72 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 235 



operative in New England has proved to my own satisfaction that 

 it is vain to attempt to treat consumption while the patient is sub- 

 jected to this deleterious influence ; fatal, indeed, I might call it. 

 My first prescription is to leave the damp locality. Why such a 

 residence tends strongly to the production of consumption — 

 whether as having something, as yet unknown in itself, or that it 

 acts as the nursery of bacilli — I cannot say. But I feel in regard to 

 the above practical rule, as the late Dr. John Ware said to me, that, 

 •" with the evidence which has been presented, I feel that I should 

 be criminally in fault in regard to a patient if I did not enforce it." 



If any one wishes for further information, I refer him to Dr. 

 Buchanan's reports to the Local Government Board (1866 and 

 1867J,' my addresses before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 

 1 862,'' and before the International Congress which met at Washing- 

 ton in 1876.^ Henry I. Bowditch. 



Boston, July 23. 



Technical Education. 



I HAVE to-day received from Sir Henry Roscoe copies of two 

 bills recently introduced into Parliament, through the action, I pre- 

 sume, of the National Association for the Promotion of Technical 

 and Commercial Education, of which the Marquis of Hartington is 

 president, providing for an extension of the technical branches of 

 education in the general scheme. Accompanying these bills is a 

 request for information in regard to what is being done in the 

 United States. I take the liberty of suggesting that such among 

 the readers of Science as may have any information of this 

 nature which may be of service to the cause in Great Britain send 

 any documents that may contain it, either directly to Sir Henry 

 Roscoe, at 5 Palace Chambers, Bridge Street, Westminster, S. W., 

 London, or, if preferred, to me. I will see that any thing so sent is 

 forwarded, and should be particularly obliged if duplicates could be 

 at the same time supplied for my own use. 



The bills above referred to consist of provisions for the intro- 

 duction of technical studies and the simpler forms of manual train- 

 ing into day and evening schools, and empower the school boards, 

 local authorities, or managers of public elementary schools, to pro- 

 vide instruction in the use of ordinary tools, in commercial arith- 

 metic, geography, book-keeping, modern languages, and freehand 

 and machine drawing. The powers of the authorities are extended 

 to these schools as in the common schools, defined in the Ele- 

 mentary Education Act of 1870, and they are given leave to apply 

 for grants, and to raise funds, for these technical schools as for the 

 older forms of elementaiy schools. The term ' parliamentary 

 grant ' is held to include any grant made by the Science and Art 

 Department. This legislation is prepared and brought into Parlia- 

 ment by Sir Henry Roscoe, Sir Lyon Playfair, Mr. Dixon, Sir John 

 Lubbock, and Sir Richard Temple (50 Vict.). 



The evening schools thus provided for are also authorized to pro- 

 vide instruction in the ordinary school studies of the primary 

 grades, and for the girls, sewing, cooking, domestic economy, and 

 hygiene. R. H, Thurston. 



Ithaca, N.Y., July 23. 



Distillery-Swill as a Food for Milch-Cows. 



Please send me Science, commencing with June 10, containing 

 the first article on distillery report ; also your Swiss Cross. We 

 are interested in the milk articles now coming out in Science. 



Some eighteen years ago 1 owned a dairy, and run on one thou- 

 sand acres of land eight hundred cows. I had one stable that held 

 672 cows ; it was kept clean, and was well ventilated. For eighteen 

 months I fed distillery-swill. From my experience in feeding swill 

 to milch-cows, I should say that it produces tuberculosis. In ad- 



1 Reports of the Medical Officers of the Privy Council, 1866-67, proving that sub- 

 drained, sewered towns have less consumption than others not so subdrained ; or, as 

 Mr. Simon expresses himself, ^* dafnpness 0/ the soil is a7t imporiant cause 0/ con- 

 sumption, to the popztlation living upon the soil " [Mr. Simon's Italics]. 



2 Consumption in New England, or Locality One of its Chief Causes : an Address 

 delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society. By Henry I. Bowditch, M.D. 

 Boston, Ticknor & Field, 1862. 



3 Public Hygiene in America ; being the Centennial Discourse delivered before 

 the International Medical Congress, Philadelphia. September, 1876. By Henry I. 

