636 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 204 



but " how much it is difficult to say, as observa- 

 tions conflict." Dr. Eobinson also makes interest- 

 ing reference to the winds of the coast, and 

 describes the west winds of summer as greatly 

 intensified by the (diurnal) heat of the interior 

 valley, so that the sea-breeze is unusually strong 

 over the passes that break down the elevation of 

 the Coast range. 



It is greatly to be wished that further detail 

 should be presented of facts so interesting in 

 themselves and so valuable in the physical descrip- 

 tion of our country. The suggestion made above 

 concerning the cyclonic and local control of the 

 weather elements is, it is believed, in a most 

 profitable line for further work. Examples of 

 similar weather-types, as indicated by recurrence 

 of similar distribution of isobaric lines on the 

 signal-oflice daily maps, should be brought to- 

 gether and discussed in search of their specific 

 chai-acteristics, instead of lost in the indiscrimi- 

 nate average of the monthly mean, itself of true 

 value, but too often the end instead of the first 

 step of the discussion. Local controls are found 

 to prevail during anticyclonic weather, with high 

 pressure and weak baric gradients : imported con- 

 ditions appear with the approach and passage of 

 cyclonic areas of low pressure and stronger gra- 

 dients. Here is a wide field for observation and 

 research. W, M. D. 



CONSUMPTION IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



The New York medical journal of Dec. 4 con- 

 tains in full the exceedingly valuable contribution 

 to the climatological study of consumption in Penn- 

 sylvania, by William Pepper, M.D., which was 

 read at the third annual meeting of the American 

 cUmatological association. In the inquiry which 

 formed the basis of this paper. Dr. Pepper fol- 

 lowed the plan adopted by Dr. Bowditch in inves- 

 tigating the same disease in Massachusetts in the 

 years 1854-62. Dr. Bowditch, it will be remem- 

 bered, found a law in the development of con- 

 sumption in that state, which has for its central 

 idea that the dampness of the soil of any township 

 or locality is intimately connected with, and proba- 

 bly a cause of, the prevalence of consumption in 

 that township or locality. Similar investigations, 

 especially those of Dr. Buchanan in England, 

 which were carried on in 1865, 1866, and 1867, 

 confirm the views of Bowditch. In that country, 

 where the subsoil was drained by sewers, and 

 where the water-supply was improved, deaths 

 from consumption diminished, falling 49 per cent 

 in Salisbury, 47 in Ely, 43 in Rugby, and 41 in 

 Banbury, With answers from physicians to 

 twenty-eight questions propounded in a circular 



by Dr. Pepper, and the statistics of the tenth cen- 

 sus of the United States, together with the topo- 

 graphical map of Professor Lesley as a basis, maps 

 have been prepared showing the prevalence of 

 consumption in Pennsylvania counties, and the 

 relation between such prevalence and elevation, 

 and mean annual temperature and rainfall. One 

 of these maps is given in the journal referred to : 

 the others will be published in the Transactions of 

 the association. It is noticeable that those por- 

 tions of the state where phthisis is rarest are the 

 most elevated, having a general altitude of 1,500 

 to 2,000 feet, from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and that its 

 mortality increases as the altitude becomes less. 

 In Philadelphia the wards having the least eleva- 

 tion, greatest density of population, and most in- 

 ferior water-supply, furnish the greatest mortality 

 from phthisis. The answers to the inquiries re- 

 ceived from the state at large do not seem to in- 

 dicate excessive soU moisture as the main causal 

 condition of consumption in the state. A number 

 of individual cases are given, in most of which 

 damp and otherwise unsanitary conditions existed 

 in and around the houses in which repeated cases 

 occurred. This inquiry is a most timely one, as 

 the tendency of the times seems to be to ignore 

 conditions such as are here described, and to ac- 

 count for the disease only by the introduction of 

 the bacilli of Koch. That these are the direct 

 cause but few doubt, though unsanitary surround- 

 ings and heredity are important predisposing 

 causes. 



THAYER 8 GREEK-ENGLISH I^XICON. 



The only special dictionary in the English lan- 

 guage hitherto available for students of the Greek 

 New Testament has been a translation of Cremer's 

 ' Biblisch-theologisches worterbuch der Neutesta- 

 mentlichen Gracitat.' This is not only very in- 

 convenient in its arrangement, but is justly 

 chargeable with a certain vagueness in its defini- 

 tions. We think, therefore, that Professor Thayer 

 has rendered an incalculable service to a numerous 

 class of students by opening to them the treasures 

 of German erudition to be found in Grimm's 

 ' Clavis.' But he has done vastly more than 

 this. Almost every page of the noble volume be- 

 fore us shows such signal traces of his critical 

 scholarship, his profound learning, and his con- 

 scientious labor, as to make it only a matter of 

 simple justice that the book should bear his name. 

 In regard to the technical and theological aspects 

 of the work, we have neither the desire nor the 

 competence to pronounce an opinion ; but, as a 



A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament, being 

 Qrimni's Wilke''s Clavis Novi Testamenti. Tr. toy JOSEPH 

 Henry Thayer, D.D. New York, Harper, 1887. 4°. 



