THE BUBAL HEW-Y0RKER. 
proper and important that the manufacture 
of imitation butter should be placed under 
Government supervision, along with other ob¬ 
jectionable articles of production, as tobacco 
and whisky. Honesty and the public welfare 
demand it. The law ought to go further and 
compel the manufacturer to label every pack¬ 
age with the names und proportions of every 
ingredlent used in the manufacture of imita¬ 
tion butter. As it is, the public will otdy be 
informed that the package contains a bogus 
article. It must shun it altogether or take it 
on trust as to the kind and quality of ingredi¬ 
ents it contains. The same may lie said of 
some other articles used in the household as 
foods. There is no guarantee os to the clean¬ 
liness or purity of lard, and there can ho little 
doubt that some of the villa inous fats that are 
suspected of entering into the composition of 
bogus blitter find their way into our kitchens 
and are used for shortening und other cook¬ 
ing purposes. Some men will resort to any 
practice to obtain money, and it is high time 
that we had a very thorough inspection of all 
manufactured food products. Our Natioual 
statute for the regulation of the manufacture 
and sale of imitation butter is good as far as 
it goes, but it will need some amendment and 
“eternal vigilance” In its enforcement. 
ANALYSES OF TEST-BUTTERS AT THE NEW 
YORK DAIRY SHOW. 
Mr. S. M. Babcock. Chemist of the New 
York Agricultural Experiment Station at 
Geneva, writes us; “J inclose analyses of the 
test-butters made at the New York Show. 
They are arranged according to the quan¬ 
tity of butter made. Fortunately the 
total fat in the butters is in practi¬ 
cally the same order: this, however, 
would not have been the case had the yield of 
butter from the different cows been nearly the 
same. I think the only fair way to judge 
such tests is by the aiuouut of fat which the 
butter contains. 
Name of Cow. 
Yield 
Of 
Butter 
Lb. Oz. 
Fat 
per 
cent. 1 
Wa- ' 
ter, 1 
per | 
1 cent. 1 
Curd 
by 
dlf. 
per 
cent. 
Total 
Fat 
In 
Butter 
oz 
Clothilde. 
2 7W 
77.."il 
21.OH 
1.3* 
80 fi.3 
Clothilde llh_ 
3 'J 
si.fi! 
17.82 
.07 
26.29 
Gold Lace. .. .. 
Jc-rfie of Lester.. 
1 
81.52 
11.55 
.93 
25.7M 
Manor. 
1 1154 
15.21 
.72 
25 fit 
Mechtehllde.: 
l li 
7*»- 75 
22 III 
1.0ft 
28.0? 
Ladv Ka.v. 
i joq; 
i aS 
Kl.ilS 
17.01 
1.01 
21.52 
Hilda A sd ...J 
79. 
20.80 
,K7 
20.17 
Islam! Chrl-sslt*.. 
i s-q 
HS.IB 
15 4:1 
.92 
2 u.ro 
Movilee.| 
i 294 
82.98 
1 
IS.lfi 
.57 
15.56 
A SMALL QUESTION OF PRIORITY. 
I think that the quite unanticipated repub- 
licatiou of the article on Dairying Fallacies, 
in the Rural of May 23, has shown that my 
attention was given to the butter globule en¬ 
velop question a good while ago, and that 
nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since 
I settled the matter in my own mind. It was 
quite natural that I should have investigated 
the subject, as from 18t>! to 18*Vi I was con¬ 
nected with the Boston Dispensary as one of 
its physicians, and was making a specialty of 
the diseases of children. But l want particu¬ 
larly to note another point which that article 
makes clear, namely, that I was aware of a 
lack of easily understood and demonstrated 
evidence of the absence of any covering upon 
the butter globule, 1 said, in the last para¬ 
graph of the article, that I looked “to see the 
point demonstrated by some ingenious experi¬ 
ment, so that there can be no longer any dis¬ 
pute.” 1 do not know the date of Mr. Stew¬ 
art’s mechanical demonstration by his emul¬ 
sion apparatus. Perhaps it had already beeu 
made wbou that article was written, nine 
years ago. At any rate, I am glad that he 
made it, and more than glad to thank him for 
having so ably supplied what 1 theu saw to be 
lacking in the practical solution of the prob¬ 
lem, from the dairying point of view. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M D. 
MALARIA. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
H hy the charlatan prospers: malaria East 
and West; has never wholly disappeared 
from (he East: "fevor-'n-ayc r" caused by 
exposure of the beds of artificial ponds; 
malaria os a comprehensive term; nature 
of malaria; “Jesuit Hark" and*arsentc 
as anti-periodics; origin of zymotic diseas¬ 
es; worst malarial locations; resistant 
power of' individuals; no known specific 
remedy. 