 Bowditch, M.D. With extracts from Correspondence from the Various States, to- 

 gether with a Digest of American Sanitary Law, by Henry G. Rehering, Esq. Bos- 

 ton, Little, Brown, & Co. ; London, Trubner & Co. ; 1877. 



dition to swill, I fed grass and hay, and during the summer months 

 ' soiled.' At the expiration of eighteen months, I stopped feeding 

 swill ; and the number of cows that had to be disposed of because 

 they had consumption was reduced to so few, that I do not now 

 remember that there were any. It is my opinion that if cows are 

 closely confined, and fed on swill and hay exclusively, tuberculosis 

 will develop in nine cows out of every ten inside of a year. The 

 nutritive quality of swill-food depends upon the amount of water 

 put upon the grains after fermentation. I have never had any 

 practical experience in feeding sweet distillery-swill ; but if fed in 

 moderate quantities, not too hot and sweet, and with hay and other 

 dry and very nutritious food, I can see no reason why it should be 

 harmful. Parties who produce swill-milk for sale in large cities 

 find swill to be the cheapest food for the production of milk, and 

 consequently use it to excess. I have never seen swill fed sweet in 

 more than one city dairy, and I have been in fifty. 



Charles Cabanne. 



St. Louis, July 25. 



Queries. 



12. Mosquitoes. — Is anyone able to corroborate the following 

 observation of an old resident of Staten Island ? "I have lived on 

 Staten Island twenty years," said an old gentleman on the Staten 

 Island ferryboat the other evening, " and I have noticed a remark- 

 able thing about the mosquitoes. They always disappear after a 

 storm, and it is invariably just seven days before they return." 



T. J. H. 



13. Electricity and the Earth. — Professor Dolbear, in 

 Science for July 29, at p. 60, says, " As for the earth being a reser- 

 voir of electricity, every thing that is known about electricity nega- 

 tives the idea." On the other hand, at p. 507 of Deschanel's 

 treatise on natural philosophy, translated by J. D. Everett, the 

 statement appears, " On account of its practically inexhaustible 

 capacity for furnishing or absorbing electricity, the earth is often 

 called the common reservoir!' Upon the next page of the text-book 

 named, the effect of moisture in the atmosphere upon the insulation 

 of electrical machines is discussed in a manner that is misleading, 

 if Professor Dolbear's statements in regard to the relative con- 

 ductivity of dry and moist air are rightly understood. Has Des- 

 chanel been superseded ? M. A. Veeder. 



Lyons, N.Y., July 30. 



Answers. 



10. Robin's Nest. — I have in my collection a three-story 

 robin's nest taken from the sill of an unused window of the Water- 

 town High School. I have often seen the old birds in the spring 

 repairing the nest, and have photographed the bird and nest in situ. 



H. M. Hill. 



Watertown High School, N.Y., Aug. i. 



11. Lake Itasca. — A recent official bulletin of the Minnesota 

 Historical Society, entitled ' The Sources of the Mississippi,' sub- 

 mits the following (p. 24) as one of the " results of their finding : " 

 " That Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, accompanied by Lieut. James 

 Allen, in a scientific expedition made by him, July, 1832, to the 

 head waters of the Mississippi River, did discover, locate, delineate, 

 and map the general basin, which is the first great gathering-place 

 and reservoir of the head waters of that continental stream, and 

 was by him named Lake Itasca, from the Latin words Veritas caput 

 ('the true head')." A more particular account of the occurrence 

 is given, with other historical matter, in, I think, Andreas' or 

 Andrea's large atlas of Minnesota, to which I have not present 

 access. The statement is substantially this : Schoolcraft who was 

 not a classical scholar, having arrived at the lake, asked of one of 

 his party, perhaps Lieutenant Allen, the Latin equivalent for ' true ' 

 meaning ' real,' and was given Veritas. He then desired the Latin 

 for ' head,' and, being told it was caput, at once formed the com- 

 bination Itasca, and applied it as a name to his new-found lake. It 

 thus appears that the term Veritas may either have been given School- 

 craft through mere inadvertence, or through misconception of his 

 inquiry, as supoosing him to wish an equivalent for ' the true,' ' the 

 real,' in its substantive instead of its adjective form. 



Franc E. Babbitt. 



Coldwater, Mich., July 22. 



