January 1, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



31 



dren-patients from Forsyth Park on the north. 

 The land on the south side of the hospital is 

 also to be parked by the city. 



The therapeutic and surgical outfit of this 

 perfectly fire-proof infirmary may not be ade- 

 quately described in this place. SufSce it 

 that its present means for caring for six hun- 

 dred patients a day are the most timely and 

 complete that expert technical thought and 

 information, served with unlimited funds, 

 could provide, so that several features wholly 

 new have their place in this institution. The 

 sixty-eight (at present) dental chairs, for ex- 

 ample, in the great operating room, are the 

 most elaborate ever constructed, for each has 

 running water warmed to suit the require- 

 ments of a tooth-cavity, compressed air, air- 

 suction, electricity, an electric signal system, 

 etc., while many of them are equipped with 

 the most recent of anesthesia-mechanisms; all 

 are finished throughout in white-enameled 

 metal, in line with modern ideas toward asepsis. 

 The dental instruments which have been used 

 for a patient are enclosed in a flat covered 

 metallic tray and sent to the sterilizing-room, 

 where each night they are in tiers subjected to 

 dry heat at 300° F. in gas, thermostat-con- 

 trolled ovens. This careful system of asepsis 

 will require the daily use of a thousand sets of 

 dental instruments when the number of chairs 

 has been increased to the capacity of the 

 Infirmary. 



The arrangements for amusing the children 

 while awaiting their unpleasant experiences 

 in the dental chairs or in the nose-and-throat 

 department (which is very elaborate and com- 

 plete) are a noteworthy part of this institu- 

 tion quite in line with modern medical prin- 

 ciples of good humor and the related sthenic 

 index. The little patients (none over sixteen), 

 have a large room, knovtm as the " Children's 

 Eoom," close to their special entrance which 

 is quite after their own youthful hearts. 

 Miss Tower, a skilled kindergartner, here 

 makes it her sole business to see to it that the 

 children forget for the time why they are come 

 hither and the approaching disagreeable duty 

 of having one's teeth put in order or one's 

 throat " treated." Here, for example, is an 



alluring aquarium nine feet long and three 

 feet square, two thirds of which is for grace- 

 ful plants and a few score of our more inter- 

 esting native fish in large variety, while one 

 third is a reptile-tank so built and arranged 

 as to at once display and make comfortable 

 all manner of American amphibious little 

 beasts. Here, too, is a library of story-books, 

 games, etc., and later on there will be other 

 things as actual experience shows their need. 

 Around the walls of this children's room are 

 extremely elaborate friezes of Delft tiling il- 

 lustrating some familiar fairy stories — Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes's " Dorchester Giant," " Rip 

 Van Winkle," Havrthorne's " Golden Fleece," 

 and Mrs. Prescott Peabody's " Pied Piper." 



Connected with the Children's Eoom is a 

 metallic cloakroom so constructed that its en- 

 tire contents can be fumigated and thus ster- 

 ilized at night, electric pumps forcing in and 

 removing the respective atmospheres at the 

 instigation, respectively, of two push-buttons. 

 The plumbing everywhere is extensive and to 

 some extent original and unique. There is a 

 small ward for the girls who may chance to 

 need its care and a like one for the boys; and 

 there is of course a small but adequate amphi- 

 theater for the professional study of oral or of 

 nose- or throat-operations; and a large re- 

 search laboratory; there is much museum- 

 space; a library; and a lecture-room that will 

 seat about three hundred persons. 



In addition to a large number of routine 

 operating dentists (some of whom work full- 

 time and others half-time or third-time) the 

 following at present constitute the staff of the 

 Forsyth Infirmary : Director, Dr. Harold De 

 Witt Cross; assistant to the director, William 

 Z. Hill ; nose and throat department, William 

 E. Chenery; consulting otologist, Edgar M. 

 Holmes; extracting staff, Edward V. Bulger 

 and eleven others; X-ray department, Arial 

 W. George, consultant; E. Albert Kinley, Jr.; 

 consulting surgeons, Fred B. Lund, Harry H. 

 Germain, Hugh Cabot, and Hugh Williams ; 

 consulting physiologist, George V. N. Dear- 

 born; oral surgeons, Albert Midgley, Harry B. 

 Shuman, Leroy M. S. Miner and B. H. 

 Strout; orthodontia, Frank A. Delabarre, 



