April i8, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



243 



lessened demand for muscular exertion to obtain our neces- 

 saries creates an inability and distaste for exertion to obtain 

 tbose thing's that are not necessary ; aud, as there is a coq- 

 sensus of opinion on that point, it comes to be considered 

 " not the correct thing" to perform any of those acts that 

 require such exertion. Who carries any thing that he can 

 have sent, or walks when he can ride? Who does not now 

 ride in a closed carriage in preference to performing the 

 journey on horseback? An obvious effect of this change is 

 to increase the time spent in houses, manufactories, and 

 offices, and consequently to greatly decrease that spent in 

 the open air. Not only does man spend much more time in 

 his habitation, but also those habitations have materially 

 altered in character. Our sleeping apartments are no longer 

 open to a thatched roof, our doors and windows are made 

 to fit more accurately, and for the wide, open fireplace of 

 our fathers we have substituted the modern grate, which 

 appears to be kept closed on every possible occasion. In a 

 word, the resources of civilization have been used to obtain 

 as much difl'erence as possible between the air in which we 

 now pass the greater portion of our lives and that we have 

 to breathe when out of doors. Whatsoever part of the 

 twenty-four hours is spent in a house is so much time during 

 which the movement of the lungs is impeded, for while 

 there we are generally either sitting down or reclining; and 

 both j)ositions tend to reduce the breathing capacity, the 

 latter more than the former. Also, as there is little mus- 

 cular exertion in the house, there is a lessened production 

 of heat, for which artificial heat is substituted; hence the 

 great difference between the temperature of the rooms and 

 that of the external air, the great sensitiveness to a lower 

 temperature, and the fear of catching cold This fear of cold 

 leads to active measures being taken to prevent cold air 

 entering the rooms, and consequently to bad ventilation. 

 And this hyper-sensitiveness to cold tends either to keep us 

 indoors during the colder months of the year and on those 

 days during which the temperature is lower than usual, or 

 to induce us to so overload the body with clothes when we 

 do go out that free movement of the lungs is impeded. 



The habit of stooping, whether brought about by the shape 

 of the chaii's (they are admirably adapted for that purpose), 

 by the habit of assuming a so-called easy position, by mus- 

 cular disuse and consequent weakness, or by poring over 

 books from the nursery through the whole course of modern 

 education, tends to materially reduce the breathing capacity. 

 Very efficacious in the production of chest reduction is the 

 universal custom of both sexes to have their clothes made to 

 exactly fit the body at a period of rest, and thereby effec- 

 tively preventing any but the most limited movement. Does 

 not this custom effectually check any tendency to move- 

 ments that would necessitate more than ordinary, tranquil 

 breathing? And have we not enforced this habit by penal- 

 izing its breach as indicating a want of savoirvivref Fash- 

 ion dictates the size and shape of our clothes, and our bodies 

 have to and do conform thereto. A beautiful example of 

 this is seen in the hideous distortion of the lower part of the 

 chest produced by wearing a corset, that never, never is 

 tight. The compression thus produced is one of the most 

 powerful causes of consumption in young girls and women; 



and obviously whatever produces either forcible compression 

 of the chest or direct injury to the lungs is a cause of con- 

 sumption. And when we look at the position such condi- 

 tions hold in civilization, at the advances that are being, 

 made by man's increasing knowledge of the operations of 

 nature, and his application of that knowledge to his own' 

 purposes, and at the progressive increase of such tendencies, 

 then we see that in consumption we have one of the processes- 

 by which an adjustment is being made between the body 

 and the work it has to perform under the changing conditions- 

 of advancing civilization, by the removal of those who have- 

 a body in excess of that work, and that the survival of the 

 so-called fittest is thereby effected.^ G. W. Hambleton. 

 [To be continued.] 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Cookery of the Poor. 



A FACULTY of social science has, it is stated, been instituted at 

 the University of Brussels; and Professor Berger, a Belgian 

 authority in chemistry, has given a course of lectures on alimen- 

 tary chemistry. In the first of them he came to the academic 

 conclusion that it was possible to determine with precision the 

 quantity of nutritive eletnents indispensable for the reparation of 

 the power of a working-man, and consequently the amount of 

 money necessary for purchasing this quantity, and that therefore, 

 when the other primary wants of a working-man were determined 

 in the same way, the minimum of salary could be fixed with 

 scientific accuracy. Questions of taste, digestibility, and preju- 

 dice are, however, ajjt to be ignorecf in calculations of this kind j 

 so that, although of value as a basis of information, they are far 

 from having the practical use which their authors ascribe to them. 

 The knowledge of the housewife and of the cook, and a familiar 

 acquaintance with the habits and surroundings and tastes of the 

 laboring classes, are necessary to give reality to such calculations. 

 An excellent example of what may be done in this way is fur- 

 nished in the able and interesting chapters on the subject in the 

 popular little handbook of domestic economy issufd by Messrs. 

 Cassell & Co., and largely used in board schools, entitled "The 

 Making of the Home," written by Mrs. Barnett, of St. Jude's, 

 Whitechapel. The same subject is treated with great technical 

 knowledge and poiver of sympathetic feeling for the poor in her 

 chapter on '■ Our National Defences," in the joint essays by her- 

 self and the Rev. S. A. Barnett. in the well-known collection of 

 essays entitled " Practicable Socialism." The subject is one in 

 which medical men, skilled as they are in the physiology of food, 

 and accustomed to deal with the poor both in family life and in' 

 public iastitutions, might give great aid. That which the work- 

 ing-classes greatly need is instruction in the art of braising, or 

 slowly stewing at a low heat, combinations of meat-scraps and of 

 vegetables. Any thing more toothsome and nutritious than the 

 vintagers' pot an feu, which, says a correspondent of the British 

 3Iedical Journal, " I lately tasted in the Medoc during the gath- 

 ering of the grapes, cannot well be imagined. It was so delicious 

 that a supply of it was ordered into the chateau for mid-day lunch, 

 and it was voted by acclamation worthy of a cordon bleu. It was 

 made with leg of beef, onions, carrots, cabbage, and the like, and 

 poured smoking into bowls over slices of thin bread. What a 

 lesson it conveyed to our managers of soup-kitchens, and what a 

 meal for our harvesters ! " 



Schmerz-Freude ("Pain-Joy"). 

 The Berlin correspondent of the Therapeutic Gazette states that 

 Professor Leyden presented to his class at Charite a young lady 

 affected with " schmerz-freude." " It is a pity I cannot translate 

 that name for .you, for ' pain-joy ' would convey no meaning to' 

 you. The patient, as the professor explained, belonged to that 

 class of hysterical women who not only experienced no pain dur- 

 ing an operation, but, on the contrary, had a morbid desire to 

 ' Pritchard, iamarok, Darwin, Spencer. 



