Janitaby 7, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



9 



cited would be read with profit and encourage- 

 ment by teachers far and wide. In view of the 

 interest thus awakened, it was suggested that a 

 day be set apart in the meeting a year hence for 

 the discussion of science in the schools. During 

 the session, Professors Leidy and Lesley were 

 added to the list of honorary members. Professors 

 Baird, Dana, and Gray having been previously 

 elected to this class. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The lectures delivered by Prof. Rodolfo Lan- 

 ciani, LL.D., government director of archeological 

 researches at Rome, before the Lowell institute, 

 Boston, are full of interesting and instructive 

 matter. The lecturer, after describing the humble 

 origin of Rome, and the simple matter-of-fact 

 causes whicli led to its foundation on the Palatine 

 Hill, considered the sanitary conditions of the 

 district which surrounded the new town. During 

 prehistoric times the whole region was volcanic 

 and free from malaria, and when it ceased to be 

 volcanic, then malaria began. The clearest proof 

 of the virulence of malaria in Rome in the first 

 century is afforded by the number of altars and 

 shrines dedicated to the goddess of the fever. At 

 the time of Varro there were not less than three 

 temples of the fever left standing. The principal 

 works of improvement successfully completed in 

 ancient times for the benefit of public health and 

 for checking malaria were : I. The construction 

 of drains ; II. The construction of aqueducts ; 

 III. The multiplication and paving of roads ; IV. 

 The right organization of pviblic cemeteries ; V. 

 The drainage and cultivation of the Campagna ; 

 VI. The organization of medical help. Professor 

 Lanciani developed fully these points ; and we 

 regret, that, owing to want of space, we cannot 

 follow him more minutely. The lectures are 

 unique, and worthy reproduction in a permanent 

 form. 



— Physicians will doubtless remember the case 

 of the late Dr. Groux of Brooklyn, who had the 

 power of stopping the action of the heart at pleas- 

 ure. Dr. Lydston of Chicago, in a note to the 

 American practitioner and news, claims to have 

 the same power, and to have demonstrated it to 

 members of the medical profession. 



— At a recent meeting of the Society of arts, 

 Capt. Douglas Galton, chairman of the council, 

 delivered an address which was a retrospect of 

 the progress made in sanitation by the English 

 nation during the reign of Queen Victoria. The 

 registration of births, marriages, and deaths came 

 into operation in 1837, ten days after the queen's 

 accession to the throne. The sanitary condition 



of the country was wretched at this time. One- 

 tenth of the population of Manchester, and one- 

 seventh of that of Liverpool, lived in cellars. In 

 1845 a chapel in the immediate neighborhood of 

 Lincoln's-Inn Fields was used as a schoolroom in 

 the day-time, and a dancing-saloon at night. In 

 the cellars underneath this chapel ten thousand 

 bodies had been buried in the seventeen years 

 ending 1840, the burials were still continuing, 

 and the old coffins were removed through a con- 

 tiguous sewer to make room for new ones. In 

 the rtural districts the same neglect of the public 

 health was also prevalent. The various acts 

 which have been passed during these fifty years 

 have contributed greatly to the welfare and pros- 

 perity of England as a nation. In the decade 

 1850-60 the annual average saving of lives in 

 England and Wales from sanitary improvement 

 was 7.789 ; 1860-70, it rose to 10,481 ; 1870-80, it 

 was 48,443; and in the five years 1880-84, the 

 average annual number of lives saved by sanitary 

 improvements has been 103,240. 



— Mr. E. D. Preston of the U. S. coast and 

 geodetic survey left last week for the Sandwich 

 Islands on an important mission for that govern- 

 ment. The object of his visit is the determina- 

 tion of astronomical latitudes on these islands, 

 fifteen stations having already been decided upon. 

 The pendulum will be swung at a great elevation, 

 and also at the sea-level, to determine the down- 

 ward attraction of some of the principal moun- 

 tains. The latitude stations will be on the follow- 

 ing islands : Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and 

 Hawaii. The work will probably show great 

 deflections of the plumb-line on all the islands, 

 and the pendulum work will no doubt confirm 

 previous experiments on island stations ; viz., 

 that islands give an excess of gravity. The ob- 

 servations will occupy about four or five months. 

 A copy of all observations will be deposited in the 

 coast and geodetic survey archives. The work is 

 done entirely at the expense of the Hawaiian 

 government, the coast survey loaning the neces- 

 sary instruments. 



— Congressman Hatch, chairman of the house 

 committee on agriculture, has received from Com- 

 missioner Colman of the agricultural department 

 a reply to the resolution offered by Mr. Swinburne 

 of New York regarding the cause and extent of 

 pleuro-pneumonia in cattle. The commissioner 

 sets forth the difficulties met in the attempt to 

 extirpate or control this disease in the present 

 state of the law, and with the machinery at hand, 

 and re-enforces his recommendations previously 

 made for more heroic methods. The commis- 

 sioner again recommends as the only measure 