It is not often that I writ© upon medical or 
hygienic subjects for the popular press. My 
observation has led me to believe that with 
the general public, all men who, rightfully or 
wrongfully, call themselves doctors of medi¬ 
cine, stand on an equal footing, so that the ig¬ 
norant man who ku'*ws the popular fallacies 
and notions, and cunningly panders to them, 
meets with most confidence. It has been said 
that the exploded errors of science in one gen¬ 
eration constitute the popular science of the 
next—the ideabeiug that the public are about 
one generation behind the profession. This is 
perhaps not to be wondered at, but it has the 
evil effect of putting the best informed men r 
the farthest from popular credence It is 
rather curious, though, that the mistakes of 
the men of science are what take possession of 
the public mind, rather than their solid ac¬ 
quisitions of fact. But perhaps this is ex¬ 
plained by the philosophic remark of an emi¬ 
nent writer that “the obvious is rarely the 
true.” Things that “look reasonable on the 
face of them,” generally apjiear much less so 
when thoroughly studied. 
It is only at the request of the editor that I 
undertake this article upon a subject with 
which the public mind has lieen very much 
occupied for the past 20 years, especially in 
the Eastern .States. Malaria in the West 
meant, to the last generation, a distinct class 
of diseases, due to well-recognized causes, and 
subject to positive methods of treatment, vary¬ 
ing but little over a wide range of country. 
The same diseases were known in the early 
settlement of the East, but never attained 
such general intensity as they afterwards 
reached in the rich valleys and prairies of the 
now Middle West—the Mississippi Valley. In 
the course of time these diseases seemed al¬ 
most to disappear in the older settled parts, so 
that many physicians failed to recognize the 
milder types, and associated them with other 
orders of disease. Yet they never entirely 
disappeared, and physicians trained in the 
West, who afterwards came to practice in the 
East, did not fail to recognize and identify 
the marks of malaria in cases where it was 
wholly overlooked hy local practitioners. The 
writer came from Kentucky to Boston in 
1880, and going into practice at the “South 
End,” found many of his cases complicated 
with malarial symptoms, and amenable only 
to anti-malarial treatment. 
Shortly after this time, in consequence of 
the large demand produced by the Civil War, 
there was a great increase of manufacturing 
industry in the East, and nearly every avail¬ 
able stream of water was dammed, wherever 
a “privelegc” existed. Besides this, in order 
to preserve a uniform ilow of water, a large 
number of reservoirs were constructed upon 
the tributaries of these streams. During the 
summer droughts, and into the early fall,these 
reservoirs were drawn upon, and their bot¬ 
toms of over-flowed land, covered with decay¬ 
ing vegetable matter, exposed to the sun and 
air. Here was a recurrence of substantially 
like conditions with those of early times, 
when the country was first opened, and the 
same consequences naturally followed. The 
“fever-'n’-ager” of olden times returned, 
manifesting some new types because it was 
encountered by a city and village in place of 
a rural population. Northern physicians who 
had served in the South and newer West, 
during the war, were able quickly to identify 
the malarial type, and to meet it with appro¬ 
priate remedies. “Malaria” became u house¬ 
hold word; and its distressing symptoms, in 
their simple form sometimes, but more often 
complicated with other types of illuess, aris¬ 
ing from unsanitary habits anioug the people, 
became painfully familiar in a vast number 
of families living in exposed localities, which, 
aside from the river valleys, were found 
mostly along tidal estuaries, where, twice 
in each tweuty-four hours, the slimy bor¬ 
ders of the water, often tainted and poi¬ 
soned hy the sewage*uud filth of adjoining 
cities and villages, were exposed to the air, 
and, by day, to the sun. 
But aside from all genuine malarial disease, 
the term became a handy make shift for the 
careless or incompetent practitioner, and 
“malaria,” besides being used to designate 
diseases actually of that type, was applied to 
weakness, lassitude, wandering jmius and gen¬ 
eral malaise, far and wide, so that in time 
about everything that could not be clearly 
identified as due to other causes wont by that 
convenient appellation. And now, the read¬ 
er may ask, what is malaria/ Conceding that 
it is due to the concurrent action of moisture 
and heat upon decaying organic matter—par¬ 
ticularly vogotablo matter—is the cause a 
particular gas, vapor,or what is it? If the ex¬ 
act cause wore knowu perhaps a remedy 
might lie more readily found. But, fortu¬ 
nately for mankind, empiric remedies—the 
remedies of practical experience—get in ahead 
of scientific discovery based on causation, and 
science has been called upon to expluin the ac¬ 
tion of these empiric remedies rather than to 
furnish better ones. Two drugsstaud pre-em¬ 
inent as medicaments udequate to arrest ma¬ 
larial action—the vegetable substance known 
first as “Jesuit's Bark,” because brought by 
priests of that order from South America, 
and the poisonous miueral, arseuic. Pre¬ 
parations of these have been recoguized as the 
great “anti-periodics”—so called because the 
symptoms of the malarial types of disease are 
commonly marked by periodic subsidences 
ami aggravations. 
