508 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



er of medicine " is not sufficiently heeded at the present day, i. e., "if you can 

 do no good, be sure that you do no harm." There is too great a desire among 

 the young disciples to find something new, something that the old fathers knew 

 nothing about; but in my humble judgment, it is pretty difficult to do. The 

 fathers have told us that these remedies are uncertain in their action, and danger- 

 ous. Every now and then we see an account in the medical journals of a case, 

 or cases, of poisoning from the use of these deadly articles. Whilst physicians 

 should guard against becoming old fogies, they at the same time should be careful 

 not to rush heedlessly into customs or habits that will endanger the lives of, the 

 people. They should aim to steer between the rock and the whirlpool. 



CHECKING THE SPREAD OE SCARLET FEVER. 



The very notable experiment which was tried by Dr. Ashby, Medical Officer 

 of Health for Grantham, England, in dealing with the summer outbreak of scar- 

 let fever in that town, has deservedly attracted much attention. The plan resort- 

 ed to was that of isolating the patients in tents. He prevailed upon the local 

 authorities to erect a tent hospital on the outskirts of the town, and induced par- 

 ents to send their sick there; the result was most successful. Parents availed 

 themselves of the tents largely — their early prejudice against any such arrangement 

 being readily overcome — the patients did remarkably well and the spread of the 

 disease was unquestionably much curtailed. 



HYGIENIC CONDITIONS OF COAL MINES. 



Some interesting information as to the way in which the human system is 

 affected under the peculiar conditions of work in mines, has been furnished by 

 M. Fabre, from experiences connected with the coal mines of France. He finds 

 that the deprivation of solar light causes a diminution in the pigment of the 

 skin, and absence of sunburning, but there is no globular ansemia — that is, dimi- 

 nution in the number of globules in the blood. Internal maladies seem to be 

 more rare. While there is no essential anaemia in the miners, the blood globules 

 are often found smaller and paler than in normal conditions of life, this being due 

 to respiration of noxious gases especially where ventilation is difficult. The 

 men who breathe too much of the gases liberated on explosion of powder or 

 dynamite suffer more than other miners from affections of the larynx, the bronchia 

 and the stomach. Ventilation sometimes works injury by its cooling effect. 



SALT AS A PROPHYLACTIC IN DIPHTHERIA. 



In a paper read at the Medical Society of Victoria, Australia, Dr. Day stated 

 that, having for many years regarded diphtheria, in its early stage, as a purely 



