December i6, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



291 



lent to the de novo origin of cases of disease which afterward are 

 chiefly communicated by the first and succeeding cases. 



Having settled that such origins do take place, we shall then pry 

 into the secret of the laws of combinations and the conditions 

 which favor the evil evolution or the facts of hybridism, and seek 

 to combat these by starting similar processes in opposite directions, 

 or by sterilization, neutralization, disinfection, and all the details of 

 radical sanitation. 



Such a view of the occurrence of old or new diseases, and of the 

 reasons for fixity in some and changing forms and types in others, 

 leads to several practical results. 



1. The study of parasites, or germs, as they are called, is only 

 one of the methods of informing ourselves as to the phenomena of 

 disease, and in itself is not likely to be the key to rational and suc- 

 cessful treament. 



2. Our attention should be directed, far more than now, to the 

 study of conditions and circumstances under which new forms ap- 

 pear; to the influence of persons and surroundings, instead of to 



,!the mere finding of a specific form. The latter would, of course, 

 be most valuable as one of the facts in the chain of evidence, but 

 we should not, as now, seek so much to look to it as the cause of 

 ■disease as to inquire what conditions have caused this or that par- 

 ticular microphyte to be present. 



3. We should be able to account for the occasional occurrence of 

 ^ disease independent of any previous case, and for changing types 

 •of disease and new diseases, and would come to treat diseases less 

 by their names and more in view of their type and the effect of 

 -surroundings upon them. 



4. The tendency of all this is to magnify the importance of close 

 ■observation, and to lead us to feel that success in warding off dis- 

 ease, and in treating it when it appears, depends mostly upon close 

 ■observation and that experience which is derived from actual 

 practice. 



If we are looking to the biological laboratory for the natural history 

 of disease, or to the chemical laboratory for the application of rem- 

 •edies, we shall surely fail. It is not so much that we need to find 

 the specific germ or the specific methods. The world is always 

 looking after specifics. But the science and art of sanitation has 

 iar more to expect from a study of the conditions of persons and 

 surroundings under which diseases, or types and modifications of 

 disease, manifest themselves, as also from a study of the prevention 

 ■or obliteration of such conditions, than it has to expect from the 

 finding of microphytes as the source of disease, and seeking to 

 ■cure disease by expelling micro-organisms or attenuating them. 



Our only design in this paper is to awaken inquiry as to modes 

 of accounting for the localized origin of disease, without any 

 antecedent case, on the proposition that the laws of evolution, envi- 

 ronment, hybridism, or modification by culture, give rise to diseases 

 so different from their prototypes as to have individuality and per- 

 manency of their own. 



Because such inquir)' is relevant to prevention, there is good 

 reason to believe that by ascertaining the laws of these transforma- 

 tions and modifications of type and of the origination of special 

 varieties, we shall ere long find new means for the prevention or 

 limitation of many diseases. 



' The Malarial Germ of Laveran ' was the title of a paper read 

 by Dr. William T. Councilman of Baltimore. He considers that 

 this organism probably belongs to the Protozoa, a group of unicell- 

 ular organisms noted for the varied changes of form which the 

 individual examples undergo in the course of development. Of the 

 malarial germ there are ten more or less distinct forms, of which 

 five are always found in intermittent-fever. During the chill of the 

 fever a definite form is seen, in which multiplication takes place 

 by segmentation. One form has actively moving filaments. This 

 -was found in blood taken from the spleen in ten cases of malarial 

 cachexia, and in five cases of intermittent-fever. Dr. Councilman 

 ■says that too much importance cannot be assigned to this organism 

 as a means of making a differential diagnosis between malarial-fever 

 and typhoid-fever. In outbreaks of fever which occur in small 

 country-towns, where it is of the greatest importance that the char- 

 acter of the disease should be recognized promptly, the advantage 

 ■of this mode of diagnosis is most evident. There is too much 



reason for believing that in localities where malarial-fevers prevail, 

 epidemics of typhoid-fever are frequently mistaken for fevers of a 

 malarial type. 



