FROM DAY TO DAY. 
Thk wise Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table, Dr. 0. W. Holmes, says : 
Beauty is a great thing; but beauty of gar¬ 
ment, house and furniture are tawdry ornaments 
compared with domestic love. All the elegance 
in the world will not make a home; and I would 
give more for a spoonful of real heart love than 
for whole shiploads of furniture and all the gor¬ 
geousness all the upholsterers in the world can 
gather. 
Fortunately for us, domestic love is the 
very cheapest adornment with which 
we can beautify our homes, only we are 
sometimes slow to recognize it. 
* 
A portable gas clothes-drier has 
been recently placed upon the market; 
this appliance entirely does away with 
the terrors of a wet wash day. It con¬ 
sists of a metal box or closet containing 
racks, which slide in and out; below are 
gas burners, which effect the drying 
almost as quickly as the laundress can 
wash the clothes. It is substantially 
made of metal throughout, so as to be 
thoroughly fireproof, while the parts are 
galvanized so that they will not rust. 
The gas equipment consists of atmos¬ 
pheric air burners, effecting perfect 
combustion. The heat is distributed 
equally throughout the drier, and a sys¬ 
tem of ventilation insures bleaching 
as well as would be done by sun¬ 
shine. The driers are built of various 
sizes, and can be made specially to suit 
a given space. One form of drier, which 
is very popular, has a steam coil in 
place of gas burners, for use where 
steam is available. A combination laun¬ 
dry stove and drier is made by the same 
firm, the stove not only heating the drier, 
but also being available for boiling 
clothes and heating sadirons. 
* 
There is a women’s club in this city 
bearing the title of the Rainy Day Club, 
which, at first, paid attention chiefly to 
the subject of rational dress for women. 
At a recent meeting, a lecture on the 
subject of ventilation was delivered by 
C. E. Wingate, a well-known sanitary 
engineer. Regarding modern houses, 
the speaker observed : 
Houses are built by mere men, and unfortu¬ 
nate women have to live in them, while the men go 
downtown to beaxitiful office buildings. We shall 
never have really good houses till we have women 
architects. A man digs a hole in the ground, 
puts a box of wood or brick over it and expects 
it to be dry. He puts all the cooking and heat¬ 
ing apparatus in the basement, stops up the fire¬ 
places, and his wife adds to the total depravity 
of the whole by filling the rooms up with draper¬ 
ies. No wonder we have a drug store on every 
corner and a doctor in every other house. 
These conditions are found not only 
in the homes of the poor or those of 
moderate means, Mr. Wingate says, but 
in the homes of the rich. Indeed, he 
thinks the rich suffer most, and he has 
learned to estimate the probable misery 
of a family by the number of servants 
kept. At Newport, he saw two $1,000 
bathrooms that could not be used with 
safety, owing to a defect in the plumb¬ 
ing, and these things are so common 
that he thinks there should be a Society 
for Improving the Condition of the Rich. 
* 
Among new ideas in underwear, is the 
substitution of studs for buttons in 
corset-covers, which entirely does away 
with the tearing off of buttons in the 
washing. It is little trouble to work 
the double set of tiny button-holes, and 
the little porcelain or bone studs may 
be cheaply bought. They should be 
flatter than ordinary collar-buttons. 
Lonsdale cambric, lawn or nainsook are 
suitable materials for these garments ; 
it is a mistake to use the heavier cottons, 
both for looks and for wear. The pret¬ 
tiest and newest models have the fronts 
fitted by shirring or tiny tucks instead 
of darts. Ready-made underwaists are 
rarely satisfactory, because the fit is 
necessarily defective, and this spoils the 
set of the gown over it. A great many 
women wear the fine lisle thread under¬ 
vests as corset-covers, because this 
secures a smooth fit, and they are easily 
washed ; but for appearance, the nain¬ 
sook waist is far superior. Fine Torchon 
or Valenciennes lace, or nainsook em¬ 
broidery, are the most suitable trim¬ 
mings. Fluted ruffles of fine lawn or 
cambric are being revived for the trim¬ 
ming of underwear, and are certainly 
preferable to coarse lace. These frills 
must be rolled and whipped, after the 
manner of our grandmothers, not 
gathered. 
A BROODER FOR BABIES, 
INCUBATION FOR HUMAN CHICKS. 
T HE R. N.-Y. has had much to say 
about incubator chicks and incuba¬ 
tor ducks, but so far, the subject of 
incubator babies has not been touched 
upon. We sometimes hear the remark 
that some sickly or troublesome baby 
would better be brought up in an incu¬ 
bator, but this assertion is made with¬ 
out any thought of the practical appli¬ 
cation of the idea. Just now, however, 
New Yorkers have an opportunity to 
view real incubator babies in the Lion 
Institute, a branch of the Maternite 
Lion of Paris, and strangely interesting 
are the frail little mites thus detained 
in the world they prematurely enter. 
In this country, we have no statistics 
regarding the number of children born 
prematurely, beyond those registered as 
stillborn. It is asserted, however, that 
but about four per cent of such children 
survive infancy. In France, such births 
are separately registered, and they com¬ 
prise from 15 to 30 per cent of the entire 
number. In addition to this, 50,000 
babies are annually born in France with¬ 
out sufficient strength or vitality to live 
beyond the early days of infancy. Such 
infants are predisposed to pneumonia ; 
they are unable to offer resistance to 
atmospheric changes, and their deficient 
vitality makes their survival uncertain 
in any case. 
