294 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 306 



/tution, and, so far as we know, immunity can be purchased only by 

 -submitting to attack. We are surrounded by its infection, and 

 ■cannot escape. Ordinarily the human constitution succumbs to its 

 'influence before maturity is reached ; but if, up to that period, we 

 fortunately escape, we have no assurance of future immunity. 

 Uncertainty overhangs us like a cloud. Danger is as present with 

 us in the daily routine of our peaceful lives as on the battle-field, 

 only that the embodiment of evil is an invisible and intangible germ 

 instead of a fast-flying bullet. Danger flows beside us in our 

 streams, in our mains, from the taps in our houses. The germ of 

 disease may not be in this pitcherful or in that, in this tumblerful 

 or in that, but it will find us some day if we continue to use the 

 water which contains it. In a town of fifty thousand inhabitants, 

 one victim is taken daily ; and, as the average duration of this 

 fever is about a month, there are always in that city thirty persons 

 whose lives are unnecessarily trembling in the balance. What is 

 the local suffering from yellow-fever in Jacksonville, Pensacola, or 

 New Orleans, once in so many years, compared with the totality of 

 the devastation caused by the steady progress of this general and 

 ever-present scourge ? Thirty thousand people die of typhoid-fever 

 annually in the United States of America ; and Vienna lowered her 

 Josses by this fever from three hundred and forty to eleven annually 

 in every hundred thousand of her population by introducing a 

 spring-water supply instead of the sewage-tainted waters of the 

 Danube. Calculate the loss by sickness associated with these 

 thirty thousand deaths, — the loss of work, the unprofitable work 

 of nursing, and the actual outlay necessitated by each visitation of 

 ithe disease, — and you will find that saving money by drinking 

 sewage in the water-supply is a penny-wise policy, that, in the long- 

 run, will fail to pay even for the funerals and mourning goods. 



The importance of acting promptly is insisted upon, as, the 

 longer a community procrastinates, the greater is the difficulty ex- 

 perienced in procuring a desirable supply of water, owing to the in- 

 creasing density of the population of the surrounding country. 

 Having obtained a pure supply, every square foot of the drainage 

 area should be familiar to the sanitary inspector, that the life and 

 health of the citizen may not be endangered by that which was in- 

 tended as a benefit. Every case of typhoid-fever occurring on 

 such an area should be specially watched, and the infection of the 

 dejecta destroyed. But as the efforts of local authorities, such as 

 water companies and boards, citizens' committees, health boards 

 -and commissioners, would often be powerless without the mterven- 

 tion of the authorities of the State, a livelier interest in this impor- 

 tant matter is urged on the part of the State boards of health, — an 

 interest which is not satisfied with discussing and subscribing to 

 ■views of the subject, but which will leave nothing undone that will 

 tend to invest them with power to act for the preservation of the 

 public health. With all our boards operating, each within its do- 

 .main, there would be no need of committees to investigate the sub- 

 ject of water-pollution. 



The report concludes with a resolution that will tend to strengthen 

 .the hands of the State boards, — that it is the well-considered be- 

 lief of the American Public Health Association that great good 

 would accrue to the public health, particularly in the denser set- 

 tlements, if State legislatures would give their boards of health that 

 jfinancial support which would enable them to act intelligently on 

 all questions pertaining to the public water-supplies, investing 

 them with the supervision of the said supplies, and with power to 

 preserve them from contamination by sewage or other injurious 

 ■matters. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



The Yoicng Idea ; 07-, Comjn07i-School Culture. By CAROLINE B. 

 LeRow. New York, Cassell. 



The lady who has with much labor compiled this little book has 

 ■done a genuine service to the cause of educational reform : for she 

 has pierced the shams of the present curriculum with the shafts of 

 •ridicule, and so reached many readers who would have paid no 

 attention to a more formal argument. In ' English as She is 

 taught,' the same writer attacked one branch of instruction : in the 

 present book she attacks the vicious principle that runs through 

 fthe teaching of all the branches. That she has worked to some 



purpose is testified by the sneers of Education, an ardent defender 

 of every thing that is worn out ; for, argument in reply failing, some 

 harsh expletives and ill-timed jibes were resorted to by that anti- 

 quated periodical in order to break the force of Mrs. LeRow's in- 

 dictment. 



