October 3, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



191 



animals are supposed to be actuated by the same motives as men, 

 and their communities to be organized according to the rules of 

 ethics that prevail in human society. Examples of tlie relation of 

 animals and mankind were taken from the religious medicine 

 of the Cherokees. Finally an account was given of the universal 

 belief that animals can assume the human form, and appear at 

 pleasure in that manner. In this manner it was made to appear 

 that no account could be given of the American superstition with- 

 out examining the character of primitive belief. 



Finally the great psychological importance of the collection of 

 folk-lore, and the necessity of immediate effort to preserve a rec- 

 ord of it in this country, were dwelt upon. As the secretary of 

 the American Folk-Lore Society, the lecturer presented the claims 

 of that body, and expressed a hope that steps would be taken to 

 increase interest in the study in New York, and to obtain more 

 general co-operation in the important task lying before collectors 

 and special students. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Improved Sanitation in London. 



Dr. B. W. Richardson, in his abridgment of " The Health of 

 Nations,'' gives a comparison of mortality in the Elizabethan and 

 Victorian eras: "According to John Graunt's reports, from the 

 parish registers, the condition of the whole city of London in the 

 time of Queen Elizabeth was very much that of a 'slum.' The 

 death rate was, in fact, that of a slum (it was more than 40 per 

 thousand) ; but now, under some advance towards unity and cen- 

 tralization, it is about 20 per thousand, still including upwards of 

 one-third of preventable deaths. The death rate then largely 

 exceeded the birthrate, while now the reverse is the case. The 

 death-rate of the children under five years was then one third, or 

 33 per hundred : it is now 27 per hundred, and grievously too 

 heavy. The deaths from old age, or the age then called old, of 

 seventy, were 7 per cent: they are now sadly too low, but even in 

 the city proper they are 18 per cent. As to personal security, 

 John Graunt boasted that not more than one in two thousand was 

 then murdered annually, which he ascribes to good local govern- 

 ment. At the same rate now, murders in the whole of the 

 metropolis should amount to no less than 2,500 annually, whereas 

 they actually amount to an average of no more than 12 for the 

 whole five millions of population, — a population which approaches 

 to that of the whole kingdom of England and Wales in the time 

 of Elizabeth." 



Removal of Micro-Organisms from Water 



Dr. Kriiger, considering the fact that more bacteria are usually 

 present in rivers than in lakes, notwithstanding that lakes them- 

 selves in many cases are more or less polluted by rivers passing 

 through populous towns, believes that this rapid decrease in the 

 number of organisms may very possibly be due in part to the ac- 

 tion of direct sunlight, but in the main to the tendency of water 

 in a comparatively undisturbed state to deposit and precipitate. 

 He therefore carried out a number of experiments with a view to 

 determine how far the removal of organisms was brought about 

 liy the mere mechanical deposition of inert matter, and also by 

 precipitation as a result of chemical action. The mechanical pre- 

 cipitants employed, all in a state of fine powder and sterilized, 

 were alumina, brick-dust, clay, chalk, sand, coke, and charcoal. 

 Water obtained from an ordinary service-pipe was impregnated 

 ■with a liquid containing a bacillus growth of a species incident to 

 tap-water. This was divided into two portions, — one for precipi- 

 tation with the inert substance, and the other was untreated for 

 the sake of comparison. Experiments were similarly carried out 

 in which precipitaiion was obtained as a result of chemical action 

 such as is brought about by the addition to the water, containing 

 naturally lime, magnesia, etc., substances like wood-ash, sulphate 

 of alumina, and slaked lime. The general conclusion come to by 

 the author from the results obtained, as we learn from the 3Iedi- 

 cal Record of Sept. 27, is that undoubtedly large numbers of bac- 

 teria are carried down by itjert substances merely sinking in the 

 water, but that the action is very considerably increased when, in 

 addition tn mechanical deposition, a chemical precipiialion also 



takes place. The corollary is evident, — inert substances do me- 

 chanically assist in the precipitation of micro organisms, but 

 preference should be given to chemical treatments. 



