Nov. 11, 1881.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



39 



UNHEALTHY HOUSES.* 



IX an interesting lecture at the London Institution, Prof. F. de 

 Chauniont mentions the following causes of disease : — 



(1 ) Want of renewal of air in om- rooms. 



(2) The pollution of the house aii- by admixture with sewer 

 emanations. 



(3) The contamination of our water supply. 



He says that could arrangements bo effectually carried out 

 in our dwellings for removing these causes of disease, certain 

 much^lrended maladies might disappear altogether. '' But we 

 must further remember," he proceeds, "that it is not death alone 

 we hare to dread, terrible as its effects often are in a house- 

 hold. For every case, we have to bear in mind, argues a con- 

 siderable number of cases of illness, which, even if recovered 

 from, may leave consequences behind them sufficient to affect 

 the health of a lifetime, and to diminish the power of the 

 sufferer for the work he has to do. The duration of illness alone is 

 often a serious break in the life of a professional man, artisan, or 

 labourer — a break which in some cases may mean the difference 

 between comfort and penury, or between a successful career and a 

 struggle for existence." " I think I shall bo understating the case," 

 he says. '' when I say that each case of death argues about a dozen 

 cases of illness, although the number is somewhat less in the severer 

 diseases, such as enteric fever, which is fatal in one out of six cases, 

 and diphtheria, which kills one out of three." Taking even these, 

 however. Prof, de Chaumont shows that in London alone from 

 50.000 to 00,000 weeks of productive labour are totally lost to the 

 community from illness due almost entirely to the unhealthiness of 

 our house.*. 



The lecture was delivered for the pm-pose of bringing before the 

 public the subject of sanitary assurance, and to advocate the cause 

 of the Sanitary Assurance Association, founded in Xovember, 1880. 

 The objects of the Association are as follow : — 



" The practical application of Sanitary Science generally, and 

 especially the encouragement and development of proper systems of 

 house-drainage, water supply, and ventilation. 



'■ The examination, inspection of, and reporting on houses and 

 buildings, or plans of houses and buildings, either erected, in course 

 of erection, or to be erected, as regards their sanitary arrange- 

 ments; the supervision by the officers of the Association of any 

 work done, or to be done, by or on behalf of the members of or 

 subscribers to the Association in coimection with the sanitary con- 

 dition of such houses or buildings ; and the granting of certificates 

 relative thereto. 



" The publishing of reports on matters connected with the pro- 

 .irress of sanitary science in the United Kingdom and abroad, and 

 the distribution at the end of each year of any surplus funds, or 

 part of any surplus funds, to such institutions as are devoted to the 

 advancement of sanitary science." 



If there is one application of science in which all should be 

 interested, it is the endeavour to diminish disease and suffering. 

 Were there no nobler reason, sheer selfishness might well cause all 

 men who claim to be reasoning beings to join, each to the best of 

 his abilities, in helping the cause of sanitary reform. But this is 

 in truth a case where the good of each is the good of all. 



That the objects of the Association may be the bettor effected, it 

 has been formed of two classes — (I) Members who arc responsible 

 to a certain amount for the necessaiy expenses of the Association, 

 and who have a voice in the management of its affairs ; (2) Sub- 

 scribers who incur no liability, and who will take no part in the 

 management of the Association. 



The Asscciation not being formed for executing works, leaves the 

 members and subscribers to employ any person they may select to 

 carry out the recommendations of its officers. 



llcmbers and subscribers alike contribute an entrance-feo of 

 half a guinea and an annual subscription of half a guinea, or a life- 

 snbscription of five guineas, and on payment in accordance with the 

 graduated scale, they arc entitled to have one house in London 

 placed on the Assurance Register. The fees for houses outside the 

 metropolitan district mil be increased according to distance. The 

 secretary of the Association is Joseph Hadley, Esq., 5, Argyll-place, 

 Begent-street, W. 



PLAIN WORDS IN SCIENCE, t 



IN making use of language to express otir thoughts, we ought to 

 be sure — (1) That the words used really express the idea 

 which it is wished to convey ; (2) that they are the shortest ; and 



* " Sanitary Assurance," a Lecture by Prof, de Chaumont. (J. & 

 A. Churchill, London.) 



t From an Address by Dr. George Tivian Poore, F.H.C.P., Prof, 

 of Medical Jurisprudence, University College. 



(3) that they are the most familiar words which are available. 