From time immemorial—perhaps as 
far back as the period when the Egyp¬ 
tians hatched out their chicks in hatch¬ 
ing-ovens—some form of heated chamber 
has been devised by mothers and doc¬ 
tors for the preservation of such delicate 
infants. According to some historians, 
Julius Caesar was such an infant, and 
was kept alive in an oven. In 1857, 
Prof. Denuce, of Bordeaux, produced 
the first incubator, with satisfactory 
results ; in 1880, this was followed by 
Prof. Ternier’s appliance, in which the 
infant was placed in a box heated by 
blocks of granite. Later still, comes 
Mr. Lion’s invention which, since 1891, 
has been honored by high rewards in 
Europe, and which has been adopted by 
maternity hospitals in many of the 
great European cities. 
The exhibition hall in New York is 
a bright, sunny-looking, glass-domed 
apartment,having a fountain surrounded 
by graceful palms in the center. Around 
the sides of the room, are the incubators 
(poultrymen would call them brooders), 
metal boxes upon iron supports, the 
whole being of such material that it 
may be disinfected or cleaned thoroughly 
without deterioration. The fr*nt is 
fitted with glass doors, and at the left 
side, is a glass window. A large pipe 
passing to the open air is connected with 
each incubator, supplying ventilation at 
the bottom, the air passing out through 
a chimney at the top, fitted with a screw 
which indicates, by its rotation, the 
strength of the current of air. Entering 
the main supply pipe, the air is filtered 
through absorbent cotton. The incubator 
is heated by hot water at the bottom, 
the water circulating through a siphon 
which communicates with a reservoir 
at the side. The temperature is regu¬ 
lated automatically, the thermostat be¬ 
ing so delicately adjusted that the hold¬ 
ing of a lighted match within the incu¬ 
bator at once affects it. A metallic net¬ 
ting rests over the heating pipes, and 
upon this, a pillow is laid for the accom¬ 
modation of the tiny inmate. 
The baby lies upon a flat pillow, which 
is filled loosely with horsehair. The use 
of down or feathers is strongly objected 
to, for any infant. The head is uncov¬ 
ered, and the arms free, but the body 
and legs, from the waist down, are 
wrapped up in a style suggestive of an 
Indian papoose. Around the tiny wrists 
of the Institute babies were ribbons, 
pink for the boys, blue for the girls. 
The first thought of any one entering 
the hall is that these little white bundles 
are waxen dummies, until one waves its 
ludicrously little arms, or indulges in 
some odd grimace. The strong light to 
which the infants are exposed arouses 
some curiosity, but it was explained that 
these delicate babies are predisposed to 
ophthalmia, and the light is a valuable 
aid in strengthening the optic nerve. 
Over each incubator is a chart, such as 
one sees over a hospital bed, giving 
details and progress. 
“ Surely you cannot bathe these deli¬ 
cate mites,” was the remark made to the 
manager. 
“ Indeed, we do ; they are bathed and 
weighed every morning. They are 
covered to avoid draughts, and taken to 
the glass-inclosed nursery, where the 
temperature is perfectly even. Here 
they are undressed and bathed in borated 
water—water containing boracic acid— 
several degrees warmer than the tem¬ 
perature of the incubators. It must be 
remembered that these babies breathe, 
to a certain extent, through their skins, 
and stoppage of the pores is a serious 
danger. This point is overlooked by 
mothers who rub delicate infants all 
over with oil or grease, often with seri¬ 
ous results.” 
“What is the temperature at which 
the incubators are kept ? ” 
“ From 89 to 95 degrees, according to 
the strength or size of the child. There 
is no variation of temperature after the 
incubator receives its occupant. The 
infants are fed every two hours.” 
‘ * What food is given ? ” was next asked. 
“ Nothing but human milk. If this 
were unobtainable, the next best sub¬ 
stitute would be asses’ milk, sterilized 
and peptonized. We never use any of 
the prepared infants’ foods, and think 
that any substitute for the baby’s natural 
food should only be resorted to where 
it is an absolute impossibility for it to 
be otherwise nourished. Here is an in¬ 
fant,” pointing to a tiny, dark-haired 
mite in one of the incubators, “ which 
airs 
Vegetable Sicilian 
FjairRenewer 
It is a renewer, because 
it makes new again. 
Old hair is made new? 
the gray changed to the 
color of youth. 
cost its mother her life. The father 
kept the baby alive on barley-water and 
whisky for 10 days before it was brought 
to us. It is now gaining daily.” 
“ Are the infants brought here im¬ 
mediately after birth ?” 
“ They should be ; here is one received 
within half an hour of its birth, the 
others varied from a few days to two 
weeks. It must be remembered that 
none of these is a normally-born infant; 
hence the necessity for this unchanging 
temperature, in which they may con¬ 
tinue growth. Under ordinary con¬ 
ditions, about 96 per cent of the infants 
born prematurely die in early babyhood, 
while, with our system, we can save 88 
per cent of them. It is hardly necessary 
to point out the saving in human life 
thus effected.” 
This system is receiving high praise 
from medical authorities—one of the 
tiniest mites at the Institute was sent 
by its father, a physician—and we may 
hope to see it adopted by our maternity 
hospitals. The treatment given is a 
valuable object lesson to the mothers of 
delicatejinfants. 
f 
Kjwonn \ 
•TO* tun 
I MfcAtTHTQN K 
Mrs. B., of Evanston, 
Illinois, writes : “ Thank 
you for check. This work 
has made our Church 
Building Fund steadily 
increase.” 
Mrs. M., of Chicago, 
says: “Accept thanks for 
check for $250—for prize 
offer.” 
Our agents are making more 
money than ever. We pay a 
good commission for every sub¬ 
scriber secured, and then give 
extra prizes (as high as a thou¬ 
sand dollars for the largest club). 
Send for terms. 
The Curtis Publishing Company 
Philadelphia 
The Ladies' Home Journal 
MASON & HAMLIN 
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Catalogues free. Address: 
MASON & HAMLIN CO., 
3 and 5 West 18 th St., New York. 
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