214 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 274 



the blood-vessels of the surface of the body, and deficient nutrition 

 of the brain would result, and collapse. These were the fatal cases 

 among both the rich and the poor. 



Wasted Sunbeams; Unused Housetops. — In a recent 

 number of the New York Medical Record, Dr. Gouverneur M. 

 Smith makes some extremely valuable suggestions in an article 

 entitled ' Wasted Sunbeams ; Unused Housetops.' He says that 

 human habitations, though erected for the benign purposes of in- 

 suring comfort, affording protection, and promoting family privacy, 

 are, unfortunately, often the causes of a number of the morbid ills 

 from which mankind suffers. This fact is true, as relating to the 

 residences both of the rich and of the poor. It is a difficult task to 

 construct an absolutely sanitary dwelling. In nearly every house, 

 however, there are more or less avoidable insalutary conditions, 

 which are undermining the health of each family circle. After 

 describing the advantages of tent-life, and the benefits which ac- 

 crued to those who lived most of the time out of doors, he goes 

 on to speak of the incompatibility of such a life with the demands 

 of a civilized race, and a rigorous climate. History tells us that 

 certain nomadic tribes in the early ages, finding aggregation and 

 permanency of residence desirable for business and other purposes, 

 built solid structures, and, striking their tents, henceforth dwelt in 

 substantial residences. While the early Orientals had but little 

 knowledge of the exact nature of air and sunlight, they nevertheless 

 believed that fresh air was an important factor in maintaining phys- 

 ical vigor, and that exposure to the solar beams was salutary. In 

 constructing their homes, their architects utilized their housetops, 

 and gave them salubrious plateaus. The roofs, gently declining as 

 watersheds, were covered either with tiles, bricks, or cement, mak- 

 them as durable as pavements. Beddings of turf, prettily distrib- 

 uted, made these artificial deserts to ' blossom as the rose.' Dr. 

 Smith asks the question, " Is there any thing, either in our climate 

 or state of civilization, which prevents us from, in a measure, imitat- 

 ing such ancient, useful, and fashionable airiness?" Our atmos- 

 phere is proverbially bright, and many of the severer days are sun- 

 shiny. In a great metropolis like New York there are thousands 

 of children and invalids, to say nothing of those in mature years 

 and engaged in the ordinary pursuits of life, who require more fresh 

 air and sunning than is now practicable. City yards are small, 

 shut in by tall buildings and high fences ; the parks may not be 

 adjacent ; and the streets afford ill-conditioned pleasure-grounds. 

 He suggests that it would be no difficult task for architectural in- 

 genuity, assisted by sanitary science, to contrive some method of 

 usmg the thousands of acres of housetops so that roofs, now so use- 

 ful in affording indoor protection from cold, sleet, and rain, can be 

 made additionally useful at certain seasons by affording out-door 

 recreation and protection for invalidism. The ' solarium ' of the 

 New York Hospital, made attractive with its plants, birds, and 

 aquaria, is a potent ally of therapeutics in restoring the convalescents, 

 and at the Hospital for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled 

 the contagious sparkle of the sunbeam is found shining in the eyes 

 and lives of the young patients. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Exact Phonography. By GEORGE R. BISHOP. New York, The 

 Author (At the New York Stock Exchange). 12°. $2. 