 Words must be as objective as possible, i.e., they should bring the 

 subject with the utmost rividncss before the mind's eye ; and, 

 therefore, those words to which the eye, and the ear, and the mind 

 had been accustomed for the longest time (vernacular terms used 

 from infancy) were the best ; and, other things being equal, 

 the shortest words were the best. If the advantages of expressing 

 themselves simply were so obWous, why, it would be asked, do men 

 continue to use the polysyllabic gibberish which passes cm-rent as 

 the language of science, but which proves that they have not yet 

 come to a right comprehension of the scientific use of language ? 

 By using a language " not understanded of the people " for 

 the expressing of scientific facts, they undoubtedly seriously 

 curtailed the area from which they drew their scientific 

 recruits ; and he took it that one explanation of the scien- 

 tific fervotir which pervaded the whole of Germany was to be 

 found in the fact that scientific terms were in that country 

 very largely derived from the German vernacular, and that he who 

 only knows the German language was not necessarily confronted in 

 a German scientific book with words which comiiellod him to close 

 the volume almost as soon as ojicned with a sigh of helplessness 

 and hopelessness. It must be admitted that our long words had 

 not hitherto been of much use as a means of international commu- 

 nication. For international communication they must make them- 

 selves familiar with each other's languages. That was certain. 

 And it was manifestly of importance that each nation should try 

 to keep its language pure, in order that it might be the more easily 

 learned. The practice of concubinage with the dead languages 

 merely had the effect of producing a mongrel language (as un- 

 productive as are all other mules), of huge bulk and monstrous 

 form, which has to be learnt as an additional study. It 

 seems to be the pitiable ambition of some writers to seize 

 upon a trifling fact, and to give it the longest name they can in- 

 vent with the aid of a lexicon. Some, possibly, are under the 

 impression that their dictionaiy-made expressions may gain for 

 them a reputation for classical learning. They cannot afford, as 

 did John Hunter, to rely for their reputation upon the facts which 

 they discover, who, when he was twitted with his want of know- 

 ledge of Greek and Latin, wrote thus characteristically to a friend; 

 " Jesse Foote accuses me of not understanding the dead languages ; 

 but I could teach him that on the dead body which he never knew 

 in any language dead or li^"ing." The defence has lately been put 

 forward for scientific jargon that eveiy trade or profession must 

 have its own technical terms. He confessed he could not see the 

 necessity. The tailor, as far as he knew, derived no advantage 

 from calling his smoothing-iron a "goose" ; and seamanship is not 

 advanced because a sailor's " companion " is one thing at sea and 

 another thing on shore. It seemed to him that technical terms 

 ought, as far as possible, to be discouraged, because the coining 

 of new words when they are not wanted, and the giving of 

 strange and cosventional meanings to common words, must 

 increase the difficulty of acquiring any art or handicraft. 

 Among unworthy motives which had induced them to ' have long 

 words, must be reckoned the desire to appear more learned than 

 they were. There was in human nature a tendency which was 

 expressed by the words, Orane ignotum pro magnifico — a tendency 

 to put an undue value upon the unknow-u. It was this natural ten- 

 dency which led the hero of Warren's famous novel, " Ten Thousand 

 a Year," to make the fatal experiment of applying to his hair the 

 pomade called " Cyanochaitanthropopoion," and it was the same 

 tendency which led the public to buy anything, no matter how 

 common or how worthless, to which the vendor had given a name 

 which was utterly incomprehensible to them. By pandering to this 

 tendency he doubted not that medical terms had been in reality an 

 unspeakable, though delusive, comfort to the public ; and that the 

 lady who was told by the physician " that there was still in her 

 husband's Itmg a perceptible amount of ' whispering pectoriloquy,' 

 although the ' tegophony ' had happily completely disappeared," 

 derived from the information the same kind of consolation as did 

 the old woman who, listening to a deep and learned sermon by her 

 rector, foimd solace in " that blessed word Mesopotamia." — Times. 



TRUSTING TO LUCK 



IT is worthy of notice how little those who trust most to chance 

 understand of the laws of chance. This is shown in hundreds 

 of different ways, but by none, perhaps, more than by the strange 

 selections made by the venturesome among the various methods in 

 which they may risk their money : their preference for this or that 

 form of risk, rather than for some other, is scarcely ever based on 

 any real advantage which one form has over the other. Ask a 

 gambler, for instance, to pay £1 for a ticket in a lottery where there 

 are a thousand equal chances and but one prize of £1,000, and he 



