March 9, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



117 



the Pacific coast. The best known of these is off what is known as 

 ' Coal-Oil Point,' about one and one-fourth miles west of Goleta, 

 and ten miles west of Santa Barbara. Captain Van Helmes, of the 

 American steamship ' Los Angeles,' says that when a vessel passes 

 through this region the smell of the oil is so strong as frequently to 

 cause nausea among passengers and crew, and in certain spots the 

 oil can be distinctly seen bubbling up on the surface. Captain 

 Wallace, of the American steamship ' City of Chester,' has also 

 seen oil floating on the water to the north of Cape Mendocino, from 

 three to five miles off shore, and thinks there is another spring 

 there. Captain Plummer, of the American steamship ' Gipsy,' says 

 the belt of oil above Santa Barbara can be seen on the darkest 

 night when sailing through it. Captain Goodall, of the Pacific 

 Steamship Company, says of the region off Coal-Oil Point, that on 

 a calm day the water is covered for miles with oil, bubbles of which 

 can be seen rising to the surface and spreading over it. Although 

 it does not seem to smooth the water like animal oil, yet, on a 

 windy day, one can see a smooth slick of oil on the surface. This 

 spot is so well known by shipmasters, that the smell of the oil is 

 used as a guide in foggy weather, the petroleum smell being so 

 strong that a captain can never mistake his position when off that 

 point. Captain Goodall says, also, that he has noticed a small flow 

 of oil from the bottom of the sea off Cojo Point, near Point Concep- 

 tion, but there the amount of oil is very small. It cannot be seen 

 bubbling from the bottom, but is often visible on the surface, the 

 odor being very perceptible. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 Scarlet-Fever. 



The following striking instance, illustrating the communicability 

 of scarlet-fever, is sent us by Dr. George E. Goodfellow of Tomb- 

 stone, Arizona, in answer to the letter of inquiry sent by Science 

 some months ago : — 



"I came to Prescott, Arizona, in 1876. At that time I was in- 

 formed by physicians residing there for a number of years, that, to 

 their knowledge, no case of scarlet-fever ever had been known 

 either in the town or surrounding country. Prescott is a pleasant 

 little mountain town of central Arizona, and at that time had a popu- 

 lation of about eighteen hundred, and had been then, and is now, 

 considered to be unusually free from disease. The altitude is about 

 5,800 feet. There was no sewerage system, nor was one needed. 

 In this climate of the South-West, owing to the dryness of the 

 atmosphere, excrementitious material desiccates so rapidly, and the 

 residents are so unaccustomed to the vile odors of civilization, that 

 they never have realized the necessity of supplying the pabulum of 

 putrefaction, in the shape of water, to their sewage. There was 

 not a foul-smelling outhouse in the town, save around the saloons 

 and some restaurants ; and there, be it noted, no one lived ; neither 

 was any one there, taken sick in the epidemic, to be recounted. I 

 speak -thus authoritatively of the condition of the village, for I was 

 appointed health-officer, therefore knew the state of things. One 

 more preliminary statement. Of the people living in Prescott and 

 the encompassing neighborhood, almost all were considered as old 

 residents; that is, they had emigrated to Arizona about 1862-64, 

 mostly from the Pacific coast. There was comparatively little im- 

 migration into the Territory from 1868 to 1876-77. By reason of 

 this, the children imported from California left that State before the 

 advent there extensively of scarlet-fever and kindred diseases, and 

 were now grown to manhood and womanhood without ever having 

 had any of the contagious diseases of childhood. Many of these, 

 particularly the girls, were married and had children ; and it was 

 among these children that the disease which proved so fatal started. 

 Whatever the differences of opinion concerning the first cases, which 

 made their appearance in May or June, 1877, the nature and malig- 

 nancy of the fever were soon conceded by even the most sceptical. 

