January 14, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



41 



of the sewage impurities dissolved in the same 

 quantity of unfrozen water of the lake. This ice 

 also showed the presence of bacteria in great 

 abundance, retarded somewhat in their growth 

 by the ice, but not destroyed by it. It is perhaps 

 needless to say that this ice was pronounced to- 

 tally unfit for any purposes where it is liable to 

 come in contact with food or drink. The ice 

 from the Erie canal was also condemned, while 

 there was not suflScient evidence to warrant a 

 condemnation of that from Cazenovia Lake. The 

 report, valuable for what has already been men- 

 tioned, is still more so by reason of the numerous 

 references to instances in which impure ice has 

 been the cause of dysentery and other diseases. 

 The earliest of these was that at Rye Beach, 

 N.H., reported by Dr. A. H. Nichols of Boston 

 in 1875, in which there broke out among the 

 guests of a large hotel at that place an epidemic 

 of gastro-enteritis, caused by impure ice from a 

 filthy pond. Another instance of sickness caused 

 by impure ice, referred to in the report, is that of 

 an epidemic of dysentery which occurred in 1879 

 at Washington, Conn., investigated by Dr. Brown 

 of that place and by Dr. Raymond of Brooklyn. 

 The ice had been gathered from a pond which 

 had been used as a wallowing-ground by the pigs. 

 Other instances are quoted of the injurious effects 

 of impure ice upon the public health, and suffi- 

 cient evidence given to show, that, in the process 

 of freezing, water does not purify itself. The re- 

 port, taken as a whole, is a very valuable contri- 

 bution to this subject, and a complete refutation 

 of the old idea that all ice must of necessity be 

 pure. 



COLOR-BLINDNESS AMONG RAILWAY 

 EMPLOYEES. 



Dr. B. Joy Jeffries, at the last meeting of the 

 Anaerican ophthalmological society, called atten- 

 tion to the total failure on the part of the Massa- 

 chusetts authorities to enforce the law passed in 

 that state in 1881, by which railroad companies 

 are prohibited from employing persons who are 

 color-blind, or whose sight is defective, in posi- 

 tions requiring them to distinguish form or color 

 signals, unless such persons have been certified 

 by some competent person employed and paid 

 by the company as not disqualified for such posi- 

 tions by color-blindness or other defective sight. 

 A penalty of a hundred dollars is affixed for each 

 violation of the act. In reference to the enforce- 

 ment of the. law. Dr. Jeffries says that "it is 

 practically as dead a letter as the liquor laws." 

 Numerous cases are cited which have come under 

 the care of the speaker in which the law has been 



grossly violated. In one case a brakeman who 

 had been on a road three years had been tested as 

 to his vision by the train-despatcher, who had 

 asked him how many knobs there were on an ad- 

 jacent telegraph-pole, telling him his vision was 

 as good as any one on the road. Another instance 

 of the manner in which the law is violated was 

 that of a gateman who applied to Dr. Jeffries for 

 a certificate for blindness contracted in the army, 

 in order that he might obtain a pension from the 

 government. Although this man was so blind 

 from atrophy of the optic nerve that he groped 

 his way into the doctors office, yet he was on 

 duty as a gateman at an important railroad-cross- 

 ing, having a certificate f I'om the examiner of the 

 railroad company " that he is not disqualified by 

 defective sight." The man himself acknowledged 

 that he was completely blind in the sun, and 

 could not see people at his crossing. A number 

 of instances are given where engineers and con- 

 ductors were employed by railroad companies, 

 although they were completely color-blind. Some- 

 thing of the same negligence seems to exist in the 

 licensing of pilots. One pilot who could not 

 recognize a colored side-light held in the sun six 

 feet before his face was examined by a marine 

 hospital surgeon, and reported as partially color- 

 blind. This enabled him to be further examined 

 by the local inspectors, who passed him by their 

 tests, and the man has a full license. In com- 

 menting on this case, Dr. Jeffries well asks, " How 

 many more are there?" The matter is one of 

 such grave importance, involving as it does the 

 life and linab of every traveller by land and sea, 

 that the Ophthalmological society could be of no 

 greater benefit to their fellow-beings than in 

 calling the attention of the authorities to these 

 gross violations of the statute, and protesting 

 against their continuance. 



COMMISSIONER HADLEYS SECOND AN- 

 NUAL REPORT. 



Professor Richmond M. Smith, writing in the 

 Political science quarterly a few months ago, said, 

 in his article examining the various state labor 

 bureaus and their methods, that "the business of 

 collecting statistics successfully is one which re- 

 quires a great deal of experience, besides knowl- 

 edge and administrative ability, on the part of 

 the chief," and for the lack of that experience he 

 found the reports of most of the chiefs defective 

 both in rnethod and in results. When Professor 

 Hadley of Yale college was appointed, two years 

 ago, chief of the Connecticut bureau of labor 

 statistics, it was foreseen that statistics collected 

 by one of his ability and experience in handling 