Every writer of shorthand has often had occasion to regret the 

 imperfections of the best of the modern systems. Pitman's ' Pho- 

 nography,' with the American modification of it, and one or two 

 others, English and American, which are in the main attempted 

 improvements upon it, are almost perfect as to the representation 

 of the consonant sounds and their combinations, and, if one attempts 

 nothing more than the 'corresponding style,' are quite as unambig- 

 uous and legible as fairly written longhand script. But while the 

 ' corresponding style ' may be written much more rapidly than long- 

 hand, it is impossible to attain sufficient speed in it to make it avail- 

 able for the uses of the reporter, or of the student, professional, or 

 business man, who desires to use it for jotting down quickly notes 

 of what he sees or hears. To adapt it to these practical ends, it 

 has been found necessary in all the older systems to abbreviate, 

 sometimes at the expense of exactness and legibility. Vowels have 



been almost entirely omitted, and indicated by the position with 

 reference to the line of the ruled paper upon which the consonants 

 are written ; and as only three positions are used, while there are 

 nearly twenty different vowel-sounds, it follows that the same char- 

 acter in the same position frequently represents three or four differ- 

 ent words (in a few cases from six to a dozen). The context alone 

 can show which of these words was intended, and the success 

 of the writer in determining this at any future time will depend 

 largely upon his knowledge of the subject treated of, or upon the 

 tenacity of his memory. The prevailing systems of shorthand, 

 also, fail when a great number of technical terms or foreign words 

 or phrases are introduced, unless the terms, words, or phrases are 

 those with which the reporter is familiar, and for which he has in- 

 vented special contracted forms. Mr. Bishop, who is the stenog- 

 rapher of the New York Stock Exchange, has undertaken the diffi- 

 cult task of devising a system of shorthand in which, without sacri- 

 ficing brevity and speed, all essential vowel-sounds shall be actually 

 represented by written signs. His purpose is to leave little or noth- 

 ing to the judgment or memory of the writer in transcribing. It is 

 impossible, without making a practical trial of Mr. Bishop's " Exact 

 Phonography,' to determine to what extent he has succeeded. His 

 system is certainly exact and unambiguous, and therefore easily 

 legible, even in its most contracted forms ; and it looks as though 

 it might be written with as great speed as any of the older systems. 

 Mr. Bishop calls his book 'A Text-Book for Self- and Class-Instruc- 

 tion.' It is certain that no previous new system of shorthand has 

 been introduced to the public with so much fulness of explanation 

 and wealth of illustration as ' Exact Phonography.' Every thing is 

 made perfectly plain for the attentive student. 



EuropeaJi Schools of History and Politics. By ANDREW D. 

 White. Baltimore, Murray. 8°. 

 In Science, No. 253, we noticed the two interesting papers by 

 Dr. H. B. Adams and Professor Fredericq on historical teaching in 

 the United States and in England and Scotland. The present 

 paper, by ex-President White, supplements these. It is the last 

 issue for the year 1887 in the Johns Hopkins Series of Studies in 

 Historical and Political Science. Most of Mr. White's accounts are 

 based on his personal observation, and gain thereby much in value. 

 On p. 1 1 we read, " As to the general character of all this instruc- 

 tion among German-speaking peoples, whatever it may have been 

 in the past, it is not at present calculated to breed doctrinaires ; 

 it is large and free ; the experience of the whole world is laid 

 under contribution for the building-up of its students; questions of 

 living interest have their full share in the classrooms. To know 

 how our own democracy is solving its problems, one of the German 

 universities sends to this country for study one of its most gifted 

 professors, — one from whom thinking men on this side of the At- 

 lantic have been glad to learn the constitutional history of their own 

 country. The lectures of Professor von Hoist, as delivered here, 

 and his work upon the constitutional history of the United States, 

 are sufficient to show that this instruction in the German universi- 

 ties is given in a large way, and is not made a means of fettering 

 thought. At no seats of learning in the world, probably, is politi- 

 cal thought more free. The University of Berlin stands in the 

 main avenue of the capital of the German monarchy directly oppo- 

 site the imperial palace. Within a stone's throw of the Emperor's 

 work-table are the lecture-desks of a number of professors, v^'ho 

 have never hesitated to express their views fully upon all the ques- 

 tions arising between democratic and monarchical systems. I have 

 myself, in these lecture-rooms, heard sentiments freely uttered 

 which accorded perfectly with the ideas of Republican and Demo- 

 cratic American statesmen." In a similar way the historical and 

 political teaching in France is favorably commented on. The most 

 valuable portion of the paper is that in which the writer applies the 

 experience of Europe to ourselves, and points out what we should 

 be doing in this direction, and how we may do it. It is an eloquent 

 and able plea for broader and better historical and political teaching 

 in our own colleges and universities, .^s an appendix to the main 

 paper, there are printed ' Modern History at Oxford,' by W.J. Ash- 

 ley; ' Recent Impressions of the Ecole Libre,' by T. K. Worthing- 

 ton ; and ' Preparation for the Civil Service in the German States,' 

 by L. Katzenstein. 