 It was scarlet-fever in its most malignant form, and, if I recollect 

 aright, it swept away between twenty and thirty children in that 

 small burg before it ceased. But it was not confined to the chil- 

 dren : the parents, particularly the young mothers, as described 

 above, contracted the fever in all grades of severity, though usually 

 in a mild form. There was a family, prominent in the place, with 

 three children, aged from two to eight. I was the medical attend- 



ant. The eldest contracted the disease first, and in a few days the 

 others had it. Two of them died about the seventh day, — the two 

 younger ones. The other ultimately recovered. Owing to the 

 popularity of the family, a large number of visitors, sympathizing 

 friends, and curious neighbors, as is usual in small towns, had filled 

 the place, spite of all protests from the physician, from the begin- 

 ning of the trouble until the sad ending. Of the immediate friends, 

 a large number were of the younger class heretofore described, that 

 never had had scarlet-fever. Of these, the majority were taken 

 down with some form of sickness related to the disease. Most of 

 them had the fever outright, but some only had severe sore throats. 

 The father, mother, consulting physician, and myself were all at- 

 tacked. Whether I ever had had the fever, I do not know. 

 The father, two young men, and myself, who had been closely in 

 contact with the children from the beginning of their illness, lay at 

 the point of death for some days ; and, of all who were in the house, 

 not one escaped without some manifestation of the disease. Thus 

 effectually was the fever spread. It seems to me this is a striking 

 illustration of the communicability of the disease. Of course, the 

 objection may be raised, the sanitary conditions of the house were 

 not good. But they were. The house w^s a new one, a year old, 

 of wood, set up from the ground by short two-by-four scantling, so 

 that the wind had an elegant chance to ventilate the building. 

 There was no cesspool, or foul locus of any sort, in the neighbor- 

 hood. It was, in fact, an ideally clean place. Some of those who 

 had typical cases of the fever were twenty-four and twenty-five years 

 of age. 



"Now, here was an epidemic, which, so far as we knew at the 

 beginning, had no antecedent case to initiate it. My subsequent 

 investigations settled that point. It was ascertained that the pre- 

 vious year, at Fort Whipple, an army post near the edge of town, 

 there had been some cases of what the post surgeon pronounced 

 scarlet-fever. Thus died the case of the de novokes. At any rate, 

 the onus probandi of origin was put on the preceding year's 

 cases. Where they came from, never was shown certainly ; but as 

 some families had recently joined the station, coming from infected 

 points, it was a natural supposition to conclude that they brought 

 it with them. This is the strongest concatenation of circumstances, 

 derived from personal observation, I can give. I have not entered 

 into details showing absence of other sources of contagion in the 

 persons attacked. This must be assumed as having been estab- 

 lished at the time." 



Vaccination Statistics. — The following extract from The 

 Sanitarian would seem to indicate that a compulsory vaccination law 

 has its advantages : " The success of the anti-vaccinationists is aptly 

 shown by the results in Zurich, Switzerland, where for a number of 

 years, until i8S3,a compulsory vaccination law obtained, and small- 

 pox was wholly prevented (not a single case occurred in 1882). 

 This result was seized upon in the following* year by the anti-vac- 

 cinationists, and used against the necessity for any such law, and it 

 seems they had sufficient influence to cause its repeal. The death 

 returns for that year (18S3) showed that for every thousand deaths 

 two were caused by small-pox; in 1884, there were three; in 1885, 

 seventeen ; and in the first quarter of 1886, eighty-five." 



Blood-Changes. — The Paris correspondent of the Neiv York 

 Medical Journal says that the application of spectroscopy to the 

 study of pathological alterations in the blood is receiving considerable 

 attention in that city. So far, the considerable expense of the large 

 instruments employed has to a great extent prevented any use being 

 made in medicine of the principal characteristics of the coloring- 

 matter of the blood, either in the normal or in the pathological 

 state ; but a late invention of Dr. Henocque's places in the hands of 

 the medical profession a handy, portable hasmato-spectroscope, that 

 will almost go into a waistcoat pocket, and with which a spectral 

 analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, of haemoglobin and its de- 

 rivatives (oxyhemoglobin, methasmoglobin, etc.), can be made at the 

 bedside. But it will be asked. What is the advantage of knowing 

 this ? Well, it has been proved to be of the utmost importance in the 

 study of the variations of the activity of the reduction of oxyha^mo- 

 globin in health and in disease. This Dr. Henocque makes us see 

 with his instrument applied to the thumb. A small elastic-band 

 ligature is tied around the lower part of the thumb, and on the 