It would be a serious mistake to suppose that Mrs. LeRow's ob- 

 ject is to amuse, though her book contains many amusing things. 

 " Repugnant, one who repugs," is the natural answer of a boy who 

 has been taught what the schoolmasters are pleased to call ety- 

 mology, by the mechanical method. As the author suggests, the 

 child who defined arithmetic as the " sins of numbers " had an al- 

 most supernatural insight into the difference between the way in 

 which he was being taught and the way in which he should be 

 taught. And the following is too good to pass unnoticed (we will 

 all agree with Mrs. LeRow that it would have rejoiced Lord Byron's 

 heart): " A critic is something to put your feet on to." The self- 

 evidence of this will also be appreciated bv all but the book-writers 

 and book-publishers : " Grammar is something to talk good, and is 

 devided into digrams on the blagboard. I cant never learn to do 

 grammar." "The Saxon Cronical was the seven deadly sins," is a 

 sufficiently startling statement to indicate that bad teaching is not 

 confined to the lower grades : it seems to reach at least to the his- 

 tory classes. 



These quotations might be multiplied at great length, but to cite 

 too many of them would perhaps emphasize too much the merely 

 illustrative side of Mrs. LeRow's work. She is not jesting : she is 

 in sober earnest. She knows of what she writes. She has been in 

 the schools, and seen and heard what she speaks of. She has a 

 gospel to preach. It is a protest against educational indifference, 

 a call to the study and criticism of educational methods. To rem- 

 edy these defects and bring about the necessary reforms, many 

 things are necessary. Politicians and time-servers must be ejected 

 from the school-boards ; inefficient and mechanical superintendents 

 and principals must be retired ; and raw, untrained, and immature 

 girls, yet in their teens, must no longer be given an opportunity to 

 dull and stupefy thousands of child-mmds under the protection and 

 in the service of the State. Until public opinion is aroused, no one 

 of these steps can be taken, and Mrs. LeRow should be loyally aided 

 and encouraged in her self-imposed task of arousing public opin- 

 ion. 



Hand-Book of Historical and Geographical Phthisiology, with 

 Special Reference to the Distribution of Consumption in the 

 United States. By GEORGE A. EvANS, M.D. New York, 

 Appleton. 12°. %2. 



In this volume Dr. Evans has given us a sketch of the develop- 

 ment of our knowledge of pulmonary consumption from the time of 

 Hippocrates to the present day, together with the ascertained facts 

 regarding the geographical distribution of that affection. In addition 

 to this, he has arranged the statistics in regard to this distribution 

 in the United States so as to make them available for convenient 

 reference in selecting localities of resort or residence for invalids, 

 and also for those who are in health. He coincides with Hirsch in 

 designating consumption as a ubiquitous disease, extending over 

 every part of the habitable globe. Taking the mean death-rate of 

 the whole of a population to be twenty-two per thousand, the aver- 

 age of deaths from phthisis would be nearly one-seventh of the 

 whole mortality, or three per thousand, of the population. Esti- 

 mating the total yearly mortality of the world to be thirty-five mil- 

 lion, five million of these deaths are attributable to consumption, — 

 the greatest number caused by any single disease. 



The consideration of the geographical distribution of consump- 

 tion in the United States is based on the ' United States Census of 

 1880,' and Rand & McNally's ' Atlas of 1887.' The same is true 

 of those portions of the book which treat of the topography and 

 climate of States, and of the number of deaths from consumption 

 in the different States and cities. The etiology of the disease is 

 discussed at length, and the views of Hirsch, Hunter, Lindsay, 

 Bowditch, Elliott, Hermann, Miiller, Koch, and others, are referred 

 to. 



Concerning the conclusions which may be deduced from the evi- 

 dence submitted in regard to the geographical distribution of 

 phthisis. Dr. Evans says that he can do no better than to quote the 



