418 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



on an average are expected to last three centuries. It is only in the edifices con- 

 structed within the last quar*^er of a century, that any attempts to remedy the 

 abominable system of so-called water-closets, have been made. In some hospi- 

 tals the latrines are horrible : no seats, no water to flush, but a hole sunk in the 

 groujid the approaches to these dens constituting for the patients a wading through a 

 cloaca maxima. In the dwelling houses, the garrets are occupied by the domes- 

 tics, and the common water-closet is the same receptacle arrangment peculiar to 

 hospitals, railway stations, and several public establishments. Of course there are 

 private water-closets in these places exempt from the foregoing objections. The 

 plan of running off the fcecal matters directly from houses into a street-sewer, 

 may be regarded as unknown in Paris. The Lyons system of emptying the col- 

 lectors by means of a pneumatic arrangement has just been tried, and found to 

 be impossible, owing to the expense. The diviseur plan is the best that exists; 

 cylindrical tineites receive the foecal matters; a kind of grating apparatus divides or 

 separates the solid from the liquid dejections — the latter being run off into the 

 sewers. At stated periods dustmen replace the full by empty tinettes or even 

 barrels ; the contents are conveyed to works outside the city — depots, mixed with 

 charcoal and other pulverulent substances; then dried, and ground inio poudrette 

 for vvhich there is a ready sale. The dominating, and old plan, consists of a res- 

 ervoir in the courtyard, into which the contents of all the water closets flow down 

 an enormous common pipe, which, open at the top, at the roof of the house, acts 

 as, a ventilator for the reservoir; the atmosphere of Paris is thus permanently 

 polluted. For successful house and city drainage, the first requisite is a liberal 

 supply of water for flushing the closets, and acting as an extra guard over* the 

 piston valve ; next, an unvarying flow in the city sewers, as in Brussels, to carry 

 away to a distant out-fall, the foecal matters. The danger to guard against is, the 

 entry, up sewer or pipes, of the toxical' gases or fermentable substances. The 

 latter, according to the delicate experiments of Tyndall, can remain for an indefi- 

 ite period undecomposed, wherever the air remains stationary. 



The blood being life, it is not surprising the extraordinary attention physiol- 

 ogists are at present devoting to its study. Borden described blood as flowing 

 flesh; rolling incessantly through several thousands of channels in the middle of 

 the cellules of our organs, the fertilizing torrent brings with it nutritive matters. 

 It is the source of life. Cut a member, electrify it; the muscles will not contract; 

 but if blood be injected by the artery, the muscular contractibility will reappear. 

 Hence the curious experiment of Brown-Sequard, of a dead head on a living 

 body ; if the ligature be removed which prevents the flow of blood to the brain 

 the animal will revive. The blood not only brings the nutritive principles to the 

 organs, but it carries away the products of combustion which have become use- 

 less for life. Its function becomes interrupted when it cannot obtain the mate- 

 rials of nutrition, in a pure atmosphere and suitable food, and also when the or- 

 gans destined to carry off the detritus, work imperfectly. Thus all alterations of 

 the organs act on the blood, as the latter re-acts on the organs that it nourishes. 