Whatever it was that so poisoned the blood 
and tissues of those affected by malaria (which 
is simply an Italian word meaning “bad air,”) 
these remedies seemed capable of meeting and 
neutralizing or destroying it when properly 
administered as medicines. Most of the quack- 
reinedies were made with arsenic, because it 
was cheap. The regular physicians preferred 
the use of Pornvian Bark, or of the alkaloids, 
extracted from it, of which quinine was the 
chief. But these were antidotes, and not pre¬ 
ventives, and though they arrested and an¬ 
tagonised the action of the poison, they neither 
prevented recurrence nor repaired the dam¬ 
ages it had inflicted upon the bodies of its vic¬ 
tims. The generally accepted philosophy of 
causation in this class of diseases, as of numer¬ 
ous others, is that a specific organic germ is 
produced from the soil, under suitable condi¬ 
tions of warmth* moisture and vegetable 
decay, which germ is taken into the bodies of 
its victims, either in the air, the water or the 
food, or all together, and multiplying within 
them, disturbs and impairs the healthy func¬ 
tions of the organs involved, and causes the 
symptoms which constitute the disease, as 
popularly recognized. 
A similar origin is now generally ascribed 
to a large class of diseases called “zymotic,” 
or ferment diseases, the theory being that they 
are due to parasitic ferments, analogous to 
the yeast organism. This class is divided into 
sub-classes, one of which, the miasmatic, in¬ 
cludes our “malaria” in its many forms. 
Everyone who lives in a malarial neighbor¬ 
hood is exposed to the causes of the disease, 
yet only a part contract it. This would seem 
to indicate that, there may be possible ways of 
avoiding it, and for many people this is true. 
Men and women of well tempered and sound 
constitutions, moderate .in the gratification of 
all natural desires—people of souud, rather 
than of apparently exuberant health—will of¬ 
ten live many years in malarial neighborhoods 
without marked impairment of constitution, 
and this even wheu no particular care is tak¬ 
en to avoid exposure. But iu all malarious re¬ 
gions it soon becomes a recognized fact that 
exposure to the night air, and even sleeping in 
lirst-iloor rooms with open windows, is danger¬ 
ous. It has been noticed that a strong growth 
of green vegetation on the side of the house 
toward the prevailing winds mitigates malar¬ 
ial action. Out of this observation has grown 
the praise of the sunflower as an antf-malanal 
plant. Strong-growing vegetation acts also, 
in low-lying spots occupied for residences, in¬ 
asmuch as it dries the soil by its root action 
and the corresponding co-operative power of 
its foliage, which renders the soil too dry for 
the growth of malarial germs. 
Malarial territory can often he made entire¬ 
ly healthy through perfect drainage of the 
land hy tiling and ditching: although the op¬ 
eration of doing this work will generally in¬ 
crease the malaria during that season. The 
most pernicious malarial localities are unques 
tionably those which are tidal. The mixture 
of salt with fresh water and the regularly re¬ 
current flux and reflux of such water over 
mud charged abundantly with gist—that sort 
of decaying material natural to such locali¬ 
ties—develops the most malignant forms of ma¬ 
larial disease, the congestive,intermittent an( j 
remittent fevers of low-lying coasts, which 
are terribly fatal, especially to strangers. 
Next in virulence, other tliiugs being equal, 
are the drawn-down mill ponds and reservoirs, 
their bottoms uncovered during the course of 
the day, and left to slowly fill up during the 
night—a sort, of artificial tidal actiou, closely 
simulating that upon estuary flats. 
Observation teaches that mankind can, by 
degrees acquire* resistant power against mala¬ 
rial poison, and by inheritance a race of men 
maybe locally developed which is able par¬ 
tially or wholly to react against and overcome 
the unsanitary element, and even uppareutly 
thrive upon it. Yet this acquired power of 
resistance seems to be accompanied by a more 
or less mental and moral degeneration, so 
that estuary and river-bottom tribes iu tropi¬ 
cal climates are always of au iuferior type. 
