498 CONSUMPTION A DISEASE OF IN-DOOR LIFE. 



to the upper iDortion of the pendulum, and when the pendulum is startedl 

 this is perfectly still. In six minutes the earth's motion becomes apparent,, 

 and the needle shows about one degree of deviation. In one hoar the 

 movement is so marked that the distance traversed by the earth may be 

 estimated from its data. The pendulum is of such delicate construction that 

 it will remain in motion for twelve hours, and yet may be retarded or even 

 stopped by blowing upon it. 



MEDICINE. 



CONSUMPTION A DISEASE OF IN-DOOR LIFE. 



Among the natives of Senegambia pulmonary a ectious are not only 

 nearly but absolutely unknown; yet a single year passed in the over-crowd- 

 ed man-pens and steerage-hells of the slave-trader often sufficed to develop the- 

 disease in that most virulent form known as galloping consumption ; and ther 

 brutal planters of the Spanish Antilles made a rule of never buying an 

 imported negro before they had "tested his wind," i. e., trotted him up-hill 

 and watched his respirations. If he proved to be "a roarer," as turfmen 

 term it, they knew that the dungeon had done its work and discounted his- 

 value accordingly. "If a perfectly sound man is imprisoned for life," says. 

 Baron d'Arblay, the Belgian philanthropist, "his lungs, as a rule, will first 

 show symptoms of disease, and shorten his misery by a hectic decline, unless 

 he should commit suicide." 



Our home statistics show that the percentage of deaths by consumption 

 in each state bears an exact proportion to the greater or smaller number of 

 inhabitants who follow in-door occupations, and is highest in the factory 

 districts of New England and the crowded cities of our central States. In 

 Great Britain the rate increases Avith the latitude, and attains. its maximum 

 height in Glasgow, where, as Sir Charles Brodie remarks, windows are 

 opened only one day for every two in Birmingham, and every three and a 

 half in London ; but going farther north the percentage suddenly sinks 

 from twenty-three to eleven, and even to six, if we cross the fifty-seventh 

 parallel, which marks the boundary between the manufacturing counties of 

 Central Scotland and the pastoral regions of the north. 



It is distressingly probable, then to say the least, that consumption, that, 

 most fearful scourge of the human race, is not a "mysterious dispensation 

 of Providence," nor a "product of our outrageous climate," but the direct, 

 consequence of an outrageous violation of the phj'sical laws of God. — Dr.. 

 Felix L. Oswald, in Popular Science Monthly for November. 



