3IO 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 2S2 



may be widely distributed in the milk-supply of any town. It has 

 been said that the tuberculosis of cattle is not the same disease as 

 the tuberculosis of man, and that the absence of any proof of the 

 human variety having ever been dependent upon ingestion or inoc- 

 ulation of the virus of the bovine variety tends to strengthen such a 

 belief. To this it may be replied, that the bacilli of bovine tuber- 

 culosis are identical — according to all bacteriological methods 

 at present known — with those found in tubercular formations in 

 the organs of man, and that, although the disease presents ana- 

 tomical differences in man and cattle, these differences may be ex- 

 plained as being due to differences of soil in the human and bo- 

 vine tissues, the bacilli ingrafting themselves in those tissues which 

 present conditions most favorable to their growth and develop- 

 ment ; second, absence of proof may only mean want of observa- 

 tion or recorded data, and cannot be held to imply that at no fu- 

 ture time will satisfactory evidence of the dependence of the human 

 disease upon a bovine source be brought to light. 



" Having regard to all those considerations, surely the time has 

 arrived when a radical change in the present methods of milk- 

 production and milk-consumption is urgently needed. In the first 

 place, it should be rendered illegal for cows known to be suffering 

 from tuberculosis to be kept in stock by dairymen and farmers for 

 milking purposes ; and, second, in no household should unboiled 

 milk be consumed, more especially by children. No other animal 

 food is consumed by civilized nations in an uncooked state; and by 

 the light of our recently acquired knowledge it would appear that 

 there is as much, or more, danger connected with the practice of 

 drinking unboiled milk as of eating raw flesh. 



"Exposure to the heat of boiling water for five minutes destroys 

 the life and action of the tubercular virus (Klein) ; and the same is 

 true of the other specific disease-poisons. By such simple means, 

 then, is it possibld to guard against an ever-present source of dan- 

 ger, as well as to obtain protection from those possibilities of the 

 introduction into our bodies of the viruses of enteric-fever, scarlet- 

 fever, and the like, which the experience of past epidemics has 

 taught us to be latent possibilities in milk, with powers of develop- 

 ment at the most unexpected periods. If medical practitioners 

 generally recognized the importance of these views, and were care- 

 ful to enforce them upon those intrusted with the care of delicate 

 children of scrofulous diathesis, or with hereditary tendencies to 

 tubercle, a commencement would be made in the right direction, 

 which would gradually extend itself through all classes of society." 



Action OF Boiling Water on Typhoid Bacilli. — VVil- 

 chur of St. Petersburg has found that when a volume of boiling 

 water equal to that of a gelatine culture of typhoid bacilli is used 

 on the culture, the bacilli are only partly destroyed ; and that when 

 the volume of water is double that of the culture, all the bacilli are 

 killed. Experiments on the dejecta of typhoid patients showed 

 that when four times the volume of water was added to the dejecta, 

 the bacilli were invariably destroyed. 



Deaths from Poison. — There were in Great Britain, in 1886, 

 511 deaths from poison, including cases of chronic poisoning by 

 lead. Of these, 327 were accidental, 178 suicidal, and only 6 horn-' 

 icidal. Lead heads the list of agents giving rise to accidental poi- 

 soning (95 cases) ; then follow opium and its derivatives (82 

 cases) ; carbolic acid (20 cases) ; belladonna is responsible for 9 

 cases ; alcohol for 7 ; aconite, chlorodyne, and hydrochloric acid, 

 each for 6 ; prussic acid, ammonia, and strychnine, each for 5. 

 Carbolic acid was selected by 42 suicides ; opium, laudanum, 

 or morphine, by 41 ; oxalic acid, by 28 ; prussic acid, by 25 ; 

 vermin-killer, by 18 ; hydrochloric acid, by 15 ; strychnine, by 14; 

 sulphuric acid and arsenic have lost their popularity, the former 

 having been used only by six and the latter by five persons. 