But for the highly developed white races, and 
especially for the frailer individuals among 
them, the conflict with malaria is a destruc¬ 
tive one. ITobably in the malarial regious of 
the West the present generation has become 
exempt, so far as it may be exempt, from the 
poison, partially by acquired and inherited 
resistant power, but much more by the subju- 
gatiou of the malarial element, due to a drier 
soil, secured by tho removal of forests and 
the drainage and tillage of the farm lands. 
The resisting power of individuals of naturally 
feeble or impaired health against malaria is 
usually very slight, though some, delicate in 
appearance but of sound organization, endure 
it better than full-blooded, robust-appearing 
individuals of much greater apparent vigor. 
There is no known preventive, no permanent 
and positive curative agency by which mala¬ 
rial disease can be mastered. The only rem¬ 
edy for the weak is to flee from it, and that 
before it has sapped the springs of life too 
deeply. Once saturated with the poison, even 
the most sanative climate fails to insure re¬ 
storatives, or to prevent an early death. 
Burnt Copies. 
FARM BOARDING HOUSES. 
As profits on the Eastern farms decrease, 
it is natural that farmers should look about 
for some new source of revenue. Living ex¬ 
penses, taxes and repairs are constant. The 
money must come from somewhere. The 
plan of keeping a few summer boarders 
is a favorite one with many farmers. It may 
be that some readers of the Rural will go 
into the business this year for the first time. 
I have had some 12 years’ experience in this 
work and know there is much to be learned in 
it. It is a business that is quite expensive at 
starting, even in a small way. If not success¬ 
ful, it will often bury the farmer in the pit he 
is trying to escape from. It is a business that 
may well be discussed—it is a legitimate 
branch of farming with us. Talking it over 
will help both the farmer and the people who 
visit the farm in search of health aud rest. 
The farmer must remember that people com¬ 
ing from the city leave many comforts that 
cannot be had in the country. In exchange for 
these they expect to have things which they 
cannot procure in the city. They want pure 
air and water uncontaminated with foul smell 
or taste. They expect to be made comfort¬ 
able and to have their food (if plain) well 
cooked; also good beds and good-sized, com¬ 
fortable rooms. 
Many seem to think city people expect to 
rough it, This may answer ou a trip of a day 
or two, but for a three months’ stay we must 
make them comfortable if we expect them to 
spend another summer at the farm. 
Will it not lie well for us to look around 
the house and farm a little before the season 
commences* Is the well above the suspicion 
of getting drainage from barn or house sur¬ 
roundings? Do you get the water from a 
spring* If so, are tne cattle entirely away 
from it in winter as well as summer? Avoid 
plowing near it so that there may be no 
wash from the plowed ground. 
How about the drainage? Do we throw the 
slops out the back door ? We must stop that 
aud build a drain which will carry these 
things well away from the house. And the 
water-closets—are they convenient to reach 
in rainy weather, and are they kept in a 
wholesome condition? Remember this is very 
important, and that earth is a cheap and thor¬ 
ough deodorizer and disinfectant if used every 
day. . 
Now let us look around inside the house. 
Have you a clothes-closet in each room? If 
not, put in a wardrobe so that boarders may 
have a place in which to hang up their clothes 
out of the way of the dust, and a chance to 
make the room look neat aud presentable. We 
must remember their room is the only place 
they can call home while in the country. It is 
not necessary that the furniture should be ex¬ 
pensive; but put. a good, comfortable mattress 
on the bed,and let everything, not only in the 
sleeping rooms, but the whole house, lie kept 
scrupulously clean and neat. Let the table be 
liberally supplied with fresh vegetables well- 
cooked. See that your bread is not sour or 
heavy, aud if you do not have many varie¬ 
ties, let those you do have be well cooked. 
Give boarders plenty of milk if they wish it. 
Don't charge extra if they want milk a dozen 
times a day. This is one of the comforts 
many appreciate ou the farm. Charge enough 
for board so you can give your guests all they 
can eat and drink, and theu make them feel 
they are welcome to uuything the farm af¬ 
fords, and that they are to feel at home. Do 
not advertise free rides and expect to carry 
your guests all over the country free. It is a 
loss to the farmer, and if the guest is a person 
of any independence, after you have taken 
your team from the field at his request and re¬ 
fused any compensation, he will uot feel like 
asking you a second time, no matter how 
much he would like to ride. Thus he deprives 
himself of a pleasure that would have been a 
profit to you. It is these little things that 
often fill your house the second season*if re¬ 
garded, or leave it empty if disregarded. We 
must remember that people cannot be expect¬ 
ed to come a second season where they were 
not comfortable or where they considered their 
health in danger; neither will they send their 
friends, but will warn them not to visit your 
farm. emmons pond, 
Greeue Co., N. Y. 
