April 11, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



565 



the sanitary evils of construction. We have 

 known of school rooms heated by the " indi- 

 rect method " in which the winter air contain- 

 ing but a few grains of moisture to the cubic 

 foot is warmed by passing over steam coils 

 and then delivered to the school room, whose 

 windows are closed by edict, its relative hu- 

 midity so lowered that the moisture must be 

 actually sucked from the skins and mucous 

 membranes of the defenceless children. This 

 air is chemically pure but physiologically like 

 salt to a raw surface. 



The little book under consideration is excel- 

 lent in the orderly presentation of the various 

 phases of the subject and too much praise can 

 not be given for its profuseness of illustration, 

 one hundred and fifty cuts being devoted to 

 this purpose. The average mind derives a 

 clearer idea of architectural design from a 

 simple figure than from pages of labored de- 

 scription. It is to be hoped that in preparing 

 another edition the author will carefully re- 

 view his text with the purpose of removing all 

 obscurity. Thus, the legend to Fig. 1, p. 22, 

 reads " When the upper window sash is let 

 down and the shade lowered, a larger amount 

 of fresh air may be obtained by inserting a 

 strip of open mesh netting between the shade 

 and the roller." This is perfectly clear when 

 the mechanism is understood, but it requires 

 an undue mental effort to grasp its meaning. 

 The author was happy in his section devoted 

 to the use of clothing and he might profitably 

 have discussed somewhat more in detail the 

 physiological relations of textures — as, for 

 example, the relative properties of silk, linen- 

 mesh and woolen underwear. One of the most 

 valuable chapters of the book is that which 

 exploits the advantages of the house roof to 

 the seeker after fresh air. It is worth en- 

 quiring whether it would not be well to devise 

 a mirror situated so as to reflect the scenes of 

 the street to relieve the monotony of " sitting 

 out." 



In the section devoted to the clothes-closet, 

 it would have been well had the author insisted 

 that garments, before being .stored away, 

 should be hung in the open air, in sunlight if 

 possible, with the pockets turned inside out. 



Few things are more difiicult than to pre- 

 sent a " nature study " which shall be scien- 

 tifically true while forensically convincing to 

 the lay mind. The practical essentials of 

 fresh-air teaching have been excellently pre- 

 sented in this volume, but we are all too much 

 interested in the siibject to tolerate the small- 

 est gnat in the ointment. Modern research 

 suggests that the open air calls upon the au- 

 tonomic systems of the body for somewhat 

 the same kind of response that physical exer- 

 cise demands of the skeletal nerves and mus- 

 cles. We know definitely that in the treat- 

 ment of tuberculosis, for example, exercise 

 may be healing or deadly according to the 

 state of the patient. The truth may very well 

 be that a prescription of " fresh air " is not 

 so simple, but must in scientific therapeutics 

 be analyzed into its physical components of 

 barometric pressure, motion, humidity, tem- 

 perature, illumination and electric tension 

 and to all these there must be added the one 

 constant excipient — elixir of joy. 



Henry Sewall 



SCIENTIFIC JOUBNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The March number (volume 19, number 6) 

 of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical 

 Society contains the following papers : Report 

 of the nineteenth annual meeting of the so- 

 ciety, by F. N. Cole ; " The product of two or 

 more groups," by G. A. Miller ; " The mathe- 

 matics of Mahaviracarya," by D. E. Smith; 

 " Shorter notices :" Townsend and Good- 

 enough's First Course in Calculus and Essen- 

 tials of Calculus, by N. J. Lennes; Dziobek's 

 Differential- und Integral-Rechnung and 

 Hack's Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, by G. W. 

 Myers; Brill's Eelativitatsprinzip, Foppl's 

 Technische Mechanik, Volume I., and Or- 

 lich's Theorie der Wechselstrome, by E. B. 

 Wilson ; " Notes " ; and " New Publications." 



The April number of the Bulletin contains: 

 " Some general aspects of modern geometry," 

 by E. J. Wilczynski ; " On certain non-linear 

 integral equations," by H. Galajikian; "A 

 theorem on asymptotic series," by V. C. Poor; 

 " On Poincare's correction to Bruns' theo- 