Death in Blizzards due to Asphyxia. — Markham writes 

 to the Journal of the American Medical Association of Feb. 18, 

 1888, stating that there is an amount of evidence and a combina- 

 tion of circumstances sufficient to show that the greater number of 

 the several hundreds who lost their lives in the recent great bliz- 

 zard of the North-west perished from asphyxia, and not by freez- 

 ing. Many of the bodies, when found, were in the position of 

 grasping or clutching at their necks or throats. Indoor witnesses 



describe the atmosphere as having an appearance of density and 

 darkness, similar to that stated by divers as existing when sub- 

 merged with their armor in deep water. Many that escaped de- 

 scribe their peril as being from loss of breath or suffocation. 



Cro'ion Water. — At a recent meeting of the Medical .Society 

 of the County of New York, Dr. John C. Peters read a paper on 

 ' The Waler-Supply from the Croton Lake System.' in which he 

 stated that the sewage created by 25,000 people, the largest con- 

 densed-milk factory in the world, 10,000 cows, 1,200 horses, 1,500 

 hogs, and 40 factories, was all being run into that body of water from 

 which the city of New York draws its water-supply. While in former 

 years the Thames water used by London contained five times as much 

 bacteria as Croton water, recent investigations showed that in one 

 cubic centimetre New York water contained 526 bacteria, against 

 44 contained by London water. While, of course, the greater part 

 of these were the common, harmless bacteria, still there was a 

 large proportion capable of producing disease; and he expressed 

 the opinion that a great deal of the scarlet-fever, diphtheria, and 

 other infectious diseases which prevailed in New York, might be 

 traceable to germs derived from the water-supply. 



Hair-Washes. — We learn from \hc A7iicrican Analyst that 

 recent analyses have shown, that of the preparations for bleaching 

 the hair to " the delicate golden shade so much admired by the 

 court circles of Europe, and the best society of the United States." 

 to quote from a label on one of the bottles, all depend for their ac- 

 tion upon the decolorizing and corrosive influence of nascent oxy- 

 gen or nascent chlorine. The bases used in the various nostrums 

 for this purpose are peroxide of hydrogen, aqua regia, and bron- 

 zer's acid. Peroxide of hydrogen is the mildest and most innocu- 

 ous of the trio named. It is a colorless liquid which destroys the 

 natural color of the hair, and which, if used long enough, turns it 

 an unnatural grayish-white. It is rather expensive, and is there- 

 fore used much less than the two other acids. It produces sores 

 upon the scalp, and gives rise to skin-complaints that resemble tet- 

 ter, salt-rheum, and scald-head. The two acids are equally vile. 

 They attack and eat the hair and skin alikle. The former they 

 partly bleach, and partly burn to a handsome gold color ; the latter 

 they stain to about the same hue as does a light application of io- 

 dine. Besides the dermatologic troubles named, they cause mala- 

 dies hardly distinguishable from eczema and erythema. One curi- 

 ous disease that they cause is an inflammation of the cells of the 

 hair follicles. The cellular walls break down, and lymph, and of- 

 ten blood, is extravasated in appreciable quantities. All three bases 

 produce falling-out of the hair and premature baldness. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



The Social Ijifluence of Christianity. By David J. Hill. Bos- 

 ton, Silver, Burdett, & Co. 12°. $1.25. 



This volume consists of a series of lectures delivered at the 

 Newton Theological Institution, and designed partly to show what 

 Christianity has done for society in the past, but more particularly 

 to indicate its attitude toward the problems of the present. The 

 treatment of such themes in lectures is attended with serious draw- 

 backs, as it tempts the speaker to be what is called eloquent rather 

 than thoughtful or clear; and this tendency is plainly visible in 

 Dr. Hill's work. 



The second chapter, on what Christianity has done for society, 

 is a perfect dithyramb ; and though it may have been well liked 

 where it was originally delivered, yet when read in a quiet hour its 

 turgid style and exaggerated statements produce an effect quite 

 different from what the author intended. He seems to think that 

 the higher civilization, which is well known to be of Greek origin, 

 is really the product of Christianity. This part of his work, in- 

 deed, is vitiated throughout by the fallacy known to logicians as 

 post hoc, ergo propter hoc, a very serious fault in the treatment 

 of social questions. 



In considering the social and political problems of the present 

 day. Dr. Hill takes the same ground that other Christian teachers 

 do, and we cannot see that he advances any thing new. In regard 

 to the distribution of wealth, he admits that Christianity has no 

 means of solving the problem ; and the only suggestion he has to 



