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SCIENCE. 



|Vol. VII., No. 162 



up, they had better know no philosophy at all ; 

 and those instructors who use their department 

 to establish certainties in those matters where the 

 most honest and wise men differ, are they who 

 have brought it into its present disgrace. The 

 same problem is sure, sooner or later, to arise in 

 this country. Trustees and other college authori- 

 ties are already beginning to ask whether, in the 

 competition of many fresher and more vital in- 

 terests, our old philosophical chairs cannot be at 

 least reconstructed, and be made more practical 

 in an ethical way. It is at least certain that 

 those who intend to represent this department in 

 our colleges in the future, must place themselves 

 on far more scientific and ethico-practical foun- 

 dation in the preliminary training they give them- 

 selves than ever before, whatever philosophic 

 convictions they may cherish. One of the saddest 

 illustrations of educational over -supply in our 

 land at present, is the number of bright and able 

 young men, well trained at home and abroad in 

 the philosophical discipline from the slowly dis- 

 solving stand-point of the theory of knowledge, 

 who can find no employment, on the one hand, 

 and, on the other, the number of academic insti- 

 tutions now vainly seeking instructors in this 

 department, embued with a more practical and 

 a more scientific spirit and method. 



Late news from Spain conveys definite intelli- 

 gence of the recurrence of cholera, a number of 

 fatal cases having been reported from Tarifa, in 

 the southernmost part of the peninsula. We hear 

 but little at present of the probability of the ap- 

 pearance of this dread epidemic in the United 

 States, yet those who are acquainted with the 

 histories of previous invasions need not be re- 

 minded that our danger is by no means past. Its 

 duration in Europe is not limited to two or three 

 years. The epidemic of 1829 was not extinguished 

 till 1836, and the one of 1847 extended into the 

 winter of 1855-56, while that of 1865 did not 

 disappear till 1873. Already the disease has 

 effected a landing in the western hemisphere, at 

 Cayenne : and our immunity, so far, is doubtless 

 due to the fact that our largest immigration has 

 not been derived from the parts of Europe where 

 the disease has been prevalent. In a recent report 

 of an inspection of the Atlantic and Gulf quar- 

 antines, made under the direction of the Illi- 

 nois state board of health, Dr. J. H. Ranch has 

 given it as his conviction that the epidemic may 



be effectually excluded from the United States by 

 an intelligent use of the agencies still at our com- 

 mand. Cholera has never yet been kept out of 

 this country after becoming epidemic in Europe, 

 but the possibility of excluding it is a subject 

 that should properly engage the attention of 

 national authority. The control of quarantine 

 has hitherto remained entirely under state juris- 

 diction ; but in the face of such an epidemic, 

 threatening the whole nation, the matter of rigid 

 quarantine is not one of local importance, and 

 should not be relegated to local authorities. 



The spread of the disease in Spain, dependent, 

 as it is now being clearly seen, largely upon a 

 lack of proper sanitary measures, furnishes a 

 lesson that should not be lost. Of all the large 

 towns in Spain, none suffered so severely as 

 Granada. The river Genii, which passes through 

 this city, has, a few miles above, near its con- 

 fluence with the Aguas Blancas, a number of 

 large paper-mills situated upon its banks, through 

 which a part or all of its waters pass. A large 

 part of Granada is dependent upon this river for 

 its supply of water, notwithstanding the fact, 

 that, when it reaches the city, it is manifestly 

 impure from the contamination by the mills. The 

 filthy rags used in the manufacture of paper at 

 these mills were imported from the province of 

 Valencia, where cholera had been prevalent for 

 some time ; and the first cases at Granada oc- 

 curred in the districts supplied by the Genii. 

 Possibly there is no connection between these two 

 facts, yet it is hard to believe that they do not 

 stand in some relation to each other, and further 

 evidence seems almost conclusive. After Granada 

 had itself become a source of infection, the sewer- 

 age discharged into the river carried the disease 

 through the province of Granada, and even into 

 the province of Cordova. Village after village 

 along the banks became successively invaded by 

 the dread disease, with the single exception of 

 the town of Loja, with its twelve thousand in- 

 habitants, where alone the people derived their 

 drinking-water supply from different sources. 

 The fatal effects resulting from river-pollution 

 are apparent, not only from this, but other 

 illustrations throughout Spain, and the warning 

 conveyed should not go unheeded. 



That dreaded scourge of European vineyards, 

 the Phylloxera, for which, as well as for the al- 