Mr. H. Lomb of Rochester offered prizes of $500 and $200 for 

 the best essays on practical sanitary and economic cooking adapted 

 for persons of moderate and small means. Dr. LaBerge, health- 

 officer of Montreal, described the system employed in that city for the 

 collection of garbage, and for its destruction by the Mann furnace. 

 Committees were appointed on State boards of health, pollution of 

 water-supply, disposal of garbage, animal diseases and animal food, 

 forms of statistics, incorporation, protective inoculation, Lomb prize 

 essays, national health legislation, and improvement of the sanitary 

 and medical service on emigrant ships. It was decided to hold 

 the next meeting of the association at Milwaukee. The following 

 officers were elected for the ensuing year: president. Dr. Charles 

 N. Hewitt, Red Wing, Minn.; vice-presidents, Drs. G. B. Thorn- 

 ton, Memphis, and Joseph Holt, New Orleans ; executive commit- 

 tee, Drs. Henry B. Baker, Michigan, S. H. Durgin, Massachusetts, 

 and J. N. McCormack, Kentucky. The secretary, Irving A. Wat- 

 son, M.D., of Concord, N.H., holds over. 



THE SURFACE -TEMPERATURES OF THE OCEANS. 



A NUMBER of researches on the surface-temperatures of the 

 oceans,which have recently been published, throw a new light on this 

 complicated phenomenon. The maps accompanying the present 

 number of Science have been constructed according to Dr. O. 

 Kriimmel's maps, showing the surface-temperatures of the oceans. 

 As the Arctic Ocean must be considered part of the Atlantic, of 

 which it forms the most northern extremity, it was desirable to in- 

 clude it in the map. Besides this, the Antarctic Ocean exerts a 

 great influence upon the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, and 

 therefore the latter has also been included in the map, which shows 

 two-thirds of the earth's surface in a perspective projection. The 

 lateral parts, however, have been left off, as they do not belong to 

 the system of the Atlantic Ocean. The Pacific Ocean has been 

 constructed in the same way, the map extending from its northern 

 limits to the entrance of the Atlantic Ocean. The latter map makes it 

 very clear that the Pacific Ocean forms a comparatively well-defined 

 basin connected by narrow straits with the basin of the Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans. Its southern limit is indicated by the east 

 coast of Australia, Wilkes Land, Graham Land, and the southern 

 portion of America. 



A glance at the lines showing the surface-temperatures of the 

 oceans reveals the remarkable fact that the warm water is accumulat- 

 ed in the western parts of the oceans. Kriimmel designates water of 

 more than 24° C. (75" F.) as ' tropical water.' In August the belt of 

 such water is 21 degrees of latitude wide in the eastern part of the 

 Atlantic, while it occupies 61 on its western side. In February it 

 is 22 degrees wide in the eastern part, while it is 56 degrees wide in 

 the western. In the Pacific Ocean it does not occupy more than 

 17 degrees in August and 25 degrees in February, while in the 

 western parts its width is 57 degrees and 49 degrees respectively. 

 In comparing the amount of tropical and extratropical water, 

 Kriimmel finds that twenty-nine per cent of the whole surface of the 

 oceans has always a temperature of more than 25° C, while almost 

 one-half of it temporarily attains this temperature. 



It will be observed that in certain parts of the oceans the lines of 

 equal temperature are much crowded, and show sharp angles. 

 This is entirely due to currents, which^ carry warm water to high 

 latitudes, and cold water to warmer regions. Thus the influence 

 of the Agulhas current may be observed in the sharp angles of 

 these lines near the Cape of Good Hope, while the cold Cape Horn 

 current lowers the temperature along the eastern coast of South 

 America. The influence of the Gulf Stream may be seen in the 

 crowding of the lines of equal temperature near Newfoundland. 



The accumulation of warm water in the western parts of the 

 oceans is entirely due to the action of the trade-winds, which blow 

 continually from the eastward, and drive the warm water of the 

 ocean westward, where it is accumulated on the coasts of the conti- 

 nent. Buchanan has explained this phenomenon in a paper on 

 similarities in the physical geography of the great oceans, which 

 has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical 