Why He renounced Vegetarianism. 

 Dr. Alanus, the former leader of the vegetarians in Germany, 

 has renounced his faith, and resumed the use of animal food, 

 says the Medical Record of Sept. 27. In a letter written to a 

 local paper, he gives the reasons for his apostacy. He had lived 

 for a long time, he said, on a purely vegetable diet without expe- 

 riencing any ill effects, feeling no worse and no better than he 

 had formerly while living as the rest of mankind. One day, 

 however, he found that his arteries were apparently becoming 

 atheromatous. He was unable to account for this, as he was not 

 a drinking man, and was stiU under forty yeai-s of age. Finally 

 he came across a statement by Monio, to the effect that abstinence 

 from animal food was a fertile cause of atheroma. He could 

 hardly have been much of a student of dietetics not to have come 

 across that theory until his own arteries had become diseased. 

 There is nothing like taking comfort out of every thing, however; 

 and he now consoles himself with the remark that he has "be- 

 come richer by one experience, which has shown me that one 

 single brutal fact can knock down the most beautiful theoretical 

 building." 



Is Cancer Contag^ious too ? 



The fact that certain spots constitute apparent foci for the 

 spread of cancerous disease has ere now been noted, though we 

 are still completely in the dark as to the causes which underlie 

 these vagaries of distribution. It is, however, only by systematic 

 close observation that we can hope to solve the enigma, and ac- 

 quire the knowledge which alone will enable us to check the rav- 

 ages of a terrible and implacable disease. Some observations 

 made by Dr. Arnaiidet in the little village of Saint Sylvestrede- 

 CormeiUes, in Normandy, are interesting in this respect. The 

 village, according to the Medical Press, only numbers some four 

 hundred inhabitants, but among them the deaths from cancer are 

 four times more numerous than at Paris (14.88 as compared with 

 4.16 per hundred deaths). In the course of -his inquiry into the 

 causes of this special mortality. Dr. Arnaudet discovered that 

 there were certain "cancer ueots" whicli the theory of contagion 

 could alone explain. The water-supply of these people is drawn 

 almost exclusively from surface ponds; but he observes that very 

 little water is drunk, though it is used in the manufacture of 

 cider. He shows on a chart that the malady developed itself 

 successively along a line corresponding to the water-supply sup- 

 plying the ponds, and he is evidently strongly inclined to attribute 

 the outbreak to the water, or, secondarily, to the cider. He sub- 

 sequently extended his observations to four neighboring com- 

 munes, in all of which the proportion of deaths from cancer was 

 largely in excess of the normal rate. This inequality of distribu- 

 tion seems to point to the existence of local causative conditions, 

 the nature of which it is highly important to elucidate. 



Treatment of Tuberculosis by the Vaccine Method. 



On Nov. 19, 1889, Drs. J. Granoher and St. Martin addressed to 

 the Academie de Medeciue, Paris, a sealed packet relating to a 

 method of treatment and preventive inoculation of tuberculosis 

 based upon numerous experiments which they had made on rab- 

 bits. The communication made by Dr. Koch to the Berlin Con- 

 gress (of which the full text was published in the British Medical 

 Journal of Aug. 16), concerning the results which he has obtained 

 in rendering guinea-pigs refractory to tuberculosis, or in curing 

 them of advanced forms of tuberculosis, has induced MM. Grancher 

 and St. Martin to make known their researches on the same sub- 

 ject earlier than they would otherwise have done. In all these 

 experiments they chose the rabbit as the subject of inoculation 

 and intravenous injection, because there is thus produced a tuber- 

 culosis which kills very quickly, and at an almost fixed date, with 

 constant lesions of the liver, the spleen, and the lungs, and which 

 defies all local treatment. Tuberculosis thus induced being always 

 fatal, a solid basis is thus secured which allows exact apprecia- 

 tion of the negative or positive results of any method which tends 

 to produce the refractory state or to cure after infection. The 



