light in a direction inclined to the optic axis, are also 

 treated in .this section. 



Magnetic rotatory polarisation in singly- and doubly- 

 refracting media is discussed in the second part. In 

 both of these sections the effects of the various factorj 

 upon which the magnitude of the rotatory power depends 

 — wave length of the light eaiployed, temperature, length 

 and chemical nature of the medium, &c. — are briefly 

 stated. 



In the last part is found a discussion of the various 

 hypotheses advanced in connection with the phenomena 



